w» 
 
 mm**
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SCRIPTURE AND TRUTH 
 
 DISSERTATIONS BY THE LATE 
 
 BENJAMIN JOWETT 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION BY 
 LEWIS CAMPBELL 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 1907
 
 OXFORD : HORACE HART 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
 
 I3S 
 51! 
 
 J^5 
 
 $ 
 
 ' Jowett has been of use to me, because he believes 
 in the great essentials — the life of the dead and the 
 deity of Christ. What he says is very comforting, 
 because he knows on what foundations our faith rests. 
 Others have been most kind and sympathizing ; but 
 cut-and-dry sentiments, in which everything is taken 
 for granted, do me no good at all. 1 — Alexander 
 Ewixg, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles : 1856. 
 
 Qi^CQ r ^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION v 
 
 ESSAY ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIP- 
 TURE 1 
 
 „ ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS OF THE NEW 
 
 TESTAMENT 115 
 
 „ ON THE OLD TESTAMENT (Romans IV) . 132 
 
 „ ON CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY (Romans XI) 137 
 
 ,. ON THE PROBABILITY THAT MANY OF 
 
 ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES HAVE BEEN LOST 159 
 
 FROM THE ESSAY ON THE LAW AS THE 
 
 STRENGTH OF SIN 16? 
 
 ESSAY ON PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL . 181 
 
 SERMON ON RICHARD BAXTER . . . .226
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Dissertations which are here reprinted turn 
 principally on the Author's method of interpreting 
 Scripture. They indicate the point of view from 
 which he looked upon the sacred writings, both in 
 themselves, and in their possible applications to 
 human life in its religious aspect. With the ex- 
 ception of the first Essay, which is of general signi- 
 ficance, they formed part of his edition of St. Paul's 
 Epistles to the Thessalonians, Galatians and Romans 
 (1855-1859). The Essay on Interpretation, though 
 it appeared afterwards (I860) as a contribution to 
 the volume known as Essays and Reviews, consists 
 of a series of observations which had occurred to the 
 writer in the course of the same long-continued 
 labour. This Essay contains the noble sentences — 
 to print them twice within the limits of the same 
 volume can hardly be superfluous : — 
 
 ' When interpreted like any other book, by the 
 same rules of evidence and the same canons of criti- 
 cism, the Bible will still remain unlike any other 
 book ; its beauty will be freshly seen, as of a picture 
 which is restored after many ages to its original 
 state ; it will create a new interest and make for 
 itself a new kind of authority by the life which is in 
 it. . . . No one can form anv notion from what we see
 
 vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 around us, of the power which Christianity might 
 have if it were at one with the conscience of man, 
 and not at variance with his intellectual convictions. 
 There, a world weary of the heat and dust of con- 
 troversy — of speculations about God and man — 
 weary too of the rapidity of its own motion, would 
 return home and find rest.' 1 
 
 Though separated from their original context, and 
 republished after so long an interval, it is believed 
 that these writings will be found to have a lasting 
 value. Much has since been thought and written in 
 theology, and discoveries have been made, through 
 which Biblical Criticism has been placed on more 
 secure foundations. Perhaps, also, the errors of 
 Bibliolatry, against which some of these Essays 
 were directed, are less current, in the present day, 
 than sacerdotal tendencies which equally make for 
 obscurantism. But the spirit of Jowetfs work, in 
 which the purest love of truth was transfused with 
 deep religious feeling, may still give encouragement 
 to inquirers and comfort to doubtful minds. Learned 
 treatises abound among us and devotional manuals 
 and incitements are not infrequent. But the com- 
 bination of learning with wisdom and of both with 
 piety, of fearlessness with sobriety, of enthusiasm 
 with clear judgement, of considerateness with open- 
 ness of mind, has not been common in any age, and 
 is rare in our own. Not the matter conveyed so 
 much as the personality behind it, and 'the style 
 
 1 Vide infra, pp. 50, 51.
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 which is the man ', give permanence to compositions, 
 which may in some ways come short of our present 
 horizon of knowledge, or be not directly applicable 
 to the mental requirements of our time. 
 
 The late Lord Bowen, between whom and Jowett 
 there was a life-long attachment, once said of him, 
 ' The Master taught us not what to think, but how 
 to think.'' The former method has an immediate 
 fascination for many minds, and has often led to the 
 formation of a school. The results of the latter 
 mode of instruction are less obvious, but they are 
 more far-reaching and permanent, supplying stimulus 
 and guidance for all subsequent activities, theoretical 
 and practical. 
 
 In an appreciative notice of the former volume, 1 
 one critic has remarked on the 'serenity 1 which is 
 characteristic of Jowett as a writer on theology ; and 
 has quoted in illustration the concluding paragraph 
 of the Essay on the Atonement. The justice of this 
 remark would be still more evident, if the atmosphere 
 of theological agitation and excitement, in the midst 
 of which Jowett thought and wrote, could be realized 
 by the present generation. The passage in question 
 appeared for the first time in the second edition of 
 the work on the Epistles, published in 1859. And 
 it was the only answer given to numberless attacks. 
 Moreover, as readers of the Life of Benjamin Joicett 
 are aware, it was written under the stress not only of 
 
 1 Theological Essays. By the late Benjamin Jowett. Oxford, 
 1906.
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 controversy and denunciation, but of ignoble treat- 
 ment which impartial bystanders regarded as a species 
 of persecution. That circumstance greatly enhances 
 the impressiveness of a beautiful page : — 
 
 ' In the heat of the struggle, let us at least pause to 
 imagine polemical disputes as they will appear a year, 
 two years, three years hence ; it may be, dead and 
 gone,— certainly more truly seen than in the hour of 
 controversy. For the truths about which we are 
 disputing cannot partake of the passing stir ; they do 
 not change even with the greater revolutions of 
 human things. They are in eternity ; and the image 
 of them on earth is not the movement on the surface 
 of the waters, but the depths of the silent sea. 
 Lastly, as a measure of the value of such disputes, 
 which above all other interests seem to have for a 
 time the power of absorbing men's minds and rousing 
 their passions, we only carry our thoughts onwards 
 to the invisible world, and there behold, as in a glass, 
 the great theological teachers of past ages, who have 
 anathematized each other in their lives, resting to- 
 gether in the communion of the same Lord.' 
 
 The Sermon on Richard Baxter, which is appended 
 to this volume, has already appeared amongst the 
 author's Biographical Sermons, 1 and thanks are due 
 to the authorities of Balliol College for their per- 
 mission to reprint it here. It was one of the last of 
 those which Jowett preached in Westminster Abbey, 
 and I believe it to have been actually the last which 
 
 1 Sermons, Biographical and Miscellaneous. By the late 
 Benjamin Jowett. Edited bv the Very Rev. the Hon. W. H. 
 Fremantle. Murray, 1899 : pp. 65-85.
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 he specially designed for delivery there. For of the 
 other two sermons which he preached there after 1890, 
 that on John Wesley was one of a series which he 
 prepared for Balliol College Chapel, and the discourse 
 on Bunyan and Spinoza was, at least in substance, the 
 same which he had delivered in Grey friars Church, 
 Edinburgh, at a time when it was found possible for 
 a clergyman of the Church of England occasionally 
 to occupy a Presbyterian pulpit in Scotland. 
 
 In the Congregation which from 1866 to 1893 
 assembled in the Abbey to hear Professor Jowett 
 each July, there was always more than a sprinkling of 
 personal friends,— former pupils with their wives and 
 families, — who heard him gladly. To them it was at 
 once pathetic and inspiriting to listen to that silvery 
 familiar voice in the evening of life expatiating 
 cheerfully on the solemn experiences of Old Age. 
 That impression was not soon to fade. But the 
 preacher's purpose had a larger scope. It is observ- 
 able that in the three sermons just mentioned the 
 Englishmen whom he chose to celebrate had all in 
 their lifetime been estranged from the Communion 
 of the Church of England. ' They followed not with 
 us. 1 And he desired to enforce the divine precept, 
 ' Forbid them not."' 
 
 For in his latest years he increasingly lamented the 
 'Schism 1 which so long had separated the loyal 
 Churchman from the pious Dissenter, and he strove 
 in various ways to soften the asperity of the mis- 
 understanding which held them apart.
 
 x INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the Autumn of the same year (1891) in which the 
 ' Baxter ' Sermon was preached at Westminster, — 
 during a distressing illness which he himself expected 
 to have a fatal result, — he wrote or dictated as 
 follows to his former pupil, the Rev. J. C. Edwards, 
 who had been appointed to succeed his father as 
 Principal of the Nonconformist Theological College 
 at Bala in Wales : — 
 
 ' I dare say that you remember the often quoted 
 saying of Lessing, that " the Christian religion had 
 been tried for eighteen centuries, and that the religion 
 of Christ remained to be tried". It seems rather 
 boastful and extravagant, but it expresses the spirit in 
 which any new movement for the improvement of theo- 
 logy must be carried on. It means that Christians 
 should no longer be divided into Churchmen and 
 Nonconformists, or even into Christians and non- 
 Christians, but that the best men everywhere should 
 know themselves to be partakers of the Spirit of God, 
 as He imparts Himself to them in various degrees. 
 It means that the old foolish quarrels of science with 
 religion, or of criticism with religion, should for ever 
 cease, and that we should recognize all truth, based 
 on fact, to be acceptable to the God of truth. It 
 means that goodness and knowledge should be in- 
 separably united in every Christian word or work, 
 that the school should not be divorced from the 
 Church, or the sermon from the lesson, or preaching 
 from visiting, or secular duties from religious ones, 
 except so far as convenience may require. It means 
 that we should regard all persons as Christians, even 
 if they come before us with other names, if they are 
 doing the works of Christ.
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 'These are the principles by which the founders 
 or restorers of a theological College may hope to be 
 guided. They have not been often acted upon in 
 the history of the Christian Church. But the best 
 men and the best part of men have borne witness to 
 them in the silence of their hearts. 1 1 
 
 And in the summer of the following year (1892), 
 little more than a twelvemonth before his death, he 
 assisted at the formal inauguration of Mansfield 
 College, which had recently been opened in Oxford 
 under Principal Fairbairn, for the training of Non- 
 conformist Protestant Ministers. His speech on that 
 occasion, which has been recorded, bears evidence of 
 the same deeply seated desire. He said :— 
 
 ' This is a great festival of union and reconciliation. 
 I might go back into the past and speak of the time 
 when, 230 years ago, a few words introduced into a 
 formula divided the whole people of England against 
 itself. Every sensible man knows that there were 
 things done in the olden time that no good and wise 
 man will now defend ; and every sensible man knows, 
 too, that it is better to forget them, and not to think 
 too much of what happened to one's ancestors 230 
 years ago. 
 
 'Now let me draw your attention to points of 
 agreement amongst us, not points of difference. . . . 
 Do we not use the same version of the Scriptures ? 
 Are not many of the hymns, in which we worship 
 God, of Nonconformist origin ? Is there any one who 
 is unwilling to join with others in any philanthropic- 
 work ? However different may have been our educa- 
 
 1 Life of Benjamin Jowett. Vol. ii, pp. 3(r2-3.
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion, are our ideas of truth and right and goodness 
 materially different ? . . . The great names of English 
 literature, at least a great part of them, although 
 they may be strictly claimed by Nonconformists, do 
 not really belong to any caste or party. The names 
 of Milton, of Bunyan, of Baxter, of Watts, and 
 Wesley, are the property of the whole English 
 nation. This again is a tie between us. We may 
 be divided into different sects — I would rather say 
 different families — but it does not follow that there 
 is anything wrong in our division, or that there 
 should be any feeling of enmity entertained by 
 different bodies towards one another. These divi- 
 sions arise from many causes — from the accidents of 
 past history, from differences of individual character, 
 from the circumstance that one body is more suited 
 to deal with one class, and another with another. 
 Nor do I think that much is to be hoped or desired 
 from the attempt to fuse these different bodies into 
 one. Persons have entertained schemes of com- 
 prehension that look well on paper, but they are 
 perfectly impracticable, and they really mean very 
 little. But what does mean a great deal is that 
 there should be a common spirit among us, a spirit 
 which recognizes a great common principle of religious 
 truth and morality. And as we begin to understand 
 one another better, we also see the points of agree- 
 ment among us grow larger and larger, and the 
 points of disagreement grow less and less. 1 * 
 
 Between 1891 and the Essay on Interpretation 
 there had been an interval of thirty-one years. But 
 Jowett was the same man still. The love of truth 
 
 1 The Nationalization of the Old English Universities. Chap- 
 man & Hall, 1901: p. H9.
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 and goodness in him overbore the limits of tradition 
 and convention. Reality and not appearance was 
 his persistent aim. And he sought on every oppor- 
 tunity to impart to others something of the spirit 
 which had animated his own long and fruitful 
 career. 
 
 Fifteen years have passed since then. But his 
 words have not lost their power. And the need for 
 them is not less to-day. 
 
 When the wave of mediaevalism and reaction that 
 has submerged so many of our clergy shall have spent 
 its force, the serene wisdom of this Interpreter may 
 yet be audible in quarters where he would have loved 
 to find a hearing. ' Being dead ' he yet may ' speak ', 
 and call his countrymen away from barren controversy 
 and idle speculation to the calm consideration of 
 Bible truths and to the words of Him who ' spake as 
 never man spake '. 
 
 Since writing the above, I have received from 
 Professor Allan Menzies * of St. Andrews the following 
 valuable estimate of Jowett's position in relation to 
 the present state of Biblical criticism : — 
 
 ' No doubt things are very much changed since he 
 wrote. The greatest change of all is that derived 
 from the new light thrown on the Old Testament by 
 the discoveries of Wellhausen, Reuss, &c. In his Essay 
 on Prophecy Jowett calls for a more satisfactory 
 
 1 Author of National Religion (1888), and of The Earliest 
 Gospel (1901) : Editor of the JKeview of Theology and Philosophy.
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 account of the development of thought in the Old 
 Testament, and shows that he felt the difficulties 
 which have caused the new position to be thought 
 out. Surely he lived to know that the prophets were 
 found to be anterior to the law, and felt his earlier 
 gropings satisfied. 
 
 ' On the New Testament, the synoptic question 
 has been wrought out statistically since Jowett wrote, 
 and there is not much doubt about the main lines of 
 the solution. But the solution, as he truly antici- 
 pated, does not solve every difficulty. In other parts of 
 the field his words are remarkably true forecasts of the 
 course of study since his time. What he says about 
 the Greek of the New Testament agrees remarkably 
 with the position held by Deissmann, Moulton, &c, 
 that it belongs to the fusible spoken language of its 
 day, and that to study words and grammatical forms 
 too closely often leads to losing the meaning. The 
 study of Aramaic as the language spoken by Christ 
 is post- Jowett, and I scarcely think Jowett anticipates 
 it. It is true the method remains largely a method, 
 but a valid one, though the results are uncertain. 
 On Hebraisms and the LXX., Jowett is quite in 
 line with the latest writers. 
 
 i His great distinction as a Bible scholar is that he 
 cares for the ideas and thought of the books. The 
 attempt to build up the truth of Scripture by 
 external methods, antiquities, travels, classical anal- 
 ogies, &c, has its uses, but is apt to take the place 
 of what is vital. On the other hand the Classical 
 revival has penetrated into New Testament Studies 
 very powerfully since Jowett in the way of making the 
 life and the problems of the New Testament Churches 
 more real to us, and throwing on them the light of 
 the religious ideas and practices which were general 
 in those times. The History of Religion had hardly
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 begun in his day to illustrate the New Testament. 
 But, suppose this done, the central work of appre- 
 ciating the thought of the writers remains very much 
 what it was ; and here Jowett has very much to 
 teach us still. I know no writer who has seized the 
 essential Christian spirit in the books so purely and 
 subtly. 1 
 
 Lewis Campbell. 
 
 Alassio, Italy, 
 December 1906.
 
 ESSAY ON THE 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 
 
 § 1. 
 
 It is a strange, though familiar fact, that great 
 differences of opinion exist respecting the Interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture. All Christians receive the Old and 
 New Testament as sacred writings, but they are not 
 agreed about the meaning which they attribute to 
 them. The book itself remains as at the first ; the 
 commentators seem rather to reflect the changing 
 atmosphere of the world or of the Church. Different 
 individuals or bodies of Christians have a different 
 point of view, to which their interpretation is 
 narrowed or made to conform. It is assumed, as 
 natural and necessary, that the same words will 
 present one idea to the mind of the Protestant, an- 
 other to the Roman Catholic ; one meaning to the 
 German, another to the English interpreter. The 
 Ultramontane or Anglican divine is not supposed to 
 be impartial in his treatment of passages which afford 
 an apparent foundation for the doctrine of purgatory 
 or the primacy of St. Peter on the one hand, or the 
 three orders of clergy and the divine origin of episco- 
 pacy on the other. It is a received view with many, 
 that the meaning of the Bible is to be defined by 
 that of the Prayer-book ; while there are others who 
 interpret ' the Bible and the Bible only ' with a silent 
 reference to the traditions of the Reformation. Philo- 
 sophical differences are in the background, into which 
 the differences about Scripture also resolve themselves. 
 
 JOWETT II B
 
 2 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 They seem to run up at last into a difference of 
 opinion respecting Revelation itself — whether given 
 beside the human faculties or through them, whether 
 an interruption of the laws of nature or their per- 
 fection and fulfilment. 
 
 This effort to pull the authority of Scripture in 
 different directions is not peculiar to our own day ; 
 the same phenomenon appears in the past history of 
 the Church. At the Reformation, in the Nicene or 
 Pelagian times, the New Testament was the ground 
 over which men fought ; it might also be compared 
 to the armoury which furnished them with weapons. 
 Opposite aspects of the truth which it contains were 
 appropriated by different sides. ' Justified by faith 
 without works' and 'justified by faith as well as 
 works ' are equally Scriptural expressions ; the one 
 has become the formula of Protestants, the other of 
 Roman Catholics. The fifth and ninth chapters of 
 the Romans, single verses such as 1 Cor. iii. 15 ; 
 John iii. 3, still bear traces of many a life-long strife 
 in the pages of commentators. The difference of 
 interpretation which prevails among ourselves is 
 partly traditional, that is to say, inherited from the 
 controversies of former ages. The use made of 
 Scripture by Fathers of the Church, as well as by 
 Luther and Calvin, affects our idea of its meaning at 
 the present hour. 
 
 Another cause of the multitude of interpretations 
 is the growth or progress of the human mind itself. 
 Modes of interpreting vary as time goes on ; they 
 partake of the general state of literature or knowledge. 
 It has not been easily or at once that mankind have 
 learned to realize the character of sacred writings — 
 they seem almost necessarily to veil themselves from 
 human eyes as circumstances change ; it is the old 
 age of the world only that has at length understood
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 3 
 
 its childhood. (Or rather perhaps is beginning to 
 understand it, and learning to make allowance for its 
 own deficiency of knowledge ; for the infancy of the 
 human race, as of the individual, affords but few 
 indications of the workings of the mind within.) 
 More often than we suppose, the great sayings and 
 doings upon the earth, ' thoughts that breathe and 
 words that burn,'' are lost in a sort of chaos to the 
 apprehension of those that come after. Much of 
 past history is dimly seen and receives only a con- 
 ventional interpretation, even when the memorials of 
 it remain. There is a time at which the freshness of 
 early literature is lost ; mankind have turned rhetori- 
 cians, and no longer write or feel in the spirit which 
 created it. In this unimaginative period in which 
 sacred or ancient writings are partially unintelligible, 
 many methods have been taken at different times to 
 adapt the ideas of the past to the wants of the present. 
 One age has wandered into the flowery paths of 
 allegory, 
 
 ' In pious meditation fancy fed. 1 
 
 Another has straitened the liberty of the Gospel by 
 a rigid application of logic, the former being a method 
 which was at first more naturally applied to the Old 
 Testament, the latter to the New. Both methods of 
 interpretation, the mystical and logical, as they may 
 be termed, have been practised on the Vedas and 
 the Koran, as well as on the Jewish and Christian 
 Scriptures, the true glory and note of divinity in 
 these latter being not that they have hidden myste- 
 rious or double meanings, but a simple and universal 
 one, which is beyond them, and will survive them. 
 Since the revival of literature, interpreters have not 
 unfrequently fallen into error of another kind from a 
 pedantic and misplaced use of classical learning ; the 
 
 B 2
 
 4 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 minute examination of words often withdrawing the 
 mind from more important matters. A tendency 
 may be observed within the last century to clothe 
 systems of philosophy in the phraseology of Scripture. 
 But ' new wine cannot thus be put into old bottles '. 
 Though roughly distinguishable by different ages, 
 these modes and tendencies also exist together ; the 
 remains of all of them may be remarked in some of 
 the popular commentaries of our own day. 
 
 More common than any of these methods, and not 
 peculiar to any age, is that which may be called by 
 way of distinction the rhetorical one. The tendency 
 to exaggerate or amplify the meaning of simple words 
 for the sake of edification may indeed have a practical 
 use in sermons, the object of which is to awaken not 
 so much the intellect as the heart and conscience. 
 Spiritual food, like natural, may require to be of a 
 certain bulk to nourish the human mind. But this 
 'tendency to edification 1 has had an unfortunate 
 influence on the interpretation of Scripture. For the 
 preacher almost necessarily oversteps the limits of 
 actual knowledge, his feelings overflow with the sub- 
 ject ; even if he have the power, he has seldom the time 
 for accurate thought or inquiry. And in the course 
 of years spent in writing, perhaps, without study, he 
 is apt to persuade himself, if not others, of the truth 
 of his own repetitions. The trivial consideration 
 of making a discourse of sufficient length is often a 
 reason why he overlays the words of Christ and his 
 Apostles with commonplaces. The meaning of the 
 text is not always the object which he has in view, 
 but some moral or religious lesson which he has found 
 it necessary to append to it ; some cause which he is 
 pleading, some error of the day which he has to com- 
 bat. And while in some passages he hardly dares to 
 trust himself with the full force of Scripture (Matt.
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 5 
 
 v. 34 ; ix. 13 ; xix. 21 : Acts v. 29), in others he 
 extracts more from words than they really imply 
 (Matt. xxii. 21 ; xxviii. 20 : Rom. xiii. 1 ; &c), 
 being more eager to guard against the abuse of some 
 precept than to enforce it, attenuating or adapting 
 the utterance of prophecy to the requirements or to 
 the measure of modern times. Any one who has ever 
 written sermons is aware how hard it is to apply 
 Scripture to the wants of his hearers and at the same 
 time to preserve its meaning. 
 
 The phenomenon which has been described in the 
 preceding pages is so familiar, and yet so extraordi- 
 nary, that it requires an effort of thought to 
 appreciate its true nature. We do not at once see 
 the absurdity of the same words having many senses, 
 or free our minds from the illusion that the Apostle 
 or Evangelist must have written with a reference to 
 the creeds or controversies or circumstances of other 
 times. Let it be considered, then, that this extreme 
 variety of interpretation is found to exist in the case 
 of no other book, but of the Scriptures only. Other 
 writings are preserved to us in dead languages — 
 Greek, Latin, Oriental, some of them in fragments, 
 all of them originally in manuscript. It is true that 
 difficulties arise in the explanation of these writings, 
 especially in the most ancient, from our imperfect 
 acquaintance with the meaning of words, or the 
 defectiveness of copies, or the want of some historical 
 or geographical information which is required to 
 present an event or character in its true bearing. In 
 comparison with the wealth and light of modern 
 literature, our knowledge of Greek classical authors, 
 for example, may be called imperfect and shadowy. 
 Some of them have another sort of difficulty arising 
 from subtlety or abruptness in the use of language ; 
 in lyric poetry especially, and some of the earlier
 
 6 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 prose, the greatness of the thought struggles with 
 the stammering lips. It may be observed that all 
 these difficulties occur also in Scripture ; they are 
 found equally in sacred and profane literature. But 
 the meaning of classical authors is known with 
 comparative certainty ; and the interpretation of 
 them seems to rest on a scientific basis. It is not, 
 therefore, to philological or historical difficulties that 
 the greater part of the uncertainty in the interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture is to be attributed. No ignorance 
 of Hebrew or Greek is sufficient to account for it. 
 Even the Vedas and the Zendavesta, though beset 
 by obscurities of language probably greater than are 
 found in any portion of the Bible, are interpreted, 
 at least by European scholars, according to fixed 
 rules, and beginning to be clearly understood. 
 
 To bring the parallel home, let us imagine the 
 remains of some well-known Greek author, as Plato 
 or Sophocles, receiving the same treatment at the 
 hands of the world which the Scriptures have ex- 
 perienced. The text of such an author, when first 
 printed by Aldus or Stephens, would be gathered 
 from the imperfect or miswritten copies which fell in 
 the way of the editors ; after a while older and better 
 manuscripts come to light, and the power of using 
 and estimating the value of manuscripts is greatly 
 improved. We may suppose, further, that the 
 readings of these older copies do not always conform 
 to some received canons of criticism. Up to the 
 year 1550, or 1624, alterations, often proceeding on 
 no principle, have been introduced into the text ; 
 but now a stand is made — an edition which appeared 
 at the latter of the two dates just mentioned is 
 invested with authority; this authorized text is a 
 piece de resistance against innovation. Many reasons 
 are given why it is better to have bad readings to
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 7 
 
 which the world is accustomed than good ones 
 which are novel and strange — why the later manu- 
 scripts of Plato or Sophocles are often to be preferred 
 to earlier ones — why it is useless to remove imper- 
 fections where perfect accuracy is not to be attained. 
 A fear of disturbing the critical canons which have 
 come down from former ages is, however, suspected 
 to be one reason for the opposition. And custom and 
 prejudice, and the nicety of the subject, and all the 
 arguments which are intelligible to the many against 
 the truth, which is intelligible only to the few, are 
 thrown into the scale to preserve the works of Plato 
 or Sophocles as nearly as possible in the received text. 
 Leaving the text we proceed to interpret and 
 translate. The meaning of Greek words is known 
 with tolerable certainty ; and the grammar of the 
 Greek language has been minutely analysed both in 
 ancient and modern times. Yet the interpretation 
 of Sophocles is tentative and uncertain ; it seems to 
 vary from age to age : to some the great tragedian 
 has appeared to embody in his choruses certain 
 theological or moral ideas of his own age or country ; 
 there are others who find there an allegory of the 
 Christian religion or of the history of modern 
 Europe. Several schools of critics have commented 
 on his works ; to the Englishman he has presented 
 one meaning, to the Frenchman another, to the 
 German a third ; the interpretations have also 
 differed with the philosophical systems which the 
 interpreters espoused. To one the same words have 
 appeared to bear a moral, to another a symbolical 
 meaning ; a third is determined wholly by the 
 authority of old commentators ; while there is 
 a disposition to condemn the scholar who seeks to 
 interpret Sophocles from himself only, and with 
 reference to the ideas and beliefs of the age in which
 
 8 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 he lived. And the error of such an one is attributed 
 not only to some intellectual but even to a moral 
 obliquity which prevents his seeing the true meaning. 
 
 It would be tedious to follow into details the 
 absurdity which has been supposed. By such 
 methods it would be truly said that Sophocles or 
 Plato may be made to mean anything. It would seem 
 as if some Novum Organum were needed to lay down 
 rules of interpretation for ancient literature. Still 
 one other supposition has to be introduced which will 
 appear, perhaps, more extravagant than any which 
 have preceded. Conceive then that these modes of 
 interpreting Sophocles had existed for ages ; that 
 great institutions and interests had become inter- 
 woven with them, and in some degree even the 
 honour of nations and churches — is it too much to 
 say that in such a case they would be changed 
 with difficulty, and that they would continue to be 
 maintained long after critics and philosophers had 
 seen that they were indefensible. ? 
 
 No one who has a Christian feeling would place 
 classical on a level with sacred literature ; and there 
 are other particulars in which the preceding com- 
 parison fails, as, for example, the style and subject. 
 But, however different the subject, although the 
 interpretation of Scripture requires ' a vision and 
 faculty divine ', or at least a moral and religious 
 interest which is not needed in the study of a Greek 
 poet or philosopher, yet in what may be termed the 
 externals of interpretation, that is to say, the mean- 
 ing of words, the connexion of sentences, the settle- 
 ment of the text, the evidence of facts, the same 
 rules apply to the Old and New Testaments as to 
 other books. And the figure is no exaggeration of 
 the erring fancy of men in the use of Scripture, or of 
 the tenacity with which they cling to the interpreta-
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 9 
 
 tions of other times, or of the arguments by which 
 they maintain them. All the resources of knowledge 
 may be turned into a means not of discovering the 
 true rendering, but of upholding a received one. 
 Grammar appears to start from an independent 
 point of view, yet inquiries into the use of the article 
 or the preposition have been observed to wind round 
 into a defence of some doctrine. Rhetoric often 
 magnifies its own want of taste into the design of 
 inspiration. Logic (that other mode of rhetoric) is 
 apt to lend itself to the illusion, by stating erroneous 
 explanations with a clearness which is mistaken for 
 truth. ' Metaphysical aid ' carries away the common 
 understanding into a region where it must blindly 
 follow. Learning obscures as well as illustrates ; it 
 heaps up chaff when there is no more wheat. These 
 are some of the ways in which the sense of Scripture 
 has become confused, by the help of tradition, in the 
 course of ages, under a load of commentators. 
 
 The book itself remains as at the first, unchanged 
 amid the changing interpretations of it. The office 
 of the interpreter is not to add another, but to 
 recover the original one ; the meaning, that is, of 
 the words as they struck on the ears or flashed before 
 the eyes of those who first heard and read them. 
 He has to transfer himself to another age ; to 
 imagine that he is a disciple of Christ or Paul ; to 
 disengage himself from all that follows. The history 
 of Christendom is nothing to him ; but only the 
 scene at Galilee or Jerusalem, the handful of 
 believers who gathered themselves together at 
 Ephesus, or Corinth, or Rome. His eye is fixed on 
 the form of one like the Son of man, or of the 
 Prophet who was girded with a garment of earners 
 hair, or of the Apostle who had a thorn in the 
 flesh. The greatness of the Roman Empire is
 
 10 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 nothing to him ; it is an inner not an outer world 
 that he is striving to restore. All the after-thoughts 
 of theology are nothing to him ; they are not the 
 true lights which light him in difficult places. His 
 concern is with a book in which, as in other ancient 
 writings, are some things of which we are ignorant ; 
 which defect of our knowledge cannot, however, be 
 supplied by the conjectures of fathers or divines. 
 The simple words of that book he tries to preserve 
 absolutely pure from the refinements or distinctions 
 of later times. He acknowledges that they are 
 fragmentary, and would suspect himself, if out of 
 fragments he were able to create a well-rounded 
 system or a continuous history. The greater part of 
 his learning is a knowledge of the text itself; he has 
 no delight in the voluminous literature which has 
 overgrown it. He has no theory of interpretation ; 
 a few rules guarding against common errors are 
 enough for him. His object is to read Scripture 
 like any other book, with a real interest and not 
 merely a conventional one. He wants to be able to 
 open his eyes and see or imagine things as they 
 truly are. 
 
 Nothing would be more likely to restore a natural 
 feeling on this subject than a history of the Interpre- 
 tation of Scripture. It would take us back to the 
 beginning ; it would present in one view the causes 
 which have darkened the meaning of words in the 
 course of ages ; it would clear away the remains of 
 dogmas, systems, controversies, which are encrusted 
 upon them. It would show us the ' erring fancy ' of 
 interpreters assuming sometimes to have the Spirit 
 of God Himself, yet unable to pass beyond the 
 limits of their own age, and with a judgement often 
 biassed by party. Great names there have been 
 among them, names of men who may be reckoned
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 11 
 
 also among the benefactors of the human race, yet 
 comparatively few who have understood the thoughts 
 of other times, or who have bent their minds to 
 ' interrogate ' the meaning of words. Such a work 
 would enable us to separate the elements of doctrine 
 and tradition with which the meaning of Scripture 
 is encumbered in our own day. It would mark the 
 different epochs of interpretation from the time when 
 the living word was in process of becoming a book to 
 Origen and Tertullian, from Origen to Jerome and 
 Augustine, from Jerome and Augustine to Abelard 
 and Aquinas ; again, making a new beginning with 
 the revival of literature, from Erasmus, the father 
 of Biblical criticism in more recent times, with 
 Calvin and Beza for his immediate successors, through 
 Grotius and Hammond, down to De Wette and 
 Meyer, our own contemporaries. We should see 
 how the mystical interpretation of Scripture origi- 
 nated in the Alexandrian age ; how it blended with 
 the logical and rhetorical ; how both received weight 
 and currency from their use in support of the claims 
 and teaching of the Church. We should notice 
 how the ' new learning' of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries gradually awakened the critical faculty 
 in the study of the sacred writings ; how Biblical 
 criticism has slowly but surely followed in the track 
 of philological and historical (not without a remoter 
 influence exercised upon it also by natural science) ; 
 how, too, the form of the scholastic literature, and 
 even of notes on the classics, insensibly communi- 
 cated itself to commentaries on Scripture. We 
 should see how the word inspiration, from being 
 used in a general way to express what may be called 
 the prophetic spirit of Scripture, has passed, within 
 the last two centuries, into a sort of technical term ; 
 how, in other instances, the practice or feeling of
 
 12 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 earlier ages has been hollowed out into the theory 
 or system of later ones. We should observe how 
 the popular explanations of prophecy as in heathen 
 (Thucyd. ii. 54), so also in Christian times, had 
 adapted themselves to the circumstances of mankind. 
 We might remark that in our own country, and in 
 the present generation especially, the interpretation 
 of Scripture had assumed an apologetic character, 
 as though making an effort to defend itself against 
 some supposed inroad of science and criticism ; while 
 among German commentators there is, for the first 
 time in the history of the world, an approach to 
 agreement and certainty. For example, the diversity 
 among German writers on prophecy is far less than 
 among English ones. That is a new phenomenon 
 which has to be acknowledged. More than any 
 other subject of human knowledge, Biblical criticism 
 has hung to the past ; it has been hitherto found 
 truer to the traditions of the Church than to the 
 words of Christ. It has made, however, two great 
 steps onward— at the time of the Reformation and 
 in our day. The diffusion of a critical spirit in 
 history and literature is affecting the criticism of the 
 Bible in our own day in a manner not unlike the 
 burst of intellectual life in the fifteenth or sixteenth 
 centuries. Educated persons are beginning to ask, 
 not what Scripture may be made to mean, but what 
 it does. And it is no exaggeration to say that he 
 who in the present state of knowledge will confine 
 himself to the plain meaning of words and the study 
 of their context may know more of the original 
 spirit and intention of the authors of the New 
 Testament than all the controversial writers of for- 
 mer ages put together. 
 
 Such a history would be of great value to philo- 
 sophy as well as to theology. It would be the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 13 
 
 history of the human mind in one of its most re- 
 markable manifestations. For ages which are not 
 original show their character in the interpretation 
 of ancient writings. Creating nothing, and incapable 
 of that effort of imagination which is required in 
 a true criticism of the past, they read and explain 
 the thoughts of former times by the conventional 
 modes of their own. Such a history would form a 
 kind of preface or prolegomena to the study of 
 Scripture. Like the history of science, it would 
 save many a useless toil ; it would indicate the 
 uncertainties on which it is not worth while to 
 speculate further ; the by-paths or labyrinths in 
 which men lose themselves ; the mines that are 
 already worked out. He who reflects on the multi- 
 tude of explanations which already exist of the 
 ' number of the beast,' ' the two witnesses,' ' the little 
 horn,'' 'the man of sin, 1 who observes the manner 
 in which these explanations have varied with the 
 political movements of our own time, will be un- 
 willing to devote himself to a method of inquiry in 
 which there is so little appearance of certainty or 
 progress. These interpretations would destroy one 
 another if they were all placed side by side in a 
 tabular analysis. It is an instructive fact, which 
 may be mentioned in passing, that Joseph Mede, 
 the greatest authority on this subject, twice fixed 
 the end of the world in the last century and once 
 during his own lifetime. In like manner, he who 
 notices the circumstance that the explanations of 
 the first chapter of Genesis have slowly changed, 
 and, as it were, retreated before the advance of 
 geology, will be unwilling to add another to the 
 spurious reconcilements of science and revelation. Or, 
 to take an example of another kind, the Protestant 
 divine who perceives that the types and figures of
 
 14 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 the Old Testament are employed by Roman Catho- 
 lics in support of the tenets of their church, will 
 be careful not to use weapons which it is impossible to 
 guide, and which may with equal force be turned 
 against himself. Those who have handled them on 
 the Protestant side have before now fallen victims 
 to them, not observing as they fell that it was by 
 their own hand. 
 
 Much of the uncertainty which prevails in the 
 interpretation of Scripture arises out of party efforts 
 to wrest its meaning to different sides. There are, 
 however, deeper reasons which have hindered the 
 natural meaning of the text from immediately and 
 universally prevailing. One of these is the unsettled 
 state of many questions which have an important 
 but indirect bearing on this subject. Some of these 
 questions veil themselves in ambiguous terms ; and 
 no one likes to draw them out of their hiding-place 
 into the light of day. In natural science it is felt to 
 be useless to build on assumptions ; in history we 
 look with suspicion on a priori ideas of what ought 
 to have been ; in mathematics, when a step is wrong, 
 we pull the house down until we reach the point at 
 which the error is discovered. But in theology it is 
 otherwise ; there the tendency has been to conceal 
 the unsoundness of the foundation under the fairness 
 and loftiness of the superstructure. It has been 
 thought safer to allow arguments to stand which, 
 although fallacious, have been on the right side, 
 than to point out their defect. And thus many 
 principles have imperceptibly grown up which have 
 overridden facts. No one would interpret Scripture, 
 as many do, but for certain previous suppositions 
 with which we come to the perusal of it. ' There 
 can be no error in the Word of God,' therefore the 
 discrepancies in the books of Kings and Chronicles
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 15 
 
 are only apparent, or may be attributed to differ- 
 ences in the copies : — ' It is a thousand times more 
 likely that the interpreter should err than the in- 
 spired writer. 1 For a like reason the failure of a 
 prophecy is never admitted, in spite of Scripture and 
 of history (Jer. xxxvi. 30 : Isa. xxiii : Amos vii. 
 10-17) ; the mention of a name later than the sup- 
 posed age of the prophet is not allowed, as in other 
 writings, to be taken in evidence of the date (Isa. 
 xlv. 1). The accuracy of the Old Testament is 
 measured not by the standard of primeval history, 
 but of a modern critical one, which, contrary to all 
 probability, is supposed to be attained ; this arbitrary 
 standard once assumed, it becomes a point of honour 
 or of faith to defend every name, date, place, which 
 occurs. Or to take another class of questions, it is 
 said that ' the various theories of the origin of the 
 three first Gospels are all equally unknown to the 
 Holy Catholic Church ', or as another writer of a 
 different school expresses himself, ' they tend to sap 
 the inspiration of the New Testament. 1 Again, the 
 language in which our Saviour speaks of His own 
 union with the Father is interpreted by the language 
 of the creeds. Those who remonstrate against double 
 senses, allegorical interpretations, forced reconcile- 
 ments, find themselves met by a sort of presupposition 
 that 'God speaks not as man speaks 1 . The limita- 
 tion of the human faculties is confusedly appealed 
 to as a reason for abstaining from investigations 
 which are quite within their limits. The suspicion 
 of Deism, or perhaps of Atheism, awaits inquiry. By 
 such fears a good man refuses to be influenced ; a 
 philosophical mind is apt to cast them aside with 
 too much bitterness. It is better to close the book 
 than to read it under conditions of thought which 
 are imposed from without. Whether those condi-
 
 16 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 tions of thought are the traditions of the Church, or 
 the opinions of the religious world — Catholic or Pro- 
 testant — makes no difference. They are inconsistent 
 with the freedom of the truth and the moral charac- 
 ter of the Gospel. It becomes necessary, therefore, 
 to examine briefly some of these prior questions 
 which lie in the way of a reasonable criticism. 
 
 §2. 
 
 Among these previous questions, that which first 
 presents itself is the one already alluded to — the 
 question of inspiration. Almost all Christians agree 
 in the word, which use and tradition have consecrated 
 to express the reverence which they truly feel for 
 the Old and New Testaments. But here the agree- 
 ment of opinion ends ; the meaning of inspiration 
 has been variously explained, or more often passed 
 over in silence from a fear of stirring the difficulties 
 that would arise about it. It is one of those theo- 
 logical terms which may be regarded as ' great 
 peacemakers ', but which are also sources of distrust 
 and misunderstanding. For while we are ready to 
 shake hands with any one who uses the same lan- 
 guage as ourselves, a doubt is apt to insinuate itself 
 whether he takes language in the same senses — 
 whether a particular term conveys all the associa- 
 tions to another which it does to ourselves — whether 
 it is not possible that one who disagrees about the 
 word may not be more nearly agreed about the 
 thing. The advice has, indeed, been given to the 
 theologian that he ' should take care of words and 
 leave things to themselves ' ; the authority, however, 
 who gives the advice is not good — it is placed by 
 Goethe in the mouth of Mephistopheles. Pascal 
 seriously charges the Jesuits with acting on a simi- 
 lar maxim — excommunicating those who meant the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 17 
 
 same thing and said another, holding communion 
 with those who said the same thing and meant 
 another. But this is not the way to heal the wounds 
 of the Church of Christ ; we cannot thus ' skin and 
 film ' the weak places of theology. Errors about 
 words, and the attribution to words themselves of an 
 excessive importance, lie at the root of theological 
 as of other confusions. In theology they are more 
 dangerous than in other sciences, because they cannot 
 so readily be brought to the test of facts. 
 
 The word inspiration has received more numerous 
 gradations and distinctions of meaning than perhaps 
 any other in the whole of theology. There is an 
 inspiration of superintendence and an inspiration of 
 suggestion ; an inspiration which would have been 
 consistent with the Apostle or Evangelist falling 
 into error, and an inspiration which would have 
 prevented him from erring; verbal organic inspira- 
 tion by which the inspired person is the passive 
 utterer of a Divine Word, and an inspiration which 
 acts through the character of the sacred writer ; 
 there is an inspiration which absolutely communicates 
 the fact to be revealed or statement to be made, and 
 an inspiration which does not supersede the ordinary 
 knowledge of human events ; there is an inspiration 
 which demands infallibility in matters of doctrine, 
 but allows for mistakes in fact. Lastly, there is 
 a view of inspiration which recognizes only its 
 supernatural and prophetic character, and a view of 
 inspiration which regards the Apostles and Evangel- 
 ists as equally inspired in their writings and in their 
 lives, and in both receiving the guidance of the 
 Spirit of truth in a manner not different in kind but 
 only in degree from ordinary Christians. Many of 
 these explanations lose sight of the original meaning 
 and derivation of the word ; some of them are framed 
 
 JOWETT II C
 
 18 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 with the view of meeting difficulties ; all perhaps err 
 in attempting to define what, though real, is incap- 
 able of being defined in an exact manner. Nor for 
 any of the higher or supernatural views of inspiration 
 is there any foundation in the Gospels or Epistles. 
 There is no appearance in their writings that the 
 Evangelists or Apostles had any inward gift, or were 
 subject to any power external to them different 
 from that of preaching or teaching which they daily 
 exercised ; nor do they anywhere lead us to suppose 
 that they were free from error or infirmity. St. Paul 
 writes like a Christian teacher, exhibiting all the 
 emotions and vicissitudes of human feeling, speaking, 
 indeed, with authority, but hesitating in difficult cases 
 and more than once correcting himself, corrected, 
 too, by the course of events in his expectation of 
 the coming of Christ. The Evangelist ' who saw it, 
 bare record, and his record is true : and he knoweth 
 that he saith true ' (John xix. 35). Another Evan- 
 gelist does not profess to be an original narrator, but 
 only ' to set forth in order a declaration of what eye- 
 witnesses had delivered', like many others whose 
 writings have not been preserved to us (Luke i. 1, 2). 
 And the result is in accordance with the simple 
 profession and style in which they describe them- 
 selves ; there is no appearance, that is to say, of 
 insincerity or want of faith ; but neither is there 
 perfect accuracy or agreement. One supposes the 
 original dwelling-place of our Lord's parents to have 
 been Bethlehem (Matt. ii. 1, 22), another Nazareth 
 (Luke ii. 4) ; they trace his genealogy in different 
 ways ; one mentions the thieves blaspheming, another 
 has preserved to after-ages the record of the penitent 
 thief; they appear to differ about the day and hour 
 of the Crucifixion ; the narrative of the woman who 
 anointed our Lord's feet with ointment is told in all
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 19 
 
 four, each narrative having more or less considerable 
 variations. These are a few instances of the differ- 
 ences which arose in the traditions of the earliest 
 ages respecting the history of our Lord. But he 
 who wishes to investigate the character of the sacred 
 writings should not be afraid to make a catalogue of 
 them all with the view of estimating their cumulative 
 weight. (For it is obvious that the answer which 
 would be admitted in the case of a single discrep- 
 ancy, will not be the true answer when there are 
 many.) He should further consider that the narra- 
 tives in which these discrepancies occur are short and 
 partly identical — a cycle of tradition beyond which 
 the knowledge of the early fathers never travels, 
 though if all the things that Jesus said and did had 
 been written down, ' the world itself could not have 
 contained the books that would have been written' 
 (John xx. 30 ; xxi. 25). For the proportion which 
 these narratives bear to the whole subject, as well 
 as their relation to one another, is an important 
 element in the estimation of differences. In the 
 same way, he who would understand the nature of 
 prophecy in the Old Testament, should have the 
 courage to examine how far its details were minutely 
 fulfilled. The absence of such a fulfilment may 
 further lead him to discover that he took the letter 
 for the spirit in expecting it. 
 
 The subject will clear of itself if we bear in mind 
 two considerations : — First, that the nature of in- 
 spiration can only be known from the examination 
 of Scripture. There is no other source to which we 
 can turn for information ; and we have no right to 
 assume some imaginary doctrine of inspiration like 
 the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church. To 
 the question, ' What is inspiration P 1 the first answer 
 therefore is, ' That idea of Scripture which we gather 
 
 C 3
 
 £0 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 from the knowledge of it.' It is no mere a priori 
 notion, but one to which the book is itself a witness. 
 It is a fact which we infer from the study of Scripture 
 — not of one portion only, but of the whole. Ob- 
 viously then it embraces writings of very different 
 kinds — the book of Esther, for example, or the Song 
 of Solomon, as well as the Gospel of St. John. It is 
 reconcileable with the mixed good and evil of the 
 characters of the Old Testament, which nevertheless 
 does not exclude them from the favour of God, with the 
 attribution to the Divine Being of actions at variance 
 with that higher revelation, which He has given of 
 Himself in the Gospel ; it is not inconsistent with im- 
 perfect or opposite aspects of the truth as in the 
 Book of Job or Ecclesiastes, with variations of fact 
 in the Gospels or the books of Kings and Chronicles, 
 with inaccuracies of language in the Epistles of St. 
 Paul. For these are all found in Scripture ; neither 
 is there any reason why they should not be, except 
 a general impression that Scripture ought to have 
 been written in a way different from what it has. 
 A principle of progressive revelation admits them all ; 
 and this is already contained in the words of our 
 Saviour, 'Moses because of the hardness of your 
 hearts ' ; or even in the Old Testament, ' Henceforth 
 there shall be no more this proverb in the house of 
 Israel. 1 For what is progressive is necessarily imper- 
 fect in its earlier stages, and even erring to those who 
 come after, whether it be the maxims of a half-civilized 
 world which are compared with those of a civilized 
 one, or the Law with the Gospel. Scripture itself 
 points the way to answer the moral objections to 
 Scripture. Lesser difficulties remain, but only such 
 as would be found commonly in writings of the same 
 age or country. There is no more reason why im- 
 perfect narratives should be excluded from Scripture
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 21 
 
 than imperfect grammar ; no more ground for expect- 
 ing that the New Testament would be logical or 
 Aristotelian in form, than that it would be written 
 in Attic Greek. 
 
 The other consideration is one which has been 
 neglected by writers on this subject. It is this — that 
 any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to all 
 well-ascertained facts of history or of science. The 
 same fact cannot be true and untrue, any more than 
 the same words can have two opposite meanings. 
 The same fact cannot be true in religion when seen 
 by the light of faith, and untrue in science when 
 looked at through the medium of evidence or experi- 
 ment. It is ridiculous to suppose that the sun goes 
 round the earth in the same sense in which the earth 
 goes round the sun ; or that the world appears to 
 have existed, but has not existed during the vast 
 epochs of which geology speaks to us. But if so, 
 there is no need of elaborate reconcilements of 
 revelation and science ; they reconcile themselves the 
 moment any scientific truth is distinctly ascertained. 
 As the idea of nature enlarges, the idea of revelation 
 also enlarges ; it was a temporary misunderstanding 
 which severed them. And as the knowledge of nature 
 which is possessed by the few is communicated in its 
 leading features at least to the many, they will receive 
 with it a higher conception of the ways of God to 
 man. It may hereafter appear as natural to the 
 majority of mankind to see the providence of God in 
 the order of the world, as it once was to appeal to 
 interruptions of it. 
 
 It is true that there is a class of scientific facts 
 with which popular opinions on theology often conflict 
 which do not seem to conform in all respects to the 
 severer conditions of inductive science: such especi- 
 ally are the facts relating to the formation of the earth
 
 22 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 and the beginnings of the human race. But it is not 
 worth while to fight on this debateable ground a 
 losing battle in the hope that a generation will pass 
 away before we sound a last retreat. Almost all 
 intelligent persons are agreed that the earth has 
 existed for myriads of ages ; the best informed are of 
 opinion that the history of nations extends back some 
 thousand years before the Mosaic chronology ; recent 
 discoveries in geology may perhaps open a further 
 vista of existence for the human species, while it is 
 possible, and may one day be known, that mankind 
 spread not from one but from many centres over the 
 globe ; or as others say, that the supply of links 
 which are at present wanting in the chain of animal 
 life may lead to new conclusions respecting the origin 
 of man. Now let it be granted that these facts, being 
 with the past, cannot be shown in the same palpable 
 and evident manner as the facts of chemistry or 
 physiology ; and that the proof of some of them, 
 especially of those last mentioned, is wanting ; still 
 it is a false policy to set up inspiration or revelation 
 in opposition to them, a principle which can have no 
 influence on them and should be rather kept out of 
 their way. The sciences of geology and comparative 
 philology are steadily gaining ground ; many of the 
 guesses of twenty years ago have become certainties, 
 and the guesses of to-day may hereafter become so. 
 Shall we peril religion on the possibility of their un- 
 truth ? on such a cast to stake the life of man implies 
 not only a recklessness of facts, but a misunderstand- 
 ing of the nature of the Gospel. If it is fortunate 
 for science, it is perhaps more fortunate for Christian 
 truth, that the admission of Galileo's discovery has 
 for ever settled the principle of the relations between 
 them. 
 
 A similar train of thought may be extended to the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTFRE 23 
 
 results of historical inquiries. These results cannot 
 be barred by the dates or narrative of Scripture ; 
 neither should they be made to wind round into 
 agreement with them. Again, the idea of inspiration 
 must expand and take them in. Their importance 
 in a religious point of view is not that they impugn 
 or confirm the Jewish history, but that they show 
 more clearly the purposes of God towards the whole 
 human race. The recent chronological discoveries 
 from Egyptian monuments do not tend to overthrow- 
 revelation, nor the Ninevite inscriptions to support 
 it. The use of them on either side may indeed arouse 
 a popular interest in them ; it is apt to turn a scien- 
 tific inquiry into a semi-religious controversy. And 
 to religion either use is almost equally injurious, be- 
 cause seeming to rest truths important to human life 
 on the mere accident of an archaeological discovery. 
 Is it to be thought that Christianity gains anything 
 from the deciphering of the names of some Assyrian 
 and Babylonian kings, contemporaries chiefly with 
 the later Jewish history ? As little as it ought to 
 lose from the appearance of a contradictory narrative 
 of the Exodus in the chamber of an Egyptian temple 
 of the year b.c. 1500. This latter supposition may 
 not be very probable. But it is worth while to ask 
 ourselves the question, whether we can be right in 
 maintaining any view of religion which can be affected 
 by such a probability. 
 
 It will be a further assistance in the consideration 
 of this subject, to observe that the interpretation of 
 Scripture has nothing to do with any opinion re- 
 specting its origin. The meaning of Scripture is one 
 thing ; the inspiration of Scripture is another. It is 
 conceivable that those who hold the most different 
 views about the one, may be able to agree about the 
 other. Rigid upholders of the verbal inspiration of
 
 U ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Scripture, and those who deny inspiration altogether, 
 may nevertheless meet on the common ground of the 
 meaning of words. If the term inspiration were to 
 fall into disuse, no fact of nature, or history, or lan- 
 guage, no event in the life of man, or dealings of God 
 with him, would be in any degree altered. The word 
 itself is but of yesterday, not found in the earlier 
 confessions of the reformed faith ; the difficulties that 
 have arisen about it are only two or three centuries 
 old. Therefore the question of inspiration, though 
 in one sense important, is to the interpreter as though 
 it were not important ; he is in no way called upon 
 to determine a matter with which he has nothing to 
 do, and which was not determined by fathers of the 
 Church. And he had better go on his way and leave 
 the more precise definition of the word to the pro- 
 gress of knowledge and the results of the study of 
 Scripture, instead of entangling himself with a theory 
 about it. 
 
 It is one evil of conditions or previous suppositions 
 in the study of Scripture, that the assumption of them 
 has led to an apologetic temper in the interpreters of 
 Scripture. The tone of apology is always a tone of 
 weakness, and does injury to a good cause. It is the 
 reverse of 'ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
 shall make you free 1 . It is hampered with the 
 necessity of making a defence, and also with previous 
 defences of the same side ; it accepts, with an excess 
 of reserve and caution, the truth itself, when it comes 
 from an opposite quarter. Commentators are often 
 more occupied with the proof of miracles than with 
 the declaration of life and immortality ; with the 
 fulfilment of the details of prophecy than with its life 
 and power ; with the reconcilement of the discre- 
 pancies in the narrative of the infancy, pointed out 
 by Schleiermacher, than with the importance of the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 25 
 
 great event of the appearance of the Saviour — ' To this 
 end ivas I born and for this cause came I into the world 
 that I should bear witness unto the truth.' 1 The same 
 tendency is observable also in reference to the Acts 
 of the Apostles and the Epistles, which are not only 
 brought into harmony with each other, but inter- 
 preted with a reference to the traditions of existing 
 communions. The natural meaning of particular 
 expressions, as for example : ' Why are they then 
 baptized for the dead ?' (1 Cor. xv. 29), or the words 
 'because of the angels' (1 Cor. xi. 10); or, 'this 
 generation shall not pass away until all these things 
 be fulfilled' (Matt. xxiv. 34); or, 'upon this rock 
 will I build my Church ' (Matt. xvi. 18), is set aside 
 in favour of others, which, however improbable, are 
 more in accordance with preconceived opinions, or 
 seem to be more worthy of the sacred writers. The 
 language, and also the text, are treated on the same 
 defensive and conservative principles. The received 
 translations of Phil. ii. 6 (' Who, being in the form of 
 God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God '), 
 or of Rom. iii. 25 (' Whom God hath set forth to be 
 a propitiation through faith in his blood'), or Rom. 
 xv. 6 ('God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ '), though erroneous, are not given up without 
 a struggle; the 1 Tim. iii. 16, and 1 John v. 7 (the 
 three witnesses), though the first ('God manifest in 
 the flesh,' 02 for 02) is not found in the best manu- 
 scripts, and the second in no Greek manuscript worth 
 speaking of, have not yet disappeared from the 
 editions of the Greek Testament commonly in use in 
 England, and still less from the English translation. 
 An English commentator who, with Lachmann and 
 Tischendorf, supported also by the authority of 
 Erasmus, ventures to alter the punctuation of the 
 doxology in Rom. ix. 5 (' Who is over all God blessed
 
 26 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 for ever ') hardly escapes the charge of heresy. That 
 in most of these cases the words referred to have a 
 direct bearing on important controversies is a reason 
 not for retaining, but for correcting them. 
 
 The temper of accommodation shows itself especi- 
 ally in two ways : first, in the attempt to adapt the 
 truths of Scripture to the doctrines of the creeds ; 
 secondly, in the adaptation of the precepts and 
 maxims of Scripture to the language or practice of our 
 own age. Now the creeds are acknowledged to be a 
 part of Christianity ; they stand in a close relation to 
 the words of Christ and His Apostles ; nor can it be 
 said that any heterodox formula makes a nearer 
 approach to a simple and scriptural rule of faith. 
 Neither is anything gained by contrasting them with 
 Scripture, in which the germs of the expressions used 
 in them are sufficiently apparent. Yet it does not 
 follow that they should be pressed into the service of 
 the interpreter. The growth of ideas in the interval 
 which separated the first century from the fourth or 
 sixth makes it impossible to apply the language of 
 the one to the explanation of the other. Between 
 Scripture and the Nicene or Athanasian Creed, a 
 world of the understanding comes in — that world of 
 abstractions and second notions ; and mankind are 
 no longer at the same point as when the whole of 
 Christianity was contained in the words, ' Believe on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ and thou mayest be saved,' 
 when the Gospel centred in the attachment to a 
 living or recently departed friend and Lord. The 
 language of the New Testament is the first utterance 
 and consciousness of the mind of Christ ; or the 
 immediate vision of the Word of life (1 John i. 1) as 
 it presented itself before the eyes of His first followers, 
 or as the sense of His truth and power grew upon 
 them (Rom. i. 3, 4) ; the other is the result of three
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 27 
 
 or four centuries of reflection and controversy. And 
 although this last had a truth suited to its age, and 
 its technical expressions have sunk deep into the 
 heart of the human race, it is not the less unfitted to be 
 the medium by the help of which Scripture is to be 
 explained. If the occurrence of the phraseologv of 
 the Nicene age in a verse of the Epistles would detect 
 the spuriousness of the verse in which it was found, 
 how can the Nicene or Athanasian Creed be a suit- 
 able instrument for the interpretation of Scripture ? 
 That advantage which the New Testament has over 
 the teaching of the Church, as representing what may 
 be termed the childhood of the Gospel, would be lost 
 if its language were required to conform to that of 
 the Creeds. 
 
 To attribute to St. Paul or the Twelve the abstract 
 notion of Christian truth which afterwards sprang 
 up in the Catholic Church, is the same sort of ana- 
 chronism as to attribute to them a system of philo- 
 sophy. It is the same error as to attribute to Homer 
 the ideas of Thales or Heraclitus, or to Thales the 
 more developed principles of Aristotle and Plato. 
 Many persons who have no difficulty in tracing the 
 growth of institutions, yet seem to fail in recognizing 
 the more subtle progress of an idea. It is hard to 
 imagine the absence of conceptions with which we are 
 familiar ; to go back to the germ of what we know 
 only in maturity ; to give up what has grown to us, 
 and become a part of our minds. In the present case, 
 however, the development is not difficult to prove. 
 The statements of Scripture are unaccountable if 
 we deny it ; the silence of Scripture is equally un- 
 accountable. Absorbed as St. Paul was in the person 
 of Christ with an intensity of faith and love of which 
 in modern days and at this distance of time we can 
 scarcely form a conception — high as he raised the
 
 28 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 dignity of his Lord above all things in heaven and 
 earth — looking to Him as the Creator of all things, 
 and the head of quick and dead, he does not speak 
 of Him as ' equal to the Father ', or ' of one substance 
 with the Father 1 . Much of the language of the 
 Epistles (passages for example such as Rom. i. 2 : 
 Phil. ii. 6) would lose their meaning if distributed in 
 alternate clauses between our Lord's humanity and 
 divinity. Still greater difficulties would be introduced 
 into the Gospels by the attempt to identify them 
 with the Creeds. We should have to suppose that 
 He was and was not tempted ; that when He prayed 
 to His Father He prayed also to Himself; that He 
 knew and did not know ' of that hour ' of which He 
 as well as the angels were ignorant. How could He 
 have said, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me 1 ? or, 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 
 from me ' ? How could He have doubted whether 
 ' when the Son cometh he shall find faith upon the 
 earth ' ? These simple and touching words have to 
 be taken out of their natural meaning and connexion 
 to be made the theme of apologetic discourses if we 
 insist on reconciling them with the distinctions of 
 later ages. 
 
 Neither, as has been already remarked, would the 
 substitution of any other precise or definite rule of 
 faith, as for example the Unitarian, be more favour- 
 able to the interpretation of Scripture. How could 
 the Evangelist St. John have said 'the Word was 
 God ', or ' God was the Word ' (according to either 
 mode of translating), or how would our Lord Himself 
 have said, ' I and the Father are one,' if either had 
 meant that Christ was a mere man, 'a prophet or as 
 one of the prophets , ? No one who takes words in 
 their natural sense can suppose that 'in the beginning 1 
 (John i. 1) means, 'at the commencement of the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 29 
 
 ministry of Christ," 1 or that ' the Word was with God\ 
 only relates * to the withdrawal of Christ to commune 
 with God ', or that ' the Word is said to be God ', in 
 the ironical sense of John x. 35. But while venturing 
 to turn one eye on these (perhaps obsolete) per- 
 versions of the meanings of words in old opponents, 
 we must not forget also to keep the other open to 
 our own. The object of the preceding remark is not 
 to enter into controversy with them, or to balance 
 the statements of one side with those of the other, 
 but only to point out the error of introducing into 
 the interpretation of Scripture the notions of a later 
 age which is common alike to us and them. 
 
 The other kind of accommodation which was 
 alluded to above arises out of the difference between 
 the social and ecclesiastical state of the world, as it 
 exists in actual fact, and the ideal which the Gospel 
 presents to us. An ideal is, by its very nature, far 
 removed from actual life. It is enshrined not in the 
 material things of the external world, but in the 
 heart and conscience. Mankind are dissatisfied at 
 this separation ; they fancy that they can make the 
 inward kingdom an outward one also. But this is 
 not possible. The frame of civilization, that is to say, 
 institutions and laws, the usages of business, the 
 customs of society, these are for the most part 
 mechanical, capable only in a certain degree of a 
 higher and spiritual life. Christian motives have 
 never existed in such strength, as to make it safe or 
 possible to entrust them with the preservation of 
 social order. Other interests are therefore provided 
 and other principles, often independent of the teach- 
 ing of the Gospel, or even apparently at variance 
 with it. * If a man smite thee on the right cheek 
 turn to him the other also,' is not a regulation of 
 police but an ideal rule of conduct, not to be
 
 30 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 explained away, but rarely if ever to be literally 
 acted upon in a civilized country ; or rather to be 
 acted upon always in spirit, yet not without a 
 reference to the interests of the community. If a 
 missionary were to endanger the public peace and 
 come like the Apostles saying, ' I ought to obey God 
 rather than man, 1 it is obvious that the most Christian 
 of magistrates could not allow him (say in India or 
 New Zealand) to shield himself under the authority 
 of these words. For in religion as in philosophy 
 there are two opposite poles ; of truth and action, 
 of doctrine and practice, of idea and fact. The 
 image of God in Christ is over against the necessities 
 of human nature and the state of man on earth. 
 Our Lord Himself recognizes this distinction, when 
 He says, ' Of whom do the kings of the earth gather 
 tribute ? , and ' then are the children free ' (Matt, 
 xvii. 26). And again, 'Notwithstanding lest we 
 should offend them, 1 &c. Here are contrasted what 
 may be termed the two poles of idea and fact. 
 
 All men appeal to Scripture, and desire to draw 
 the authority of Scripture to their side ; its voice 
 may be heard in the turmoil of political strife ; a 
 merely verbal similarity, the echo of a word, has 
 weight in the determination of a controversy. Such 
 appeals are not to be met always by counter-appeals ; 
 they rather lead to the consideration of deeper ques- 
 tions as to the manner in which Scripture is to be 
 applied. In what relation does it stand to actual 
 life ? Is it a law, or only a spirit ? for nations, or for 
 individuals ? to be enforced generally, or in details 
 also ? Are its maxims to be modified by experience, 
 or acted upon in defiance of experience ? Are the 
 accidental circumstances of the first believers to 
 become a rule for us ? Is everything, in short, done 
 or said by our Saviour and His Apostles, to be re-
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 31 
 
 garded as a precept or example which is to be followed 
 on all occasions and to last for all time ? That can 
 hardly be, consistently with the changes of human 
 things. It would be a rigid skeleton of Christianity 
 (not the image of Christ), to which society and 
 politics, as well as the lives of individuals, would be 
 conformed. It would be the oldness of the letter, on 
 which the world would be stretched ; not ' the law of 
 the spirit of life 1 which St. Paul teaches. The 
 attempt to force politics and law into the framework 
 of religion is apt to drive us up into a corner, in 
 which the great principles of truth and justice have 
 no longer room to make themselves felt. It is better, 
 as well as safer, to take the liberty with which Christ 
 has made us free. For our Lord Himself has left 
 behind Him words, which contain a principle large 
 enough to admit all the forms of society or of life ; 
 'My kingdom is not of this world 1 (John xviii. 36). 
 It does not come into collision with politics or know- 
 ledge ; it has nothing to do with the Roman govern- 
 ment or the Jewish priesthood, or with corresponding 
 institutions in the present day ; it is a counsel of 
 perfection, and has its dwelling-place in the heart of 
 man. That is the real solution of questions of Church 
 and State ; all else is relative to the history or 
 circumstances of particular nations. That is the 
 answer to a doubt which is also raised respecting the 
 obligation of the letter of the Gospel on individual 
 Christians. But this inwardness of the words ot 
 Christ is what few are able to receive ; it is easier to 
 apply them superficially to things without, than to 
 be a partaker of them from within. And false and 
 miserable applications of them are often made, and 
 the kingdom of God becomes the tool of the kingdoms 
 of the world. 
 
 The neglect of this necessary contrast between the
 
 m ESSAY ON THE 
 
 ideal and the actual has had a twofold effect on the 
 Interpretation of Scripture. It has led to an unfair 
 appropriation of some portions of Scripture and an 
 undue neglect of others. The letter is in many 
 cases really or apparently in harmony with existing 
 practices, or opinions, or institutions. In other 
 cases it is far removed from them ; it often seems as 
 if the world would come to an end before the words 
 of Scripture could be realized. The twofold effect 
 just now mentioned, corresponds to these two classes. 
 Some texts of Scripture have been eagerly appealed 
 to and made (in one sense) too much of ; they have 
 been taken by force into the service of received 
 opinions and beliefs ; texts of the other class have 
 been either unnoticed or explained away. Consider, 
 for example, the extraordinary and unreasonable 
 importance attached to single words, sometimes of 
 doubtful meaning, in reference to any of the following 
 subjects: — (1) Divorce; (2) Marriage with a Wife's 
 Sister ; (3) Inspiration ; (4) the Personality of the 
 Holy Spirit ; (5) Infant Baptism ; (6) Episcopacy ; 
 (7) Divine Right of Kings ; (8) Original Sin. There 
 is, indeed, a kind of mystery in the way in which the 
 chance words of a simple narrative, the occurrence of 
 some accidental event, the use even of a figure of 
 speech, or a mistranslation of a word in Latin or 
 English, have affected the thoughts of future ages 
 and distant countries. Nothing so slight that it has 
 not been caught at ; nothing so plain that it may not 
 be explained away. What men have brought to the 
 text they have also found there ; what has received 
 no interpretation or witness, either in the customs of 
 the Church or in * the thoughts of many hearts ', is 
 still 'an unknown tongue 1 to them. It is with 
 Scripture as with oratory, its effect partly depends on 
 the preparation in the mind or in circumstances for
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 33 
 
 the reception of it. There is no use of Scripture, no 
 quotation or even misquotation of a word which is 
 not a power in the world, when it embodies the spirit 
 of a great movement or is echoed by the voice of a 
 large party. 
 
 (1) On the first of the subjects referred to above, 
 it is argued from Scripture that adulterers should 
 not be allowed to marry again ; and the point of the 
 argument turns on the question whether the words 
 (cktos \6yov TTopvdas) ' saving for the cause of forni- 
 cation ', which occur in the first clause of an important 
 text on marriage, were designedly or accidentally 
 omitted in the second (Matt. v. 32 : ' Whosoever 
 shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of forni- 
 cation, causeth her to commit adultery, and who- 
 soever shall marry her that is divorced committeth 
 adultery 1 ; compare also Mark x. 11, 12). (2) The 
 Scripture argument in the second instance is almost 
 invisible, being drawn from a passage the meaning 
 of which is irrelevant (Lev. xviii. 18 : « Neither shalt 
 thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, to uncover 
 her nakedness beside the other in her lifetime 1 ): and 
 transferred from the Polygamy which prevailed in 
 Eastern countries 3000 years ago to the Monogamy 
 of the nineteenth century and the Christian Church, 
 in spite of the custom and tradition of the Jews and 
 the analogy of the brother's widow. (3) In the third 
 case the word (Otoirvevo-Tos) 'given by inspiration of 
 God 1 is spoken of the Old Testament, and is assumed 
 to apply to the New, including that Epistle in which 
 the expression occurs (2 Tim. iii. 16). (4) In the 
 fourth example the words used are mysterious (John 
 xiv. 26 ; xvi. 15), and seem to come out of the depths 
 of a divine consciousness ; they have sometimes, how- 
 ever, received a more exact meaning than they would 
 truly bear ; what is spoken in a figure is construed 
 
 JOWETT II D
 
 34 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 with the severity of a logical statement, while passages 
 of an opposite tenour are overlooked or set aside. 
 (5) In the fifth instance, the mere mention of a family 
 of a jailer at Philippi who was baptized ('he and 
 all his, 1 Acts xvi. 33), has led to the inference that 
 in this family there were probably young children, 
 and hence that infant baptism is, first, permissive, 
 secondly, obligatory. (6) In the sixth case the chief 
 stress of the argument from Scripture turns on the 
 occurrence of the word (eTtio-Koiros) bishop, in the 
 Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which is assisted by 
 a supposed analogy between the position of the 
 Apostles and of their successors ; although the term 
 bishop is clearly used in the passages referred to as 
 well as in other parts of the New Testament indis- 
 tinguishably from Presbyter, and the magisterial 
 authority of bishops in after ages is unlike rather 
 than like the personal authority of the Apostles in 
 the beginning of the Gospel. The further develop- 
 ment of Episcopacy into Apostolical succession has 
 often been rested on the promise, 'Lo, I am with 
 you alway, even to the end of the world.' (7) In the 
 seventh case the precepts of order which are addressed 
 in the Epistle to the ' fifth monarchy men of those 
 days 1 , are transferred to a duty of obedience to 
 hereditary princes ; the fact of the house of David, 
 * the Lord's anointed,' sitting on the throne of Israel 
 is converted into a principle for all times and coun- 
 tries. And the higher lesson which our Saviour 
 teaches : ' Render unto Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's,' that is to say, 'Render unto all their due, 
 and to God above all,' is spoiled by being made into 
 a precept of political subjection. (8) Lastly, the 
 justice of God ' who rewardeth every man according 
 to his works ', and the Christian scheme of redemption, 
 have been staked on two figurative expressions of
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 35 
 
 St. Paul to which there is no parallel in any other 
 part of Scripture (1 Cor. xv. 22 : ' For as in Adam 
 all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' and 
 the corresponding passage in Rom. v. 12) ; notwith- 
 standing the declaration of the Old Testament as 
 also of the New, ' Every soul shall bear its own ini- 
 quity, 1 and ' neither this man sinned nor his parents '. 
 It is not necessary for our purpose to engage fur- 
 ther in the matters of dispute which have arisen 
 by the way in attempting to illustrate the general 
 argument. Yet to avoid misconception it may be 
 remarked, that many of the principles, rules, or truths 
 mentioned, as for example, Infant Baptism, or the 
 Episcopal Form of Church Government, have suffi- 
 cient grounds ; the weakness is the attempt to derive 
 them from Scripture. 
 
 With this minute and rigid enforcement of the 
 words of Scripture in passages where the ideas 
 expressed in them either really or apparently agree 
 with received opinions or institutions, there remains 
 to be contrasted the neglect, or in some instances 
 the misinterpretation of other words which are not 
 equally in harmony with the spirit of the age. In 
 many of our Lord's discourses He speaks of the 
 ' blessedness of poverty ' ; of the hardness which they 
 that have riches will experience ' in attaining eternal 
 life '. ' It is easier for a camel to go through 
 a needle's eye,' and ' Son, thou in thy lifetime 
 receivedst thy good things ', and again ' One thing 
 thou lackest, go sell all that thou hast'. Precepts 
 like these do not appeal to our own experience of 
 life ; they are unlike anything that we see around us 
 at the present day, even among good men ; to some 
 among us they will recall the remarkable saying of 
 Lessing, — * that the Christian religion had been 
 tried for eighteen centuries ; the religion of Christ 
 
 D 2
 
 36 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 remained to be tried.' To take them literally would 
 be injurious to ourselves and to society (at ieast, so 
 we think). Religious sects or orders who have seized 
 this aspect of Christianity have come to no good, 
 and have often ended in extravagance. It will not 
 do to go into the world saying, ' Woe unto you, ye 
 rich men,"' or on entering a noble mansion to repeat 
 the denunciations of the prophet about 'cedar and 
 vermilion', or on being shown the prospect of a 
 magnificent estate to cry out, * Woe unto them that 
 lay field to field that they may be placed alone in 
 the midst of the earth."' Times have altered, we say, 
 since these denunciations were uttered ; what appear- 
 ed to the Prophet or Apostle a violation of the 
 appointment of Providence has now become a part 
 of it. It will not do to make a great supper, and 
 mingle at the same board the two ends of society, as 
 modern phraseology calls them, fetching in ' the 
 poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind,' to fill the 
 vacant places of noble guests. That would be 
 eccentric in modern times, and even hurtful. Neither 
 is it suitable for us to wash one another's feet, or to 
 perform any other menial office, because our Lord 
 set us the example. The customs of society do not 
 admit it ; no good would be done by it, and singu- 
 larity is of itself an evil. Well, then, are the 
 precepts of Christ not to be obeyed? Perhaps in 
 their fullest sense they cannot be obeyed. But at 
 any rate they are not to be explained away ; the 
 standard of Christ is not to be lowered to ordinary 
 Christian life, because ordinary Christian life cannot 
 rise, even in good men, to the standard of Christ. 
 And there may be * standing among us ' some one in 
 ten thousand ' whom we know not ', in whom there 
 is such a divine union of charity and prudence that 
 he is most blest in the entire fulfilment of the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 37 
 
 precept — ' Go sell all that thou hast,' — which to 
 obey literally in other cases would be evil, and not 
 good. Many there have been, doubtless (not one or 
 two only), who have given all that they had on 
 earth to their family or friends — the poor servant 
 ' casting her two mites into the treasury ', denying 
 herself the ordinary comforts of life for the sake of 
 an erring parent or brother ; that is not probably 
 an uncommon case, and as near an approach as in 
 this life we make to heaven. And there may be 
 some one or two rare natures in the world in whom 
 there is such a divine courtesy, such a gentleness 
 and dignity of soul, that differences of rank seem to 
 vanish before them, and they look upon the face of 
 others, even of their own servants and dependents, 
 only as they are in the sight of God and will be in 
 His kingdom. And there may be some tender and 
 delicate woman among us, who feels that she has 
 a divine vocation to fulfil the most repulsive offices 
 towards the dying inmates of a hospital, or the 
 soldier perishing in a foreign land. Whether such 
 examples of self-sacrifice are good or evil, must 
 depend, not altogether on social or economical 
 principles, but on the spirit of those who offer them, 
 and the power which they have in themselves of 
 ' making all things kin '. And even if the ideal 
 itself were not carried out by us in practice, it has 
 nevertheless what may be termed a truth of feeling. 
 ' Let them that have riches be as though they had 
 them not.' ' Let the rich man wear the load lightly ; 
 he will one day fold them up as a vesture.'' Let not 
 the refinement of society make us forget that it is 
 not the refined only who are received into the king- 
 dom of God ; nor the daintiness of life hide from 
 us the bodily evils of which the rich man and 
 Lazarus are alike heirs. Thoughts such as these
 
 38 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 have the power to reunite us to our fellow creatures 
 from whom the accidents of birth, position, wealth, 
 have separated us ; they soften our hearts towards 
 them, when divided not only by vice and ignorance, 
 but what is even a greater barrier, difference of 
 manners and associations. For if there be anything 
 in our own fortune superior to that of others, 
 instead of idolizing or cherishing it in the blood, the 
 Gospel would have us cast it from us ; and if there 
 be anything mean or despised in those with whom 
 we have to do, the Gospel would have us regard 
 such as friends and brethren, yea, even as having the 
 person of Christ. 
 
 Another instance of apparent, if not real neglect 
 of the precepts of Scripture, is furnished by the 
 commandment against swearing. No precept about 
 divorce is so plain, so universal, so exclusive as this ; 
 'Swear not at all. 1 Yet we all know how the 
 custom of Christian countries has modified this 
 'counsel of perfection 1 which was uttered by the 
 Saviour. This is the more remarkable because in 
 this case the precept is not, as in the former, 
 practically impossible of fulfilment or even difficult. 
 And yet in this instance again, the body who have 
 endeavoured to follow more nearly the letter of our 
 Lord^ commandment, seem to have gone against the 
 common sense of the Christian world. Or to add 
 one more example : Who, that hears of the Sabba- 
 tarianism, as it is called, of some Protestant countries, 
 would imagine that the Author of our religion had 
 cautioned His disciples, not against the violation of 
 the Sabbath, but only against its formal and Phari- 
 saical observance ; or that the chiefest of the Apostles 
 had warned the Colossians to ' Let no man judge 
 them in respect of the new moon, or of the sabbath- 
 days 1 (ii. 16).
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 39 
 
 The neglect of another class of passages is even 
 more surprising, the precepts contained in them 
 being quite practicable and in harmony with the 
 existing state of the world. In this instance it 
 seems as if religious teachers had failed to gather 
 those principles of which they stood most in need. 
 'Think ye that those eighteen upon whom the 
 tower of Siloam fell ? ' is the characteristic lesson of 
 the Gospel on the occasion of any sudden visitation. 
 Yet it is another reading of such calamities that is 
 commonly insisted upon. The observation is seldom 
 made respecting the parable of the good Samaritan, 
 that the true neighbour is also a person of a different 
 religion. The words, ' Forbid him not : for there is 
 no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that 
 can lightly speak evil of me, 1 are often said to have 
 no application to sectarian differences in the present 
 day, when the Church is established and miracles 
 have ceased. The conduct of our Lord to the 
 woman taken in adultery, though not intended for 
 our imitation always, yet affords a painful contrast 
 to the excessive severity with which even a Christian 
 society punishes the errors of women. The boldness 
 with which St. Paul applies the principle of in- 
 dividual judgement, * Let every man be fully per- 
 suaded in his own mind, 1 as exhibited also in the 
 words quoted above, 'Let no man judge you in 
 respect of the new moon, or of the sabbath-days, 1 
 is far greater than would be allowed in the present 
 age. Lastly, that the tenet of the damnation of the 
 heathen should ever have prevailed in the Christian 
 world, or that the damnation of Catholics should 
 have been a received opinion among Protestants, 
 implies a strange forgetfulness of such passages as 
 Rom. ii. 1-16. ' Who rewardeth every man accord- 
 ing to his work, 1 and ' When the Gentiles, which
 
 40 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 know not the law, do by nature the things contained 
 in the law', &c. What a difference between the 
 simple statement which the Apostle makes of the 
 justice of God and the * uncovenanted mercies ' or 
 ' invincible ignorance ' of theologians half reluctant 
 to give up, yet afraid to maintain the advantage 
 of denying salvation to those who are * extra palum 
 Ecclesiae ' ! 
 
 The same habit of silence or misinterpretation 
 extends to words or statements of Scripture in which 
 doctrines are thought to be interested. When main- 
 taining the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, we do 
 not readily recall the verse, ' of that hour knoweth no 
 man, no not the Angels of God, neither the Son, but 
 the Father' (Mark xiii. 32). The temper or feeling 
 which led St. Ambrose to doubt the genuineness of 
 the words marked in italics, leads Christians in our 
 own day to pass them over. We are scarcely just to 
 the Millenarians or to those who maintain the con- 
 tinuance of miracles or spiritual gifts in the Christian 
 Church, in not admitting the degree of support which 
 is afforded to their views by many passages of Scrip- 
 ture. The same remark applies to the Predestinarian 
 controversy ; the Calvinist is often hardly dealt with, 
 in being deprived of his real standing ground in the 
 third and ninth chapters of the Epistle to the 
 Romans. And the Protestant who thinks himself 
 bound to prove from Scripture the very details of 
 doctrine or discipline which are maintained in his 
 Church, is often obliged to have recourse to harsh 
 methods, and sometimes to deny appearances which 
 seem to favour some particular tenet of Roman 
 Catholicism (Matt. xvi. 18, 19; xviii. 18: ICor. iii.15). 
 The Roman Catholic, on the other hand, scarcely 
 observes that nearly all the distinctive articles of his 
 creed are wanting in the New Testament; the Cal-
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 41 
 
 vinist in fact ignores almost the whole of the sacred 
 volume for the sake of a few verses. The truth is, 
 that in seeking to prove our own opinions out of 
 Scripture, we are constantly falling into the common 
 fallacy of opening our eyes to one class of facts and 
 closing them to another. The favourite verses shine 
 like stars, while the rest of the page is thrown into 
 the shade. 
 
 Nor indeed is it easy to say what is the meaning of 
 'proving a doctrine from Scripture 1 . For when we 
 demand logical equivalents and similarity of circum- 
 stances, when we balance adverse statements, St. 
 James and St. Paul, the New Testament with the Old, 
 it will be hard to demonstrate from Scripture any 
 complex system either of doctrine or practice. The 
 Bible is not a book of statutes in which words have 
 been chosen to cover the multitude of cases, but in 
 the greater portion of it, especially the Gospels and 
 Epistles, 'like a man talking to his friend.' Nay, 
 more, it is a book written in the East, which is in 
 some degree liable to be misunderstood, because it 
 speaks the language and has the feeling of Eastern 
 lands. Nor can we readily determine in explaining 
 the words of our Lord or of St. Paul, how much (even 
 of some of the passages just quoted) is to be attri- 
 buted to Oriental modes of speech. Expressions 
 which would be regarded as rhetorical exaggerations 
 in the Western world are the natural vehicles of 
 thought to an Eastern people. How great then 
 must be the confusion where an attempt is made to 
 draw out these Oriental modes with the severity of a 
 philosophical or legal argument ! Is it not such a use 
 of the words of Christ which He Himself rebukes 
 when He says ? ' It is the spirit that quickeneth, the 
 flesh profiteth nothing 1 (John vi. 52, 63). 
 
 There is a further way in which the language of
 
 42 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 creeds and liturgies as well as the ordinary theological 
 use of terms exercises a disturbing influence on the 
 interpretation of Scripture. Words which occur in 
 Scripture are singled out and incorporated in systems, 
 like stones taken out of an old building and put into 
 a new one. They acquire a technical meaning more 
 or less divergent from the original one. It is obvious 
 that their use in Scripture, and not their later and 
 technical sense, must furnish the rule of interpre- 
 tation. We should not have recourse to the meaning 
 of a word in Polybius, for the explanation of its use 
 in Plato, or to the turn of a sentence in Lycophron, 
 to illustrate a construction of Aeschylus. It is the 
 same kind of anachronism which would interpret 
 Scripture by the scholastic or theological use of the 
 language of Scripture. It is remarkable that this use 
 is indeed partial, that is to say it affects one class of 
 words and not another. Love and truth, for example, 
 have never been theological terms ; grace and faith, 
 on the other hand, always retain an association with 
 the Pelagian or Lutheran controversies. Justification 
 and inspiration are derived from verbs which occur 
 in Scripture, and the later substantive has clearly 
 affected the meaning of the original verb or verbal in 
 the places where they occur. The remark might be 
 further illustrated by the use of Scriptural language 
 respecting the Sacraments, which has also had a reflex 
 influence on its interpretation in many passages of 
 Scripture, especially in the Gospel of St. John (John 
 iii. 5 ; vi. 56, &c). Minds which are familiar with 
 the mystical doctrine of the Sacraments seem to see a 
 reference to them in almost every place in the Old 
 Testament as well as in the New, in which the words 
 ' water ', or ' bread and wine ' may happen to occur. 
 
 Other questions meet us on the threshold, of 
 a different kind, which also affect the interpretation
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 43 
 
 of Scripture, and therefore demand an answer. Is it 
 admitted that the Scripture has one and only one 
 true meaning ? Or are we to follow the fathers into 
 mystical and allegorical explanations ? or with the 
 majority of modern interpreters to confine ourselves 
 to the double senses of prophecy, and the symbolism 
 of the Gospel in the law ? In either case, we assume 
 what can never be proved, and an instrument is intro- 
 duced of such subtlety and pliability as to make the 
 Scriptures mean anything — ' Gallus in campanilij as 
 the Waldenses described it ; ' the weathercock on the 
 church tower,"' which is turned hither and thither by 
 every wind of doctrine. That the present age has 
 grown out of the mystical methods of the early fathers 
 is a part of its intellectual state. No one will now 
 seek to find hidden meanings in the scarlet thread 
 of Rahab, or the number of Abraham's followers, 
 or in the little circumstance mentioned after the 
 resurrection of the Saviour that St. Peter was the 
 first to enter the sepulchre. To most educated 
 persons in the nineteenth century, these applications 
 of Scripture appear foolish. Yet it is rather the 
 excess of the method which provokes a smile than the 
 method itself. For many remains of the mystical 
 interpretation exist among ourselves ; it is not the 
 early fathers only who have read the Bible crosswise, 
 or deciphered it as a book of symbols. And the 
 uncertainty is the same in any part of Scripture if 
 there is a departure from the plain and obvious 
 meaning. If, for example, we alternate the verses in 
 which our Lord speaks of the last things between the 
 day of judgement and the destruction of Jerusalem ; 
 or, in the elder prophecies, which are the counterparts 
 of these, make a corresponding division between the 
 temporal and the spiritual Israel ; or again if we 
 attribute to the details of the Mosaical ritual a
 
 44 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 reference to the New Testament; or, once more, 
 supposing the passage of the Red Sea to be regarded 
 not merely as a figure of baptism, but as a pre- 
 ordained type, the principle is conceded ; there is 
 no good reason why the scarlet thread of Rahab 
 should not receive the explanation given to it by 
 Clement. A little more or a little less of the method 
 does not make the difference between certainty and 
 uncertainty in the interpretation of Scripture. In 
 whatever degree it is practised it is equally incapable 
 of being reduced to any rule ; it is the interpreter's 
 fancy, and is likely to be not less but more dangerous 
 and extravagant when it adds the charm of authority 
 from its use in past ages. 
 
 The question which has been suggested runs up 
 into a more general one, ' the relation between the 
 Old and New Testaments. 1 For the Old Testament 
 will receive a different meaning accordingly as it is 
 explained from itself or from the New. In the first 
 case a careful and conscientious study of each one 
 for itself is all that is required ; 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 corres- 
 ponding to the things that were to be in the latter 
 days. And this question of itself stirs 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 ? 
 
 Our object is not to attempt here the determina- 
 tion 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 interpre- 
 tation of Scripture. With one more example of 
 another kind we may close this part of the subject.
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 45 
 
 The origin of the three first Gospels is an inquiry 
 which has not been much considered by English 
 theologians since the days of Bishop Marsh. The 
 difficulty of the question has been sometimes mis- 
 understood ; the point being how there can be so much 
 agreement in words, and so much disagreement both 
 in words and facts ; the double phenomenon is the 
 real perplexity — how in short there can be all degrees 
 of similarity and dissimilarity, the kind and degree 
 of similarity being such as to make it necessary to 
 suppose that large portions are copied from each 
 other or from common documents ; the dissimilarities 
 being of a kind which seem to render impossible 
 any knowledge in the authors of one another's 
 writings. The most probable solution of this diffi- 
 culty is, that the tradition on which the three first 
 Gospels are based was at first preserved orally, and 
 slowly put together and written in the three forms 
 which it assumed at a very early period, those forms 
 being in some places, perhaps, modified by transla- 
 tion. It is not necessary to develop this hypothesis 
 farther. The point to be noticed is, that whether 
 this or some other theory be the true account (and 
 some such account is demonstrably necessary), the 
 assumption of such a theory, or rather the observation 
 of the facts on which it rests, cannot but exercise 
 an influence on interpretation. We can no longer 
 speak of three independent witnesses of the Gospel 
 narrative. Hence there follow some other conse- 
 quences. (1) There is no longer the same necessity 
 as heretofore to reconcile inconsistent narratives ; 
 the harmony of the Gospels only means the parallel- 
 ism of similar words. (2) There is no longer any 
 need to enforce everywhere the connexion of suc- 
 cessive verses, for the same words will be found to 
 occur in different connexions in the different Gospels.
 
 46 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 (3) Nor can the designs attributed to their authors 
 be regarded as the free handling of the same subject 
 on different plans ; the difference consisting chiefly 
 in the occurrence or absence of local or verbal ex- 
 planations, or the addition or omission of certain 
 passages. Lastly, it is evident that no weight can 
 be given to traditional statements of facts about 
 the authorship, as, for example, that respecting St. 
 Mark being the interpreter of St. Peter, because the 
 Fathers who have handed down these statements 
 were ignorant or unobservant of the great fact, 
 which is proved by internal evidence, that they are 
 for the most part of common origin. 
 
 Until these and the like questions are determined 
 by interpreters, it is not possible that there should 
 be agreement in the interpretation of Scripture. 
 The Protestant and Catholic, the Unitarian and 
 Trinitarian will continue to fight their battle on the 
 ground of the New Testament. The Preterists and 
 Futurists, those who maintain that the roll of 
 prophecies is completed in past history, or in the 
 apostolical age ; those who look forward to a long 
 series of events which are yet to come [es acjxivts tov 
 ixvdov avevelms ovk 4\€l eAeyxoy], m &y alike claim 
 the authority of the Book of Daniel, or the Revela- 
 tion. Apparent coincidences will always be discovered 
 by those who want to find them. Where there is no 
 critical interpretation of Scripture, there will be 
 a mystical or rhetorical one. If words have more 
 than one meaning, they may have any meaning. 
 Instead of being a rule of life or faith, Scripture 
 becomes the expression of the ever-changing aspect 
 of religious opinions. The unchangeable word of 
 God, in the name of which we repose, is changed by 
 each age and each generation in accordance with its 
 passing fancy. The book in which we believe all
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 47 
 
 religious truth to be contained, is the most uncer- 
 tain of all books, because interpreted by arbitrary 
 and uncertain methods. 
 
 §3. 
 
 It is probable that some of the preceding state- 
 ments may be censured as a wanton exposure of the 
 difficulties of Scripture. It will be said that such 
 inquiries are for the few, while the printed page lies 
 open to the many, and that the obtrusion of them 
 may offend some weaker brother, some half-educated 
 or prejudiced soul, ' for whom, 1 nevertheless, in the 
 touching language of St. Paul, ' Christ died. 1 A 
 confusion of the heart and head may lead sensitive 
 minds into a desertion of the principles of the 
 Christian life, which are their own witness, because 
 they are in doubt about facts which are really 
 external to them. Great evil to character may 
 sometimes ensue from such causes. 'No man can 
 serve two ' opinions without a sensible harm to his 
 nature. The consciousness of this responsibility 
 should be always present to writers on theology. 
 But the responsibility is really twofold ; for there 
 is a duty to speak the truth as well as a duty to 
 withhold it. The voice of a majority of the clergy 
 throughout the world, the half sceptical, half con- 
 servative instincts of many laymen, perhaps, also, 
 individual interest, are in favour of the latter course; 
 while a higher expediency pleads that 'honesty is 
 the best policy ', and that truth alone ' makes free '. 
 To this it may be replied, that truth is not truth to 
 those who are unable to use it ; no reasonable man 
 would attempt to lay before the illiterate such a 
 question as that concerning the origin of the Gospels. 
 And yet it may be rejoined once more, the healthy 
 tone of religion among the poor depends upon
 
 48 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 freedom of thought and inquiry among the edu- 
 cated. In this conflict of reasons, individual judge- 
 ment must at last decide. That there has been no 
 rude, or improper unveiling of the difficulties of 
 Scripture in the preceding pages, is thought to be 
 shown by the following considerations : 
 
 First, that the difficulties referred to are very well 
 known ; they force themselves on the attention, not 
 only of the student, but of every intelligent reader 
 of the New Testament, whether in Greek or English. 
 The treatment of such difficulties in theological 
 works is no measure of public opinion respecting 
 them. Thoughtful persons, whose minds have 
 turned towards theology, are continually discovering 
 that the critical observations which they make 
 themselves have been made also by others apparently 
 without concert. The truth is that they have been 
 led to them by the same causes, and these again lie 
 deep in the tendencies of education and literature in 
 the present age. But no one is willing to break 
 through the reticence which is observed on these 
 subjects ; hence a sort of smouldering scepticism. 
 It is probable that the distrust is greatest at the 
 time when the greatest efforts are made to con- 
 ceal it. Doubt comes in at the window, when 
 Inquiry is denied at the door. The thoughts of 
 able and highly educated young men almost always 
 stray towards the first principles of things ; it is 
 a great injury to them, and tends to raise in their 
 minds a sort of incurable suspicion, to find that 
 there is one book of the fruit of the knowledge of 
 which they are forbidden freely to taste, that is, the 
 Bible. The same spirit renders the Christian 
 Minister almost powerless in the hands of his 
 opponents. He can give no true answer to the 
 mechanic or artisan who has either discovered by his
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 49 
 
 mother-wit or who retails at second-hand the objec- 
 tions of critics ; for he is unable to look at things 
 as they truly are. 
 
 Secondly, as the time has come when it is no 
 longer possible to ignore the results of criticism, it 
 is of importance that Christianity should be seen to 
 be in harmony with them. That objections to some 
 received views should be valid, and yet that they 
 should be always held up as the objections of infidels, 
 is a mischief to the Christian cause. It is a mischief 
 that critical observations which any intelligent man 
 can make for himself, should be ascribed to atheism 
 or unbelief. It would be a strange and almost 
 incredible thing that the Gospel, which at first made 
 war only on the vices of mankind, should now be 
 opposed to one of the highest and rarest of human 
 virtues — the love of truth. And that in the present 
 day the great object of Christianity should be, not 
 to change the lives of men, but to prevent them 
 from changing their opinion ; that would be a 
 singular inversion of the purposes for which Christ 
 came into the world. The Christian religion is in 
 a false position when all the tendencies of knowledge 
 are opposed to it. Such a position cannot be long 
 maintained, or can only end in the withdrawal of 
 the educated classes from the influences of religion. 
 It is a grave consideration whether we ourselves may 
 not be in an earlier stage of the same religious 
 dissolution, which seems to have gone further in 
 Italy and France. The reason for thinking so is not 
 to be sought in the external circumstances of our 
 own or any other religious communion, but in the 
 progress of ideas with which Christian teachers 
 seem to be ill at ease. Time was when the Gospel 
 was before the age ; when it breathed a new life into 
 a decaying world — when the difficulties of Christianity 
 
 JOWETT II E
 
 50 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 were difficulties of the heart only, and the highest 
 minds found in its truths not only the rule of their 
 lives, but a well-spring of intellectual delight. Is it 
 to be held a thing impossible that the Christian 
 religion, instead of shrinking into itself, may again 
 embrace the thoughts of men upon the earth ? Or is 
 it true that since the Reformation 'all intellect has 
 gone the other way , ? and that in Protestant countries 
 reconciliation is as hopeless as Protestants commonly 
 believe to be the case in Catholic ? 
 
 Those who hold the possibility of such a reconcile- 
 ment or restoration of belief, are anxious to disengage 
 Christianity from all suspicion of disguise or unfair- 
 ness. They wish to preserve the historical use of 
 Scripture as the continuous witness in all ages of 
 the higher things in the heart of man, as the inspired 
 source of truth and the way to the better life. 
 They are willing to take away some of the external 
 supports, because they are not needed and do harm ; 
 also, because they interfere with the meaning. They 
 have a faith, not that after a period of transition all 
 things will remain just as they were before, but that 
 they will all come round again to the use of man 
 and to the glory of God. When interpreted like 
 any other book, by the same rules of evidence and 
 the same canons of criticism, the Bible will still 
 remain unlike any other book ; its beauty will be 
 freshly seen, as of a picture which is restored after 
 many ages to its original state ; it will create a new 
 interest and make for itself a new kind of authority 
 by the life which is in it. It will be a spirit and not 
 a letter ; as it was in the beginning, having an 
 influence like that of the spoken word, or the book 
 newly found. The purer the light in the human 
 heart, the more it will have an expression of itself in 
 the mind of Christ ; the greater the knowledge of
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 51 
 
 the development of man, the truer will be the 
 insight gained into the 'increasing purpose 1 of 
 revelation. In which also the individual soul has 
 a practical part, finding a sympathy with its own 
 imperfect feelings, in the broken utterance of the 
 Psalmist or the Prophet as well as in the fulness of 
 Christ. The harmony between Scripture and the 
 life of man, in all its stages, may be far greater than 
 appears at present. No one can form any notion 
 from what we see around us, of the power which 
 Christianity might have if it were at one with the 
 conscience of man, and not at variance with his 
 intellectual convictions. There, a world weary of 
 the heat and dust of controversy — of speculations 
 about God and man — weary too of the rapidity of 
 its own motion, would return home and find rest. 
 
 But for the faith that the Gospel might win again 
 the minds of intellectual men, it would be better to 
 leave religion to itself, instead of attempting to draw 
 them together. Other walks in literature have 
 peace and pleasure and profit ; the path of the 
 critical Interpreter of Scripture is almost always 
 a thorny one in England. It is not worth while for 
 any one to enter upon it who is not supported by 
 a sense that he has a Christian and moral object. 
 For although an Interpreter of Scripture in modern 
 times will hardly say with the emphasis of the 
 Apostle, 'Woe is me, if I speak not the truth 
 without regard to consequences,' yet he too may feel 
 it a matter of duty not to conceal the things which 
 he knows. He does not hide the discrepancies of 
 Scripture, because the acknowledgement of them is 
 the first step towards agreement among interpreters. 
 He would restore the original meaning, because 
 ' seven other , meanings take the place of it ; the 
 book is made the sport of opinion and the instrument 
 
 E 2
 
 52 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 of perversion of life. He would take the excuses of 
 the head out of the way of the heart ; there is hope 
 too that by drawing Christians together on the 
 ground of Scripture, he may also draw them nearer 
 to one another. He is not afraid that inquiries, 
 which have for their object the truth, can ever be 
 displeasing to the God of truth ; or that the Word 
 of God is in any such sense a word as to be hurt by 
 investigations into its human origin and conception. 
 It may be thought another ungracious aspect of 
 the preceding remarks, that they cast a slight upon 
 the interpreters of Scripture in former ages. The 
 early Fathers, the Roman Catholic mystical writers, 
 the Swiss and German Reformers, the Nonconformist 
 divines, have qualities for which we look in vain 
 among ourselves ; they throw an intensity of light 
 upon the page of Scripture which we nowhere find in 
 modern commentaries. But it is not the light of 
 interpretation. They have a faith which seems 
 indeed to have grown dim nowadays, but that faith 
 is not drawn from the study of Scripture ; it is the 
 element in which their own mind moves which over- 
 flows on the meaning of the text. The words of 
 Scripture suggest to them their own thoughts or 
 feelings. They are preachers, or in the New Testa- 
 ment sense of the word, prophets rather than inter- 
 preters. There is nothing in such a view derogatory 
 to the saints and doctors of former ages. That 
 Aquinas or Bernard did not shake themselves free 
 from the mystical method of the Patristic times, or 
 the Scholastic one which was more peculiarly their 
 own ; that Luther and Calvin read the Scriptures in 
 connexion w r ith the ideas which were kindling in the 
 mind of their age, and the events which were passing 
 before their eyes, these and similar remarks are not 
 to be construed as depreciatory of the genius or
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 53 
 
 learning of famous men of old ; they relate only to 
 their interpretation of Scripture, in which it is no 
 slight upon them to maintain that they were not 
 before their day. 
 
 What remains may be comprised in a few precepts, 
 or rather is the expansion of a single one. Interpret 
 the Scripture like any other book. There are many 
 respects in which Scripture is unlike any other book ; 
 these will appear in the results of such an interpre- 
 tation. The first step is to know the meaning, and 
 this can only be done in the same careful and impar- 
 tial way that we ascertain the meaning of Sophocles 
 or of Plato. The subordinate principles which flow 
 out of this general one will also be gathered from 
 the observation of Scripture. No other science of 
 Hermeneutics is possible but an inductive one, that 
 is to say, one based on the language and thoughts 
 and narrations of the sacred writers. And it would 
 be well to carry the theory of interpretation no 
 further than in the case of other works. Excessive 
 system tends to create an impression that the mean- 
 ing of Scripture is out of our reach, or is to be attained 
 in some other way than by the exercise of manly 
 sense and industry. Who would write a bulky trea- 
 tise about the method to be pursued in interpreting 
 Plato or Sophocles? Let us not set out on our 
 journey so heavily equipped that there is little chance 
 of our arriving at the end of it. The method creates 
 itself as we go on, beginning only with a few reflections 
 directed against plain errors. Such reflections are 
 the rules of common sense, which we acknowledge with 
 respect to other works written in dead languages ; 
 without pretending to novelty they may help us to 
 ' return to nature ' in the study of the sacred writings. 
 
 First, it may be laid down that Scripture has one 
 meaning — the meaning which it had to the mind of
 
 54 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, 
 to the hearers or readers who first received it. 
 Another view may be easier or more familiar to us, 
 seeming to receive a light and interest from the 
 circumstances of our own age. But such accommo- 
 dation of the text must be laid aside by the inter- 
 preter, whose business is to place himself as nearly 
 as possible in the position of the sacred writer. 
 That is no easy task — to call up the inner and outer 
 life of the contemporaries of our Saviour ; to follow 
 the abrupt and involved utterance of St. Paul or of 
 one of the old Prophets ; to trace the meaning of 
 words when language first became Christian. He 
 will often have to choose the more difficult interpre- 
 tation (Gal. ii. 20; Rom. iii. 15, &c), and to refuse 
 one more in agreement with received opinions, because 
 the latter is less true to the style and time of the 
 author. He may incur the charge of singularity, or 
 confusion of ideas, or ignorance of Greek, from a 
 misunderstanding of the peculiarity of the subject in 
 the person who makes the charge. For if it be said 
 that the translation of some Greek words is contrary 
 to the usages of grammar (Gal. iv. 13), that is not in 
 every instance to be denied ; the point is, whether 
 the usages of grammar are always observed. Or if it 
 be objected to some interpretation of Scripture that 
 it is difficult and perplexing, the answer is — 'that 
 may very well be — it is the fact, 1 arising out of differ- 
 ences in the modes of thought of other times, or 
 irregularities in the use of language which no art of 
 the interpreter can evade. One consideration should 
 be borne in mind, that the Bible is the only book in 
 the world written in different styles and at many 
 different times, which is in the hands of persons of all 
 degrees of knowledge and education. The benefit of 
 this outweighs the evil, yet the evil should be ad-
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 55 
 
 mitted — namely, that it leads to a hasty and partial 
 interpretation of Scripture, which often obscures the 
 true one. A sort of conflict arises between scientific- 
 criticism and popular opinion. The indiscriminate 
 use of Scripture has a further tendency to maintain 
 erroneous readings or translations ; some which are 
 allowed to be such by scholars have been stereotyped 
 in the mind of the English reader ; and it becomes 
 almost a political question how far we can venture 
 to disturb them. 
 
 There are difficulties of another kind in many 
 parts of Scripture, the depth and inwardness of 
 which require a measure of the same qualities in the 
 interpreter himself. There are notes struck in places, 
 which like some discoveries of science have sounded 
 before their time ; and only after many days have 
 been caught up and found a response on the earth. 
 There are germs of truth which after thousands of 
 years have never yet taken root in the world. There 
 are lessons in the Prophets which, however simple, 
 mankind have not yet learned even in theory ; and 
 which the complexity of society rather tends to 
 hide ; aspects of human life in Job and Ecclesiastes 
 which have a truth of desolation about them which 
 we faintly realize in ordinary circumstances. It is, 
 perhaps, the greatest difficulty of all to enter into 
 the meaning of the words of Christ — so gentle, so 
 human, so divine, neither adding to them no marring 
 their simplicity. The attempt to illustrate or draw 
 them out in detail, even to guard against their 
 abuse, is apt to disturb the balance of truth. The 
 interpreter needs nothing short of 'fashioning 1 in 
 himself the image of the mind of Christ. He has 
 to be born again into a new spiritual or intellectual 
 world, from which the thoughts of this world are 
 shut out. It is one of the highest tasks on which
 
 56 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 the labour of a life can be spent, to bring the words 
 of Christ a little nearer the heart of man. 
 
 But while acknowledging this inexhaustible or 
 infinite character of the sacred writings, it does not, 
 therefore, follow that Ave are willing to admit of 
 hidden or mysterious meanings in them : in the 
 same way we recognize the wonders and complexity 
 of the laws of nature to be far beyond what eye has 
 seen or knowledge reached, yet it is not therefore to 
 be supposed that we acknowledge the existence of 
 some other laws, different in kind from those we 
 know, which are incapable of philosophical analysis. 
 In like manner we have no reason to attribute to 
 the Prophet or Evangelist any second or hidden 
 sense different from that which appears on the 
 surface. All that the Prophet meant may not have 
 been consciously present to his mind ; there were 
 depths which to himself also were but half revealed. 
 He beheld the fortunes of Israel passing into the 
 heavens ; the temporal kingdom was fading into an 
 eternal one. It is not to be supposed that what he 
 saw at a distance only was clearly defined to him ; 
 or that the universal truth which was appearing and 
 reappearing in the history of the surrounding world 
 took a purely spiritual or abstract form in his mind. 
 There is a sense in which we may still say with 
 Lord Bacon, that the words of prophecy are to be 
 interpreted as the words of one ' with whom a thou- 
 sand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand 
 years \ But that is no reason for turning days into 
 years, or for interpreting the things ' that must 
 shortly come to pass' in the book of Revelation, as 
 the events of modern history, or for separating the 
 day of judgement from the destruction of Jerusalem 
 in the Gospels. The double meaning which is given 
 to our Saviour's discourse respecting the last things
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 57 
 
 is not that ' form of eternity ' of which Lord Bacon 
 speaks ; it resembles rather the doubling of an 
 object when seen through glasses placed at different 
 angles. It is true also that there are types in 
 Scripture which were regarded as such by the Jews 
 themselves, as for example, the scapegoat, or the 
 paschal lamb. But there is no proof of all outward 
 ceremonies being types when Scripture is silent ; — if 
 we assume the New Testament as a tradition running 
 parallel with the Old, may not the Roman Catholic 
 assume with equal reason a tradition running parallel 
 with the New ? Prophetic symbols, again, have often 
 the same meaning in different places (e.g. the four 
 beasts or living creatures, the colours white or red) ; 
 the reason is that this meaning is derived from some 
 natural association (as of fruitfulness, purity, or the 
 like) ; or again, they are borrowed in some of the 
 later prophecies from earlier ones ; we are not, there- 
 fore, justified in supposing any hidden connexion in 
 the prophecies where they occur. Neither is there 
 any ground for assuming design of any other kind 
 in Scripture any more than in Plato or Homer. 
 Wherever there is beauty and order, there is design ; 
 but there is no proof of any artificial design, such as 
 is often traced by the Fathers, in the relation of the 
 several parts of a book, or of the several books to 
 each other. That is one of those mischievous notions 
 which enables us, under the disguise of reverence, to 
 make Scripture mean what we please. Nothing that 
 can be said of the greatness or sublimity, or truth, 
 or depth, or tenderness, of many passages, is too 
 much. But that greatness is of a simple kind ; it is 
 not increased by double senses, or systems of types, 
 or elaborate structure, or design. If every sentence 
 was a mystery, every word a riddle, every letter 
 a symbol, that would not make the Scriptures more
 
 58 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 worthy of a Divine author; it is a heathenish or 
 Rabbinical fancy which reads them in this way. 
 Such complexity would not place them above but 
 below human compositions in general ; for it would 
 deprive them of the ordinary intelligibleness of 
 human language. It is not for a Christian theo- 
 logian to say that words were given to mankind to 
 conceal their thoughts, neither was revelation given 
 them to conceal the Divine. 
 
 The second rule is an application of the general 
 principle ; ' interpret Scripture from itself, 1 as in 
 other respects like any other book written in an age 
 and country of which little or no other literature 
 survives, and about which we know almost nothing 
 except what is derived from its pages. Not that all 
 the parts of Scripture are to be regarded as an 
 indistinguishable mass. The Old Testament is not 
 to be identified with the New, nor the Law with the 
 Prophets, nor the Gospels with the Epistles, nor the 
 Epistles of St. Paul to be violently harmonized with 
 the Epistle of St. James. Each writer, each suc- 
 cessive age, has characteristics of its own, as strongly 
 marked, or more strongly than those which are found 
 in the authors or periods of classical literature. 
 These differences are not to be lost in the idea of 
 a Spirit from whom they proceed or by which they 
 were overruled. And therefore, illustration of one 
 part of Scripture by another should be confined to 
 writings of the same age and the same authors, 
 except where the writings of different ages or persons 
 offer obvious similarities. It may be said further 
 that illustration should be chiefly derived, not only 
 from the same author, but from the same writing, 
 or from one of the same period of his life. For 
 example, the comparison of St. John and the 
 'synoptic' Gospels, or of the Gospel of St. John
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 59 
 
 with the Revelation of St. John, will tend rather to 
 confuse than to elucidate the meaning of either; 
 while, on the other hand, the comparison of the 
 Prophets with one another, and with the Psalms, 
 offers many valuable helps and lights to the inter- 
 preter. Again, the connexion between the Epistles 
 written by the Apostle St. Paul about the same time 
 (e.g. Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians — 
 Colossians, Philippians, Ephesians — compared with 
 Romans, Colossians — Ephesians, Galatians, &c.) is 
 far closer than of Epistles which are separated by an 
 interval of only a few years. 
 
 But supposing all this to be understood, and that 
 by the interpretation of Scripture from itself is 
 meant a real interpretation of like by like, it may 
 be asked, what is it that we gain from a minute com- 
 parison of a particular author or writing ? The 
 indiscriminate use of parallel passages taken from 
 one end of Scripture and applied to the other (except 
 so far as earlier compositions may have afforded the 
 material or the form of later ones) is useless and 
 uncritical. The uneducated or imperfectly educated 
 person who looks out the marginal references of the 
 English Bible, imagining himself in this way to gain 
 a clearer insight into the Divine meaning, is really 
 following the religious associations of his own mind. 
 Even the critical use of parallel passages is not 
 without danger. For are we to conclude that an 
 author meant in one place what he says in another ? 
 Shall we venture to mend a corrupt phrase on the 
 model of some other phrase, which memory, prevailing 
 over judgement, calls up and thrusts into the text ? 
 It is this fallacy which has filled the pages of classical 
 writers with useless and unfounded emendations. 
 
 The meaning of the Canon ' Non nisi ex Scripturd 
 Scripturam poles interpretari \ is only this, ' That we
 
 60 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 cannot understand Scripture without becoming fami- 
 liar with it.' Scripture is a world by itself, from 
 which we must exclude foreign influences, whether 
 theological or classical. To get inside that world is 
 an effort of thought and imagination, requiring the 
 sense of a poet as well as a critic — demanding much 
 more than learning a degree of original power and 
 intensity of mind. 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. The intelligent mind will ask its own 
 questions, and find for the most part its own answers. 
 The true use of interpretation is to get rid of inter- 
 pretation, and leave us alone in company with the 
 author. When the meaning of Greek words is once 
 known, the young student has almost all the real 
 materials which are possessed by the greatest Biblical 
 scholar, in the book itself. For almost our whole 
 knowledge of the history of the Jews is derived from 
 the Old Testament and the Apocryphal books, and 
 almost our whole knowledge of the life of Christ and 
 of the Apostolical age is derived from the New ; 
 whatever is added to them is either conjecture, or 
 very slight topographical or chronological illustration. 
 For this reason the rule given above, which is applic- 
 able to all books, is applicable to the New Testament 
 more than any other. 
 
 Yet in this consideration of the separate books of 
 Scripture it is not to be forgotten that they have 
 also a sort of continuity. We make a separate study 
 of the subject, of the mode of thought, in some 
 degree also of the language of each book. And at 
 length the idea arises in our minds of a common 
 literature, a pervading life, an overruling law. It
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 61 
 
 may be compared to the effect of some natural scene 
 in which we suddenly perceive a harmony or picture, 
 or to the imperfect appearance of design which sug- 
 gests itself in looking at the surface of the globe. 
 That is to say, there is nothing miraculous or artificial 
 in the arrangement of the books of Scripture ; it is 
 the result, not the design, which appears in them when 
 bound in the same volume. Or if we like so to say, 
 there is design, but a natural design which is revealed 
 to after ages. Such continuity or design is best 
 expressed under some notion of progress or growth, 
 not regular, however, but with broken and imperfect 
 stages, which the want of knowledge prevents our 
 minutely defining. The great truth of the unity of 
 God was there from the first ; slowly as the morning 
 broke in the heavens, like some central light, it filled 
 and afterwards dispersed the mists of human passion 
 in which it was itself enveloped. A change passes 
 over the Jewish religion from fear to love, from power 
 to wisdom, from the justice of God to the mercy of 
 God, from the nation to the individual, from this 
 world to another ; from the visitation of the sins of 
 the fathers upon the children, to 'every soul shall 
 bear its own iniquity ' ; from the fire, the earthquake, 
 and the storm, to the still small voice. There never 
 was a time after the deliverance from Egypt, in 
 which the Jewish people did not bear a kind of 
 witness against the cruelty and licentiousness of the 
 surrounding tribes. In the decline of the monarchy, 
 as the kingdom itself was sinking under foreign 
 conquerors, whether springing from contact with the 
 outer world, or from some reaction within, the under- 
 growth of morality gathers strength ; first, in the anti- 
 cipation of prophecy, secondly, like a green plant in 
 the hollow rind of Pharisaism, — and individuals pray 
 and commune with God each one for himself. At
 
 62 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 length the tree of life blossoms ; the faith in immor- 
 tality which had hitherto slumbered in the heart of 
 man, intimated only in doubtful words (2 Sam. xii. 
 23 ; Psalm xvii. 15), or beaming for an instant in 
 dark places (Job xix. 25), has become the prevailing 
 belief. 
 
 There is an interval in the Jewish annals which we 
 often exclude from our thoughts, because it has no 
 record in the canonical writings — extending over 
 about four hundred years, from the last of the 
 prophets of the Old Testament to the forerunner of 
 Christ in the New. This interval, about which we 
 know so little, which is regarded by many as a 
 portion of secular rather than of sacred history, was 
 nevertheless as fruitful in religious changes as any 
 similar period which preceded. The establishment 
 of the Jewish sects, and the wars of the Maccabees, 
 probably exercised as great an influence on Judaism 
 as the captivity itself. A third influence was that of 
 the Alexandrian literature, which was attracting the 
 Jewish intellect, at the same time that the Galilean 
 zealot was tearing the nation in pieces with the 
 doctrine that it was lawful to call 'no man master 
 but God '. In contrast with that wild fanaticism as 
 well as with the proud Pharisee, came One most 
 unlike all that had been before, as the kings or rulers 
 of mankind. In an age which was the victim of its 
 own passions, the creature of its own circumstances, 
 the slave of its own degenerate religion, our Saviour 
 taught a lesson absolutely free from all the influences 
 of a surrounding world. He made the last perfect 
 revelation of God to man ; a revelation not indeed 
 immediately applicable to the state of society or the 
 world, but in its truth and purity inexhaustible by 
 the after generations of men. And of the first 
 application of the truth which He taught as a counsel
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 63 
 
 of perfection to the actual circumstances of mankind, 
 we have the example in the Epistles. 
 
 Such a general conception of growth or develop- 
 ment in Scripture, beginning with the truth of the 
 Unity of God in the earliest books and ending with 
 the perfection of Christ, naturally springs up in our 
 minds in the perusal of sacred writings. It is a notion 
 of value to the interpreter, for it enables him at the 
 same time to grasp the whole and distinguish the 
 parts. It saves him from the necessity of maintaining 
 that the Old Testament is one and the same every- 
 where ; that the books of Moses contain truths or 
 precepts, such as the duty of prayer or the faith in 
 immortality, or the spiritual interpretation of sacrifice, 
 which no one has ever seen there. It leaves him 
 room enough to admit all the facts of the case. No 
 longer is he required to defend or to explain away 
 David's imprecations against his enemies, or his 
 injunctions to Solomon, any more than his sin in the 
 matter of Uriah. Nor is he hampered with a theory 
 of accommodation. Still, the sense of * the increasing 
 purpose which through the ages ran 1 is present to 
 him, nowhere else continuously discernible or ending 
 in a divine perfection. Nowhere else is there found 
 the same interpenetration of the political and religious 
 element — a whole nation, ' though never good for 
 much at any time, 1 possessed with the conviction that 
 it was living in the face of God — in whom the Sun of 
 righteousness shone upon the corruption of an Eastern 
 nature — the 'fewest of all people 1 , yet bearing the 
 greatest part in the education of the world. Nowhere 
 else among the teachers and benefactors of mankind 
 is there any form like His, in whom the desire of the 
 nation is fulfilled, and ' not of that nation only ', but 
 of all mankind, whom He restores to His Father and 
 their Father, to His God and their God.
 
 64 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Such a growth or development may be regarded 
 as a kind of progress from childhood to manhood. 
 In the child there is an anticipation of truth ; his 
 reason is latent in the form of feeling ; many words 
 are used by him which he imperfectly understands; 
 he is led by temporal promises, believing that to be 
 good is to be happy always ; he is pleased by marvels 
 and has vague terrors. He is confined to a spot of 
 earth, and lives in a sort of prison of sense, yet is 
 bursting also with a fulness of childish life : he 
 imagines God to be like a human father, only 
 greater and more awful ; he is easily impressed with 
 solemn thoughts, but soon 'rises up to play' with 
 other children. It is observable that his ideas of 
 right and wrong are very simple, hardly extending 
 to another life ; they consist chiefly in obedience to 
 his parents, whose word is his law. As he grows 
 older he mixes more and more with others ; first 
 with one or two who have a great influence in the 
 direction of his mind. At length the world opens 
 upon him ; another work of education begins ; and 
 he learns to discern more truly the meaning of 
 things and his relation to men in general. You 
 may complete the image, by supposing that there 
 was a time in his early days when he was a helpless 
 outcast 'in the land of Egypt and the house of 
 bondage \ And as he arrives at manhood he reflects 
 on his former years, the progress of his education, 
 the hardships of his infancy, the home of his youth 
 (the thought of which is ineffaceable in after life), 
 and he now understands that all this was but a 
 preparation for another state of being, in which he 
 is to play a part for himself. And once more in age 
 you may imagine him like the patriarch looking 
 back on the entire past, which he reads anew, 
 perceiving that the events of life had a purpose or
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 65 
 
 result which was not seen at the time ; they seem to 
 him bound " each to each by natural piety \ 
 
 * Which things are an allegory,'' the particulars of 
 which any one may interpret for himself. For the 
 child born after the flesh is the symbol of the child 
 born after the Spirit. ' The law was a schoolmaster 
 to bring men to Christ,"' and now ' we are under a 
 schoolmaster' no longer. The anticipation of truth 
 which came from without to the childhood or youth 
 of the human race is witnessed to within ; the revela- 
 tion of God is not lost but renewed in the heart and 
 understanding of the man. Experience has taught 
 us the application of the lesson in a wider sphere. 
 And many influences have combined to form the 
 ' after life ' of the world. When at the close (shall 
 we say) of a great period in the history of man, we 
 cast our eyes back on the course of events, from the 
 'angel of his presence in the wilderness 1 to the 
 multitude of peoples, nations, languages, who are 
 being drawn together by His Providence — from 
 the simplicity of the pastoral state in the dawn 
 of the world's day, to all the elements of civilization 
 and knowledge which are beginning to meet and 
 mingle in a common life, we also understand that we 
 are no longer in our early home, to which, neverthe- 
 less, we fondly look ; and that the end is yet unseen, 
 and the purposes of God towards the human race 
 only half revealed. And to turn once more to the 
 Interpreter of Scripture, he too feels that the con- 
 tinuous growth of revelation which he traces in the 
 Old and New Testament, is a part of a larger whole ex- 
 tending over the earth and reaching to another world. 
 
 §4. 
 Scripture has an inner life or soul ; it has also an 
 outward body or form. That form is language, 
 
 JOWETT II F
 
 66 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 which imperfectly expresses our common notions, 
 much more those higher truths which religion teaches. 
 At the time when our Saviour came into the world 
 the Greek language was itself in a state of degene- 
 racy and decay. It had lost its poetic force, and 
 was ceasing to have the sway over the mind which 
 classical Greek once held. That is a more impor- 
 tant revolution in the mental history of mankind 
 than we easily conceive in modern times, when all 
 languages sit loosely on thought, and the peculiari- 
 ties or idiosyncrasies of one are corrected by our 
 knowledge of another. It may be numbered among 
 the causes which favoured the growth of Christianity. 
 That degeneracy was a preparation for the Gospel— 
 the decaying soil in which the new elements of life 
 were to come forth — the beginning of another state 
 of man, in which language and mythology and philo- 
 sophy were no longer to exert the same constrain- 
 ing power as in the ancient world. The civilized 
 portion of mankind were becoming of one speech, 
 the diffusion of which along the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean sea made a way for the entrance of 
 Christianity into the human understanding, just 
 as the Roman empire prepared the framework of 
 its outward history. The first of all languages, ' for 
 glory and for beauty,' had become the ' common 
 dialect 1 of the Macedonian kingdoms; it had been 
 moulded in the schools of Alexandria to the ideas 
 of the East and the religious wants of Jews. Neither 
 was it any violence to its nature to be made the 
 vehicle of the new truths which were springing up 
 in the heart of man. The definiteness and absence 
 of reflectiveness in the earlier forms of human speech, 
 would have imposed a sort of limit on the freedom 
 and spirituality of the Gospel ; even the Greek of 
 Plato would have ' coldly furnished forth 1 the words
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 67 
 
 of 'eternal life 1 . A religion which was to be uni- 
 versal required the divisions of languages, as of 
 nations, to be in some degree broken down. [' Poena 
 linguarum dispersit homines, donum linguarum in 
 unum collegit .'] But this community or freedom 
 of language was accompanied by corresponding de- 
 fects ; it had lost its logical precision ; it was less 
 coherent, and more under the influence of association. 
 It might be compared to a garment which allowed 
 and yet impeded the exercise of the mind by being 
 too large and loose for it. 
 
 From the inner life of Scripture it is time to pass 
 on to the consideration of this outward form, includ- 
 ing that other framework of modes of thought and 
 figures of speech which is between the two. A know- 
 ledge of the original language is a necessary qualifi- 
 cation of the Interpreter of Scripture. It takes 
 away at least one chance of error in the explanation 
 of a passage ; it removes one of the films which have 
 gathered over the page ; it brings the meaning home 
 in a more intimate and subtle way than a translation 
 could do. To this, however, another qualification 
 should be added, which is, the logical power to 
 perceive the meaning of words in reference to their 
 context. And there is a worse fault than ignorance 
 of Greek in the interpretation of the New Testament, 
 that is, ignorance of any language. The Greek 
 fathers, for example, are far from being the best 
 verbal commentators, because their knowledge of 
 Greek often leads them away from the drift of the 
 passage. The minuteness of the study in our own 
 day has also a tendency to introduce into the text 
 associations which are not really found there. There 
 is a danger of making words mean too much ; refine- 
 ments of signification are drawn out of them, perhaps 
 contained in their etymology, which are lost in 
 
 F 2
 
 68 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 common use and parlance. There is the error of 
 interpreting every particle, as though it were a link 
 in the argument, instead of being, as is often the 
 case, an excrescence of style. The verbal critic 
 magnifies his art, which is really great in Aeschylus 
 or Pindar, but not of equal importance in the inter- 
 pretation of the simpler language of the New Testa- 
 ment. His love of scholarship will sometimes lead 
 him to impress a false system on words and construc- 
 tions. A great critic 1 who has commented on the 
 three first chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 has certainly afforded a proof that it is possible to 
 read the New Testament under a distorting influence 
 from classical Greek. The tendency gains support 
 from the undefined feeling that Scripture does not 
 come behind in excellence of language any more than 
 of thought. And if not, as in former days, the 
 classic purity of the Greek of the New Testament, 
 yet its certainty and accuracy, the assumption of 
 which, as any other assumption, is only the parent 
 of inaccuracy, is still maintained. 
 
 The study of the language of the New Testament 
 has suffered in another way by following too much 
 in the track of classical scholarship. All dead 
 languages which have passed into the hands of 
 grammarians, have given rise to questions which 
 have either no result or in which the certainty, or if 
 certain, the importance of the result, is out of propor- 
 tion to the labour spent in attaining it. The field 
 is exhausted by great critics, and then subdivided 
 among lesser ones. The subject, unlike that of 
 physical science, has a limit, and unless new ground 
 is broken up, as for example in mythology, or com- 
 parative philology, is apt to grow barren. Though 
 it is not true to say that ' we know as much about 
 
 1 [G.] Hermann.
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 69 
 
 the Greeks and Romans as we ever shall \ it is certain 
 that we run a danger from a deficiency of material, 
 of wasting time in questions which do not add any- 
 thing to real knowledge, or in conjectures which 
 must always remain uncertain, and may in turn give 
 way to other conjectures in the next generation. 
 Little points may be of great importance when 
 rightly determined, because the observation of them 
 tends to quicken the instinct of language ; but con- 
 jectures about little things or rules respecting them 
 which were not in the mind of Greek authors them- 
 selves, are not of equal value. There is the 
 scholasticism of philology, not only in the Alex- 
 andrian, but in our own times; as in the middle 
 ages, there was the scholasticism of philosophy. 
 Questions of mere orthography, about which there 
 cannot be said to have been a right or wrong, have 
 been pursued almost with a Rabbinical minuteness. 
 The story of the scholar who regretted ' that he had 
 not concentrated his life on the dative case', is 
 hardly a caricature of the spirit of such inquiries. 
 The form of notes to the classics often seems to 
 arise out of a necessity for observing a certain pro- 
 portion between the commentary and the text. And 
 the same tendency is noticeable in many of the critical 
 and philological observations which are made on the 
 New Testament. The field of Biblical criticism is 
 narrower, and its materials more fragmentary; so 
 too the minuteness and uncertainty of the questions 
 raised has been greater. For example, the dis- 
 cussions respecting the chronology of St. Paul's 
 life and his second imprisonment: or about the 
 identity of James, the brother of the Lord, or in 
 another department, respecting the use of the Greek 
 article, have gone far beyond the line of utility. 
 There seem to be reasons for doubting whether
 
 70 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 any considerable light can be thrown on the New 
 Testament from inquiry into the language. Such 
 inquiries are popular, because they are safe; but 
 their popularity is not the measure of their use. 
 It has not been sufficiently considered that the 
 difficulties of the New Testament are for the most 
 part common to the Greek and the English. The 
 noblest translation in the world has a few great 
 errors, more than half of them in the text ; but ' we 
 do it violence , to haggle over the words. Minute 
 corrections of tenses or particles are no good ; they 
 spoil the English without being nearer the Greek. 
 Apparent mistranslations are often due to a better 
 knowledge of English rather than a worse knowledge 
 of Greek. It is true that the signification of a few 
 uncommon expressions, e. g. egovaia, k-nifiakdiv, avva- 
 -nayojxevoi, k.t.A., is yet uncertain. But no result of 
 consequence would follow from the attainment of 
 absolute certainty respecting the meaning of any 
 of these. A more promising field opens to the 
 interpreter in the examination of theological terms, 
 such as faith (7710-715), grace (xd/ns), righteousness 
 (biKaioovv)]), sanctification (aymayxo's), the law (i>d/xos), 
 the spirit (irv€V[xa), the comforter (Trapd/cAr/ros), &c, 
 provided always that the use of such terms in the 
 New Testament is clearly separated (1) from their 
 derivation or previous use in Classical or Alexandrian 
 Greek, (2) from their after use in the Fathers and in 
 systems of theology. To which may be added 
 another select class of words descriptive of the 
 offices or customs of the Apostolic Church, such as 
 Apostle (airoarTokos), Bishop (e7rto-K07ros), Elder 
 (Trpeo-fivrepos), Deacon and Deaconess (6 /ecu 77 8id- 
 kovos), love-feast (dydTrcu), the Lord's day (7/ KvptaKi] 
 ?/jue/)a), &c. It is a lexilogus of these and similar 
 terms, rather than a lexicon of the entire Greek
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 71 
 
 Testament that is required. Interesting subjects of 
 real inquiry are also the comparison of the Greek of 
 the New Testament with modern Greek on the one 
 hand, and the Greek of the LXX on the other. It 
 is not likely, however, that they will afford much 
 more help than they have already done in the 
 elucidation of the Greek of the New Testament. 
 
 It is for others to investigate the language of the 
 Old Testament, to which the preceding remarks are 
 only in part applicable. It may be observed in 
 passing of this, as of any other old language, that 
 not the later form of the language, but the cognate 
 dialects, must ever be the chief source of its illustra- 
 tion. For in every ancient language, antecedent or 
 contemporary forms, not the subsequent ones, afford 
 the real insight into its nature and structure. It 
 must also be admitted, that very great and real 
 obscurities exist in the English translation of the 
 Old Testament, which even a superficial acquaintance 
 with the original has a tendency to remove. Leaving, 
 however, to others the consideration of the Semitic 
 languages, which raise questions of a different kind 
 from the Hellenistic Greek, we will offer a few 
 remarks on the latter. Much has been said of the 
 increasing accuracy of our knowledge of the language 
 of the New Testament : the old Hebraistic method 
 of explaining difficulties of language or construction 
 has retired within very narrow limits ; it might pro- 
 bably with advantage be confined to still narrower 
 ones — [if it have any place at all except in the 
 Apocalypse or the Gospel of St. Matthew]. There 
 is, perhaps, some confusion between accuracy of our 
 knowledge of language, and the accuracy of language 
 itself; which is also strongly maintained. It is 
 observed that the usages of barbarous as well as 
 civilized nations conform perfectly to grammatical
 
 72 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 rules ; that the uneducated in all countries have 
 certain laws of speech as much as Shakespeare or 
 Bacon ; the usages of Lucian, it may be said, are 
 as regular as those of Plato, even when they are 
 different. The decay of language seems rather to 
 witness to the permanence than to the changeable- 
 ness of its structure ; it is the flesh, not the bones, 
 that begins to drop off. But such general remarks, 
 although just, afford but little help in determining 
 the character of the Greek of the New Testament, 
 which has of course a certain system, failing in which 
 it would cease to be a language, Some further 
 illustration is needed of the change which has 
 passed upon it. All languages do not decay in 
 the same manner; and the influence of decay in 
 the same language may be different in different 
 countries ; when used in writing and in speaking 
 — when applied to the matters of ordinary life and 
 to the higher truths of philosophy or religion. And 
 the degeneracy of language itself is not a mere 
 principle of dissolution, but creative also ; while 
 dead and rigid in some of its uses, it is elastic and 
 expansive in others. The decay of an ancient 
 language is the beginning of the construction of 
 a modern one. The loss of some usages gives 
 a greater precision or freedom to others. The 
 logical element, as for example in the Mediaeval 
 Latin, will probably be strongest when the poetical 
 has vanished. A great movement, like the Reforma- 
 tion in Germany, passing over a nation, may give 
 a new birth also to its language. 
 
 These remarks may be applied to the Greek of 
 the New Testament, which although classed vaguely 
 under the ' common dialect \ has, nevertheless, many 
 features which are altogether peculiar to itself, and 
 such as are found in no other remains of ancient
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 73 
 
 literature. (1) It is more unequal in style even in 
 the same books, that is to say, more original and 
 plastic in one part, more rigid and unpliable in 
 another. There is a want of the continuous power 
 to frame a paragraph or to arrange clauses in sub- 
 ordination to each other, even to the extent in which 
 it was possessed by a Greek scholiast or rhetorician. 
 On the other hand there is a fulness of life, ' a new 
 birth,' in the use of abstract terms, which is not 
 found elsewhere after the golden age of Greek 
 philosophy. Almost the only passage in the New 
 Testament which reads like a Greek period of the 
 time, is the first paragraph of the Gospel according 
 to St. Luke, and the corresponding words of the 
 Acts. But the power and meaning of the charac- 
 teristic words of the New Testament is in remark- 
 able contrast with the vapid and general use of the 
 same words in Philo about the same time. There is 
 also a sort of lyrical passion in some passages (1 Cor. 
 xiii ; 2 Cor. vi. 6-10 ; xi. 21-33) which is a new 
 thing in the literature of the world ; to which, at 
 any rate, no Greek author of a later age furnishes 
 any parallel. (2) Though written, the Greek of 
 the New Testament partakes of the character of 
 a spoken language ; it is more lively and simple, 
 and less structural than ordinary writing — a pecu- 
 liarity of style which further agrees with the circum- 
 stance that the Epistles of St. Paul were not written 
 with his own hand, but probably dictated to an 
 amanuensis, and that the Gospels also probably 
 originate in an oral narrative. (3) The ground 
 colours of the language may be said to be two ; 
 first, the LXX ; which is modified, secondly, by the 
 spoken Greek of eastern countries, ana by the 
 differences which might be expected to arise between 
 a translation and an original ; many Hebraisms
 
 74 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 would occur in the Greek of a translator, which 
 would never have come to his pen but for the 
 influence of the work which he was translating. (4) 
 To which may be added a few Latin and Chaldee 
 words, and a few Rabbinical formulae. The influence 
 of Hebrew or Chaldee in the New Testament is for 
 the most part at a distance, in the background, 
 acting not directly, but mediately, through the 
 LXX. It has much to do with the clausular struc- 
 ture and general form, but hardly anything with the 
 grammatical usage. Philo, too, did not know 
 Hebrew, or at least the Hebrew Scriptures, yet 
 there is also a ' mediate ' influence of Hebrew trace- 
 able in his writings. (5) There is an element of 
 constraint in the style of the New Testament, arising 
 from the circumstance of its authors writing in 
 a language which was not their own. This con- 
 straint shows itself in the repetition of words and 
 phrases; in the verbal oppositions and anacolutha 
 of St. Paul ; in the short sentences of St. John. 
 This is further increased by the fact that the writers 
 of the New Testament were ' unlearned men ', who 
 had not the same power of writing as of speech. 
 Moreover, as has been often remarked, the difficulty 
 of composition increases in proportion to the great- 
 ness of the subject : e. g., the narrative of Thucydides 
 is easy and intelligible, while his reflections and 
 speeches are full of confusion ; the effort to concen- 
 trate seems to interfere with the consecutiveness and 
 fluency of ideas. Something of this kind is discernible 
 in those passages of the Epistles in which the 
 Apostle St. Paul is seeking to set forth the opposite 
 sides of God's dealing with man, e. g., Rom. iii. 1-9 ; 
 ix, x ; or in which the sequence of the thought is 
 interrupted by the conflict of emotions, 1 Cor. ix. 20 ; 
 Gal, iv. 11-20. (6) The power of the Gospel over
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 75 
 
 language must be recognized, showing itself, first of 
 all, in the original and consequently variable signi- 
 fication of words (itiotis, x^P'?, o^rr/pia), which is 
 also more comprehensive and human than the hereti- 
 cal usage of many of the same terms, e. g., yvGxris 
 (knowledge), aocpia (wisdom), urCms (creature, crea- 
 tion) ; secondly, in a peculiar use of some construc- 
 tions, such as hiKaiocTvvi) Qeov (righteousness of God), 
 7uo-ris 'bjcroS XpurTov (faith of Jesus Christ), tv Xptoro) 
 (in Christ), h 0e<3 (in God), virep fjp,u>v (for us), in 
 which the meaning of the genitive case or of the 
 preposition almost escapes our notice, from familiarity 
 with the sound of it. Lastly, the degeneracy of the 
 Greek language is traceable in the failure of syn- 
 tactical power ; in the insertion of prepositions to 
 denote relations of thought, which classical Greek 
 would have expressed by the case only ; in the 
 omission of them when classical Greek would have 
 required them ; in the incipient use of tva with the 
 subjunctive for the infinitive ; in the confusion of 
 ideas of cause and effect; in the absence of the 
 article in the case of an increasing number of words 
 which are passing into proper names ; in the loss of 
 the finer shades of difference in the negative particles ; 
 in the occasional confusion of the aorist and perfect ; 
 in excessive fondness for particles of reasoning or 
 inference ; in various forms of apposition, especially 
 that of the word to the sentence ; in the use, some- 
 times emphatic, sometimes only pleonastic, of the 
 personal and demonstrative pronouns. These are 
 some of the signs that the language is breaking up 
 and losing its structure. 
 
 Our knowledge of the New Testament is derived 
 almost exclusively from itself. Of the language, as 
 well as of the subject, it may be truly said, that 
 what other writers contribute is nothing in comparison
 
 76 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 of that which is gained from observation of the text. 
 Some inferences which may be gathered from this 
 general fact are the following : — First, that less 
 weight should be given to lexicons, that is, to the 
 authority of other Greek writers, and more to the 
 context. The use of a word in a new sense, the 
 attribution of a neuter meaning to a verb elsewhere 
 passive (Rom. iii. 9 Ttpoeyoixzda), the resolution of 
 the compound into two simple notions (Gal. iii. 1 
 Ttpoeypa<pr)\ these, when the context requires it, are 
 not to be set aside by the scholar because sanctioned 
 by no known examples. The same remark applies 
 to grammars as well as lexicons. We cannot be 
 certain that hid with the accusative never has the 
 same meaning as 8ia with the genitive (Gal. iv. 13 ; 
 Phil. i. 15), or that the article always retains its 
 defining power (2 Cor. i. 17 ; Acts xvii. 1), or that 
 the perfect is never used in place of theaorist (1 Cor. 
 xv. 4 ; Rev. v. 7, Sec.) ; still less can we affirm that 
 the latter end of a sentence never forgets the begin- 
 ning (Rom. ii. 17-21 ; v. 12-18 ; ix. 22 ; xvi. 25-7 ; 
 &c. &c). Foreign influences tend to derange the 
 strong natural perception or remembrance of the 
 analogy of our own language. That is very likely 
 to have occurred in the case of some of the writers 
 of the New Testament ; that there is such a derange- 
 ment is a fact. There is no probability in favour of 
 St. Paul writing in broken sentences, but there is no 
 improbability which should lead us to assume, in 
 such sentences, continuous grammar and thought, as 
 appears to have been the feeling of the copyists who 
 have corrected the anacolutha. The occurrence of 
 them further justifies the interpreter in using some 
 freedom with other passages in which the syntax 
 does not absolutely break down. When 'confusion 
 of two constructions ', ' meaning to say one thing and
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 77 
 
 finishing with another,' 'saying two things in one 
 instead of disposing them in their logical sequence,'' 
 are attributed to the Apostle ; the use of these and 
 similar expressions is defended by the fact that more 
 numerous anacolutha occur in St. Paul's writings 
 than in any equal portion of the New Testament, and 
 far more than in the writings of any other Greek 
 author of equal length. 
 
 Passing from the grammatical structure, we may 
 briefly consider the logical character of the language 
 of the New Testament. Two things should be here 
 distinguished, the logical form and the logical 
 sequence of thought. Some ages have been remark- 
 able for the former of these two characteristics ; 
 they have dealt in opposition, contradiction, climax, 
 pleonasm, reason within reason, and the like ; mere 
 statements taking the form of arguments — each 
 sentence seeming to be a link in a chain. In such 
 periods of literature, the appearance of logic is 
 rhetorical, and is to be set down to the style. That 
 is the case with many passages in the New Testament 
 which are studded with logical or rhetorical formulae, 
 especially in the Epistles of St. Paul. Nothing can 
 be more simple or natural than the object of the 
 writer. Yet * forms of the schools ' appear (whether 
 learnt at the feet of Gamaliel, that reputed master 
 of Greek learning, or not) which imply a degree of 
 logical or rhetorical training. 
 
 The observation of this rhetorical or logical element 
 has a bearing on the Interpretation of Scripture. 
 For it leads us to distinguish between the superficial 
 connexion of words and the real connexion of thoughts. 
 Otherwise, injustice is done to the argument of the 
 sacred writer, who may be supposed to violate logical 
 rules, of which he is unconscious. For example, the 
 argument of Rom. iii. 19 may be classed by the
 
 78 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 logicians under some head of fallacy (' Ex aliquo non 
 sequitur omnis ') ; the series of inferences which follow 
 one another in Rom. i. ]6-18 are for the most part 
 different aspects or statements of the same truth. So 
 in Rom. i. 32 the climax rather appears to be an 
 anticlimax. But to dwell on these things interferes 
 with the true perception of the Apostle's meaning, 
 which is not contained in the repetitions of yap by 
 which it is hooked together; nor are we accurately 
 to weigh the proportions expressed by his ov fxovov — 
 a\\a /ecu, or iro\\<a {xaXXov : neither need we suppose 
 that where \xiv is found alone, there was a reason for 
 the omission of hi (Rom. i. 8 ; iii. 2) ; or that the 
 opposition of words and sentences is always the oppo- 
 sition of ideas (Rom. v. 7 ; x. 10). It is true that 
 these and similar forms or distinctions of language 
 admit of translation into English ; and in every case 
 the interpreter may find some point of view in which 
 the simplest truth of feeling may be drawn out in an 
 antithetical or argumentative form. But whether 
 these points of view were in the Apostle's mind at 
 the time of writing may be doubted ; the real mean- 
 ing, or kernel, seems to lie deeper and to be more 
 within. When we pass from the study of each verse 
 to survey the whole at a greater distance, the form 
 of thought is again seen to be unimportant in com- 
 parison of the truth which is contained in it. The 
 same remark may be extended to the opposition, not 
 only of words, but of ideas, which is found in the 
 Scriptures generally, and almost seems to be inherent 
 in human language itself. The law is opposed to 
 faith, good to evil, the spirit to the flesh, light to 
 darkness, the world to the believer; the sheep are 
 set 'on his right hand, but the goats on the left'. 
 The influence of this logical opposition has been 
 great and not always without abuse in practice. For
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 79 
 
 the opposition is one of ideas only which is not 
 realized in fact. Experience shows us not that there 
 are two classes of men animated by two opposing 
 principles, but an infinite number of classes or indi- 
 viduals from the lowest depth of misery and sin to 
 the highest perfection of which human nature is 
 capable, the best not wholly good, the worst not 
 entirely evil. But the figure or mode of representa- 
 tion changes these differences of degree into differences 
 of kind. And we often think and speak and act in 
 reference both to ourselves and others, as though the 
 figure were altogether a reality. 
 
 Other questions arise out of the analysis of the 
 modes of thought of Scripture. Unless we are willing 
 to use words without inquiring into their meaning, it 
 is necessary for us to arrange them in some relation 
 to our own minds. The modes of thought of the Old 
 Testament are not the same with those of the New, 
 and those of the New are only partially the same 
 with those in use among ourselves at the present day. 
 The education of the human mind may be traced as 
 clearly from the Book of Genesis to the Epistles of 
 St. Paul, as from Homer to Plato and Aristotle. 
 When we hear St. Paul speaking of ' body and soul 
 and spirit ', we know that such language as this would 
 not occur in the Books of Moses or in the Prophet 
 Isaiah. It has the colour of a later age, in which 
 abstract terms have taken the place of expressions 
 derived from material objects. When we proceed 
 further to compare these or other words or expressions 
 of St. Paul with * the body and mind ', or ' mind ' and 
 * matter ', which is a distinction, not only of philosophy, 
 but of common language among ourselves, it is not 
 easy at once to determine the relation between them. 
 Familiar as is the sound of both expressions, many 
 questions arise when we begin to compare them.
 
 80 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 This is the metaphysical difficulty in the Inter- 
 pretation of Scripture, which it is better not to ignore, 
 because the consideration of it is necessary to the un- 
 derstanding of many passages, and also because it 
 may return upon us in the form of materialism or 
 scepticism. To some who are not aware how little 
 words affect the nature of things it may seem to raise 
 speculations of a very serious kind. Their doubts 
 would, perhaps, find expression in some such exclama- 
 tions as the following : — ' How is religion possible 
 when modes of thought are shifting? and words 
 changing their meaning, and statements of doctrine, 
 though " starched " with philosophy, are in perpetual 
 danger of dissolution from metaphysical analysis ? ' 
 
 The answer seems to be, that Christian truth is not 
 dependent on the fixedness of modes of thought. 
 The metaphysician may analyse the ideas of the mind 
 just as the physiologist may analyse the powers or 
 parts of the bodily frame, yet morality and social life 
 still go on, as in the body digestion is uninterrupted. 
 That is not an illustration only ; it represents the 
 fact. Though we had no words for mind, matter, 
 soul, body, and the like, Christianity would remain 
 the same. This is obvious, whether we think of the 
 case of the poor, who understand such distinctions 
 very imperfectly, or of those nations of the earth, who 
 have no precisely corresponding division of ideas. It 
 is not of that subtle or evanescent character which is 
 liable to be lost in shifting the use of terms. Indeed, 
 it is an advantage at times to discard these terms 
 with the view of getting rid of the oppositions to 
 which they give rise. No metaphysical analysis can 
 prevent 'our taking up the cross and following Christ 1 , 
 or receiving the kingdom of heaven as little children. 
 To analyse the * trichotomy 1 of St. Paul is interesting 
 as a chapter in the history of the human mind and
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 81 
 
 necessary as a part of Biblical exegesis, but it has 
 nothing to do with the religion of Christ. Christian 
 duties may be enforced, and the life of Christ may be 
 the centre of our thoughts, whether we speak of reason 
 and faith, of soul and body, or of mind and matter, 
 or adopt a mode of speech which dispenses with any 
 of these divisions. 
 
 Connected with the modes of thought or representa- 
 tion in Scripture are the figures of speech of Scripture, 
 about which the same question may be asked : ' What 
 division can we make between the figure and reality ? ' 
 And the answer seems to be of the same kind, that 
 ' We cannot precisely draw the line between them '. 
 Language, and especially the language of Scripture, 
 does not admit of any sharp distinction. The simple 
 expressions of one age become the allegories or figures 
 of another ; many of those in the New Testament 
 are taken from the Old. But neither is there any- 
 thing really essential in the form of these figures; 
 nay, the literal application of many of them has been 
 a great stumblingblock to the reception of Christian- 
 ity. A recent commentator on Scripture appears 
 willing to peril religion on the literal truth of such 
 an expression as ' We shall be caught up to meet the 
 Lord in the air'. Would he be equally ready to 
 stake Christianity on the literal meaning of the words, 
 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
 quenched ' ? 
 
 Of what has been said this is the sum : — ' That 
 Scripture, like other books, has one meaning, which 
 is to be gathered from itself without reference to the 
 adaptations of Fathers or Divines ; and without 
 regard to a priori notions about its nature and origin. 
 It is to be interpreted like other books, with attention 
 to the character of its authors, and the prevailing 
 state of civilization and knowledge, with allowance 
 
 JOWETT II G
 
 82 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 for peculiarities of style and language, and modes of 
 thought and figures of speech. Yet not without a 
 sense that as we read, there grows upon us the witness 
 of God in the world, anticipating in a rude and 
 primitive age the truth that was to be, shining more 
 and more unto the perfect day in the life of Christ, 
 which again is reflected from different points of view 
 in the teaching of His Apostles.' 
 
 §5. 
 It has been a principal aim of the preceding pages 
 to distinguish the interpretation from the application 
 of Scripture. Many of the errors alluded to arise out 
 of a confusion of the two. The present is nearer to 
 us than the past ; the circumstances which surround 
 us pre-occupy our thoughts; it is only by an effort 
 that we reproduce the ideas, or events, or persons of 
 other ages. And thus, quite naturally, almost by a 
 law of the human mind, the application of Scripture 
 takes the place of its original meaning. And the 
 question is, not how to get rid of this natural ten- 
 dency, but how we may have the true use of it. For 
 it cannot be got rid of, or rather is one of the chief 
 instruments of religious usefulness, in the world. 
 ' Ideas must be given through something ' ; those of 
 religion find their natural expression in the words of 
 Scripture, in the adaptation of which to another state 
 of life it is hardly possible that the first intention of 
 the writers should be always preserved. Interpreta- 
 tion is the province of few ; it requires a finer percep- 
 tion of language, and a higher degree of cultivation 
 than is attained by the majority of mankind. But 
 applications are made by all, from the philo- 
 sopher reading ' God in History ', to the poor 
 woman who finds in them a response to her prayers, 
 and the solace of her daily life. In the hour of death
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 83 
 
 we do not want critical explanations ; in most cases, 
 those to whom they would be offered are incapable of 
 understanding them. A few words, breathing the 
 sense of the whole Christian world, such as ' I know 
 that my Redeemer liveth 1 (though the exact meaning 
 of them may be doubtful to the Hebrew scholar) ; ' I 
 shall go to him, but he shall not return to me ' ; 
 touch a chord which would never be reached by the 
 most skilful exposition of the argument of one of St. 
 Paul's Epistles. 
 
 There is also a use of Scripture in education and 
 literature. This literary use, though secondary to 
 the religious one, is not unimportant. It supplies a 
 common language to the educated and uneducated, in 
 which the best and highest thoughts of both are 
 expressed ; it is a medium between the abstract no- 
 tions of the one and the simple feelings of the other. 
 To the poor, especially, it conveys in the form which 
 they are most capable of receiving, the lesson of 
 history and life. The beauty and power of speech 
 and writing would be greatly impaired, if the Scrip- 
 tures ceased to be known or used among us. The 
 orator seems to catch from them a sort of inspiration ; 
 in the simple words of Scripture which he stamps 
 anew, the philosopher often finds his most pregnant 
 expressions. If modern times have been richer in 
 the wealth of abstract thought, the contribution of 
 earlier ages to the mind of the world has not been 
 less, but perhaps greater, in supplying the poetry of 
 language. There is no such treasury of instruments 
 and materials as Scripture. The loss of Homer, or 
 the loss of Shakespeare, would have affected the whole 
 series of Greek or English authors who follow. But 
 the disappearance of the Bible from the books which 
 the world contains, would produce results far greater ; 
 we can scarcely conceive the degree in which it would 
 
 G 2
 
 84 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 alter literature and language — the ideas of the edu- 
 cated and philosophical, as well as the feelings and 
 habits of mind of the poor. If it has been said, with 
 an allowable hyperbole, that ' Homer is Greece' , with 
 much more truth may it be said, that ' the Bible is 
 Christendom ' . 
 
 Many by whom considerations of this sort will be 
 little understood, may, nevertheless, recognize the use 
 made of the Old Testament in the New. The religion 
 of Christ was first taught by an application of the 
 words of the Psalms and the Prophets. Our Lord 
 Himself sanctions this application. ' Can there be a 
 better use of Scripture than that which is made by 
 Scripture ? ' * Or any more likely method of teaching 
 the truths of Christianity than that by which they 
 were first taught ? ' For it may be argued that the 
 critical interpretation of Scripture is a device almost 
 of yesterday ; it is the vocation of the scholar or 
 philosopher, not of the Apostle or Prophet. The 
 new truth which was introduced into the Old Testa- 
 ment, rather than the old truth which was found 
 there, was the salvation and the conversion of the 
 world. There are many quotations from the Psalms 
 and the Prophets in the Epistles, in which the 
 meaning is quickened or spiritualized, but hardly any, 
 probably none, which is based on the original sense 
 or context. That is not so singular a phenomenon as 
 may at first sight be imagined. It may appear 
 strange to us that Scripture should be interpreted in 
 Scripture, in a manner not altogether in agreement 
 with modern criticism ; but would it not be more 
 strange that it should be interpreted otherwise than 
 in agreement with the ideas of the age or country in 
 which it was written ? The observation that there is 
 such an agreement, leads to two conclusions which 
 have a bearing on our present subject. First, it is a
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 85 
 
 reason for not insisting on the applications which the 
 New Testament makes of passages in the Old, as their 
 original meaning. Secondly, it gives authority and 
 precedent for the use of similar applications in our 
 own day. 
 
 But, on the other hand, though interwoven with 
 literature, though common to all ages of the Church, 
 though sanctioned by our Lord and his Apostles, it 
 is easy to see that such an employment of Scripture 
 is liable to error and perversion. For it may not 
 only receive a new meaning ; it may be applied in a 
 spirit alien to itself. It may become the symbol of 
 fanaticism, the cloak of malice, the disguise of policy. 
 Cromwell at Drogheda, quoting Scripture to his 
 soldiers ; the well-known attack on the Puritans in 
 the State Service for the Restoration, ' Not every one 
 that saith unto me, Lord, Lord 1 ; the reply of the 
 Venetian Ambassador to the suggestion of Wolsey, 
 that Venice should take a lead in Italy, 'zvhich teas 
 only the Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof,'' 
 are examples of such uses. In former times, it was a 
 real and not an imaginary fear, that the wars of the 
 Lord in the Old Testament might arouse a fire in the 
 bosom of Franks and Huns. In our own day such 
 dangers have passed away; it is only a figure of 
 speech when the preacher says, ' Gird on thy sword, 
 O thou most mighty.' The warlike passions of men 
 are not roused by quotations from Scripture, nor can 
 states of life such as slavery or polygamy, which belong 
 to a past age, be defended, at least in England, by 
 the example of the Old Testament. The danger or 
 error is of another kind ; more subtle, but hardly less 
 real. For if we are permitted to apply Scripture 
 under the pretence of interpreting it, the language of 
 Scripture becomes only a mode of expressing the 
 public feeling or opinion of our own day. Any
 
 86 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 passing phase of politics or art, or spurious philan- 
 thropy, may have a kind of Scriptural authority. 
 The words that are used are the words of the Prophet 
 or Evangelist, but we stand behind and adapt them 
 to our purpose. Hence it is necessary to consider 
 the limits and manner of a just adaptation ; how 
 much may be allowed for the sake of ornament ; how 
 far the Scripture, in all its details, may be regarded 
 as an allegory of human life — where the true analogy 
 begins — how far the interpretation of Scripture will 
 serve as a corrective to its practical abuse. 
 
 Truth seems to require that we should separate mere 
 adaptations from the original meaning of Scripture. 
 It is not honest or reasonable to confound illustration 
 with argument, in theology, any more than in other 
 subjects. For example, if a preacher chooses to 
 represent the condition of a Church or of an individual 
 in the present day, under the figure of Elijah left 
 alone among the idolatrous tribes of Israel, such an 
 allusion is natural enough ; but if he goes on to argue 
 that individuals are therefore justified in remaining 
 in what they believe to be an erroneous communion — 
 that is a mere appearance of argument which ought 
 not to have the slightest weight with a man of sense. 
 Such a course may indeed be perfectly justifiable, but 
 not on the ground that a prophet of the Lord once 
 did so, two thousand five hundred years ago. Not 
 in this sense were the lives of the Prophets written 
 for our instruction. There are many important 
 morals conveyed by them, but only so far as they 
 themselves represent universal principles of justice 
 and love. These universal principles they clothe with 
 flesh and blood ; they show them to us written on the 
 hearts of men of like passions with ourselves. The 
 prophecies, again, admit of many applications to the 
 Christian Church or to the Christian life. There is
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 87 
 
 no harm in speaking of the Church as the Spiritual 
 Israel, or in using the imagery of Isaiah respecting 
 Messiah's kingdom, as the type of good things to 
 come. But when it is gravely urged, that from such 
 passages as ' Kings shall be thy nursing fathers ', we 
 are to collect the relations of Church and State, or 
 from the pictorial description of Isaiah, that it is to 
 be inferred there will be a reign of Christ on earth — 
 that is a mere assumption of the forms of reasoning 
 by the imagination. Nor is it a healthful or manly 
 tone of feeling which depicts the political opposition 
 to the Church in our own day, under imagery which 
 is borrowed from the desolate Sion of the captivity. 
 Scripture is apt to come too readily to the lips, when 
 we are pouring out our own weaknesses, or enlarging 
 on some favourite theme — perhaps idealizing in the 
 language of prophecy the feebleness of preaching or 
 missions in the present day, or from the want of 
 something else to say. In many discussions on these 
 and similar subjects, the position of the Jewish King, 
 Church, Priest, has led to a confusion, partly caused 
 by the use of similar words in modern senses among 
 ourselves. The King or Queen of England may be 
 called the Anointed of the Lord, but we should not 
 therefore imply that the attributes of sovereignty 
 are the same as those which belonged to King David. 
 All these are figures of speech, the employment of 
 which is too common, and has been injurious to 
 religion, because it prevents our looking at the facts 
 of history or life as they truly are. 
 
 This is the first step towards a more truthful use 
 of Scripture in practice — the separation of adapta- 
 tion from interpretation. No one who is engaged in 
 preaching or in religious instruction can be required 
 to give up Scripture language; it is the common 
 element in which his thoughts and those of his hearers
 
 88 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 move. But he may be asked to distinguish the words 
 of Scripture from the truths of Scripture — the means 
 from the end. The least expression of Scripture is 
 weighty ; it affects the minds of the hearers in a way 
 that no other language can. Whatever responsibility 
 attaches to idle words, attaches in still greater degree 
 to the idle or fallacious use of Scripture terms. And 
 there is surely a want of proper reverence for Scrip- 
 ture, when we confound the weakest and feeblest 
 applications of its words with their true meaning — 
 when we avail ourselves of their natural power to 
 point them against some enemy — when we divert the 
 eternal words of charity and truth into a defence of 
 some passing opinion. For not only in the days of 
 the Pharisees, but in our own, the letter has been 
 taking the place of the spirit ; the least matters, of 
 the greatest, and the primary meaning has been lost 
 in the secondary use. 
 
 Other simple cautions may also be added. The 
 applications of Scripture should be harmonized and, 
 as it were, interpenetrated with the spirit of the 
 Gospel, the whole of which should be in every part ; 
 though the words may receive a new sense, the new 
 sense ought to be in agreement with the general truth. 
 They should be used to bring home practical precepts, 
 not to send the imagination on a voyage of discovery ; 
 they are not the real foundation of our faith in 
 another world, nor can they, by pleasant pictures, add 
 to our knowledge of it. They should not confound 
 the accidents with the essence of religion — the restric- 
 tions and burdens of the Jewish law with the freedom 
 of the Gospel — the things which Moses allowed for 
 the hardness of the heart, with the perfection of the 
 teaching of Christ. They should avoid the form of 
 arguments, or they will insensibly be used, or under- 
 stood, to mean more than they really do. They
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 89 
 
 should be subjected to an overruling principle, which 
 is the heart and conscience of the Christian teacher, 
 who indeed ' stands behind them ', not to make them 
 the vehicles of his own opinions, but as the expressions 
 of justice, and truth, and love. 
 
 And here the critical interpretation of Scripture 
 comes in and exercises a corrective influence on its 
 popular use. AVe have already admitted that criti- 
 cism is not for the multitude ; it is not what the 
 Scripture terms the Gospel preached to the poor. 
 Yet, indirectly passing from the few to the many, it 
 has borne a great part in the Reformation of religion. 
 It has cleared the eye of the mind to understand the 
 original meaning. It was a sort of criticism which 
 supported the struggle of the sixteenth century 
 against the Roman Catholic Church ; it is criticism 
 that is leading Protestants to doubt whether the 
 doctrine that the Pope is Antichrist, which has de- 
 scended from the same period, is really discoverable 
 in Scripture. Even the isolated thinker, against 
 whom the religious world is taking up arms, has an 
 influence on his opponents. The force of observa- 
 tions, which are based on reason and fact, remains 
 when the tide of religious or party feeling is gone 
 down. Criticism has also a healing influence in 
 clearing away what may be termed the Sectarianism 
 of knowledge. Without criticism it would be 
 impossible to reconcile History and Science with 
 Revealed Religion ; they must remain for ever in a 
 hostile and defiant attitude. Instead of being like 
 other records, subject to the conditions of knowledge 
 which existed in an early stage of the world, Scripture 
 would be regarded on the one side as the work of 
 organic Inspiration, and as a lying imposition on the 
 other. 
 
 The real unity of Scripture, as of man, has also
 
 90 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 a relation to our present subject. Amid all the 
 differences of modes of thought and speech which 
 have existed in different ages, of which much is said 
 in our own day, there is a common element in human 
 nature which bursts through these differences and 
 remains unchanged, because akin to the first instincts 
 of our being. The simple feeling of truth and right 
 is the same to the Greek or Hindoo as to ourselves. 
 However great may be the diversities of human 
 character, there is a point at which these diversities 
 end, and unity begins to appear. Now this admits 
 of an application to the books of Scripture, as well as 
 to the world generally. Written at many different 
 times, in more than one language, some of them in 
 fragments, they, too, have a common element of which 
 the preacher may avail himself. This element is 
 twofold, partly divine and partly human ; the revela- 
 tion of the truth and righteousness of God, and the 
 cry of the human heart towards Him. Every part of 
 Scripture tends to raise us above ourselves— to give us 
 a deeper sense of the feebleness of man, and of the 
 wisdom and power of God. It has a sort of kindred, 
 as Plato would say, with religious truth everywhere 
 in the world. It agrees also with the imperfect stages 
 of knowledge and faith in human nature, and answers 
 to its inarticulate cries. The universal truth easily 
 breaks through the accidents of time and place in 
 which it is involved. Although we cannot apply 
 Jewish institutions to the Christian world, or venture 
 in reliance on some text to resist the tide of civiliza- 
 tion on which we are borne, yet it remains, never- 
 theless, to us, as well as to the Jews and first 
 Christians, that 'Righteousness exalteth a nation', 
 and that ' love is the fulfilling not of the Jewish law 
 only, but of all law \ 
 
 In some cases, we have only to enlarge the meaning
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 91 
 
 of Scripture to apply it even to the novelties and 
 
 Eeculiarities of our own times. The world changes, 
 ut the human heart remains the same ; events and 
 details are different, but the principle by which they 
 are governed, or the rule by which we are to act, is 
 not different. When, for example, our Saviour says, 
 
 * Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
 you free,'' it is not likely that these words would 
 have conveyed to the minds of the Jews who heard 
 Him any notion of the perplexities of doubt or 
 inquiry. Yet we cannot suppose that our Saviour, 
 were He to come again upon the earth, would refuse 
 thus to extend them. The Apostle St. Paul, when 
 describing the Gospel, which is to the Greek foolish- 
 ness, speaks also of a higher wisdom which is known 
 to those who are perfect. Neither is it unfair for 
 us to apply this passage to that reconcilement of 
 faith and knowledge, which may be termed Christian 
 philosophy, as the nearest equivalent to its language 
 in our own day. Such words, again, as ' Why seek 
 ye the living among the dead ? , admit of a great 
 variety of adaptations to the circumstances of our 
 own time. Many of these adaptations have a real 
 germ in the meaning of the words. The precept, 
 
 * Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and 
 to God the things that are God's, 1 niay be taken 
 generally as expressing the necessity of distinguish- 
 ing the divine and human — the things that belong 
 to faith and the things that belong to experience. 
 It is worth remarking in the application made of 
 these words by Lord Bacon, * Da fidei quae fidei 
 sunt ; ' that, although the terms are altered, yet 
 the circumstance that the form of the sentence 
 is borrowed from Scripture gives them point and 
 weight. 
 
 The portion of Scripture which more than any
 
 92 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 other is immediately and universally applicable to 
 our own times is, doubtless, that which is contained 
 in the words of Christ Himself. The reason is that 
 they are words of the most universal import. They 
 do not relate to the circumstances of the time, but 
 to the common life of all mankind. You cannot 
 extract from them a political creed ; only, ' Render 
 unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,"' and, ' The 
 Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses" seat ; whatsoever, 
 therefore, they say unto you do, but after their 
 works do not.' They present to us a standard of 
 truth and duty, such as no one can at once and 
 immediately practise — such as, in its perfection, no 
 one has fulfilled in this world. But this idealism 
 does not interfere with their influence as a religious 
 lesson. Ideals, even though unrealized, have effect 
 on our daily life. The preacher of the Gospel is, or 
 ought to be, aware that his calls to repentance, his 
 standard of obligations, his lamentations over his 
 own shortcomings or those of others, do not at once 
 convert hundreds or thousands, as on the day of 
 Pentecost. Yet it does not follow that they are 
 thrown away, or that it would be well to substitute 
 for them mere prudential or economical lessons, 
 lectures on health or sanitary improvement. For 
 they tend to raise men above themselves, providing 
 them with Sabbaths as well as working days, giving 
 them a taste of ' the good word of God ' and of ' the 
 powers of the world to come '. Human nature needs 
 to be idealized ; it seems as if it took a dislike to 
 itself when presented always in its ordinary attire ; 
 it lives on in the hope of becoming better. And the 
 image or hope of a better life — the vision of Christ 
 crucified — which is held up to it, doubtless has an 
 influence ; not like the rushing mighty wind of the 
 day of Pentecost ; it may rather be compared to the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 93 
 
 leaven, ' which a woman took and hid in three measures 
 of meal, till the whole was leavened.' 
 
 The Parables of our Lord are a portion of the 
 New Testament, which we may apply in the most 
 easy and literal manner. The persons in them are 
 the persons among whom we live and move ; there 
 are times and occasions at which the truths symbo- 
 lized by them come home to the hearts of all who 
 have ever been impressed by religion. We have 
 been prodigal sons returning to our Father ; servants 
 to whom talents have been entrusted; labourers in 
 the vineyard inclined to murmur at our lot, when 
 compared with that of others, yet receiving every 
 man his due ; well-satisfied Pharisees ; repentant 
 Publicans : —we have received the seed, and the 
 cares of the world have choked it — we hope also at 
 times that we have found the pearl of great price 
 after sweeping the house — we are ready like the 
 Good Samaritan to show kindness to all mankind. 
 Of these circumstances of life or phases of mind, 
 which are typified by the parables, most Christians 
 have experience. We may go on to apply many of 
 them further to the condition of nations and 
 Churches. Such a treasury has Christ provided us 
 of things new and old, which refer to all time and 
 all mankind — may we not say in His own words — 
 ' because He is the Son of Man ' ? 
 
 There is no language of Scripture which penetrates 
 the individual soul, and embraces all the world in 
 the arms of its love, in the same manner as that of 
 Christ Himself. Yet the Epistles contain lessons 
 which are not found in the Gospels, or, at least, 
 not expressed with the same degree of clearness. 
 For the Epistles are nearer to actual life — they relate 
 to the circumstances of the first believers, to their 
 struggles with the world without, to their tempta-
 
 94 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 tions and divisions from within — their subject is not 
 only the doctrine of the Christian religion, but the 
 business of the early Church. And although their 
 circumstances are not our circumstances — we are not 
 afflicted or persecuted, or driven out of the world, 
 but in possession of the blessings, and security, and 
 property of an established religion — yet there is 
 a Christian spirit which infuses itself into all cir- 
 cumstances, of which they are a pure and living 
 source. It is impossible to gather from a few 
 fragmentary and apparently not always consistent 
 expressions, how the Communion was celebrated, or 
 the Church ordered, what was the relative position 
 of Presbyters and Deacons, or the nature of the gift 
 of tongues, as a rule for the Church in after ages : — 
 such inquiries have no certain answer, and, at the 
 best, are only the subject of honest curiosity. But 
 the words, 'Charity never faileth,' and 'Though 
 I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
 have not charity, I am nothing ', — these have a voice 
 which reaches to the end of time. There are no 
 questions of meats and drinks nowadays, yet the 
 noble words of the Apostle remain : ' If meat make 
 my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the 
 world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.' 
 Moderation in controversy, toleration towards op- 
 ponents or erring members, is a virtue which has 
 been thought by many to belong to the develop- 
 ment and not to the origin of Christianity, and 
 which is rarely found in the commencement of 
 a religion. But lessons of toleration may be 
 gathered from the Apostle, which have not yet 
 been learned either by theologians or by mankind 
 in general. The persecutions and troubles which 
 awaited the Apostle no longer await us ; we can- 
 not, therefore, without unreality, except, perhaps,
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 95 
 
 in a very few cases, appropriate his words, 'I have 
 fought the good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith.' But that other text still 
 sounds gently in our ears : ' My strength is perfected 
 in weakness,' and ' when I am weak, then am I strong '. 
 We cannot apply to ourselves the language of 
 authority in which the Apostle speaks of himself 
 as an ambassador for Christ, without something 
 like bad taste. But it is not altogether an 
 imaginary hope that those of us who are ministers 
 of Christ may attain to a real imitation of his great 
 diligence, of his sympathy with others, and considera- 
 tion for them — of his willingness to spend and be 
 spent in his Master's service. 
 
 Such are a few instances of the manner in which 
 the analogy of faith enables us to apply the words 
 of Christ and His Apostles, with a strict regard to 
 their original meaning. But the Old Testament has 
 also its peculiar lessons which are not conveyed with 
 equal point or force in the New. The beginnings of 
 human history are themselves a lesson having a fresh- 
 ness as of the early dawn. There are forms of evil 
 against which the Prophets and the prophetical spirit 
 of the Law carry on a warfare, in terms almost too 
 bold for the way of life of modern times. There, 
 more plainly than in any other portion of Scripture, 
 is expressed the antagonism of outward and inward, 
 of ceremonial and moral, of mercy and sacrifice. 
 There all the masks of hypocrisy are rudely torn 
 asunder, in which an unthinking world allows itself 
 to be disguised. There the relations of rich and 
 poor in the sight of God, and their duties towards 
 one another, are most clearly enunciated. There 
 the religion of suffering first appears — 'adversity, 
 the blessing' of the Old Testament, as well as of 
 the New. There the sorrows and aspirations of the
 
 96 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 soul find their deepest expression, and also their con- 
 solation. The feeble person has an image of himself 
 in the * bruised reed , ; the suffering servant of God 
 passes into the 'beloved one, in whom my soul 
 delighteth'. Even the latest and most desolate 
 phases of the human mind are reflected in Job 
 and Ecclesiastes ; yet not without the solemn asser- 
 tion that * to fear God and keep his commandments ' 
 is the beginning and end of all things. 
 
 It is true that there are examples in the Old 
 Testament which were not written for our instruc- 
 tion, and that, in some instances, precepts or 
 commands are attributed to God Himself, which 
 must be regarded as relative to the state of know- 
 ledge which then existed of the Divine nature, or 
 given ' for the hardness of men's hearts \ It cannot 
 be denied that such passages of Scripture are liable 
 to misunderstanding; the spirit of the Old Cove- 
 nanters, although no longer appealing to the action 
 of Samuel, ' hewing Agag in pieces before the Lord 
 in Gilgal,' is not altogether extinguished. And 
 a community of recent origin in America found 
 their doctrine of polygamy on the Old Testament. 
 But the poor generally read the Bible unconsciously ; 
 they take the good, and catch the prevailing spirit, 
 without stopping to reason whether this or that 
 practice is sanctioned by the custom or example of 
 Scripture. The child is only struck by the impiety 
 of the children who mocked the prophet; he does 
 not think of the severity of the punishment which 
 is inflicted upon them. And the poor, in this 
 respect, are much like children ; their reflection on 
 the morality or immorality of characters or events 
 is suppressed by reverence for Scripture. The 
 Christian teacher has a sort of tact by which he 
 guides them to perceive only the spirit of the
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 97 
 
 Gospel everywhere ; they read in the Psalms, of 
 David's sin and repentance ; of the never-failing 
 goodness of God to him, and his never-failing 
 trust in Him, not of his imprecations against his 
 enemies. Such difficulties are greater in theory and 
 on paper, than in the management of a school or 
 parish. They are found to affect the half- educated, 
 rather than either the poor, or those who are 
 educated in a higher sense. To be above such 
 difficulties is the happiest condition of human life 
 and knowledge, or to be below them ; to see, or 
 think we see, how they may be reconciled with 
 Divine power and wisdom, or not to see how they 
 are apparently at variance with them. 
 
 § 6. 
 
 Some application of the preceding subject may be 
 further made to theology and life. 
 
 Let us introduce this concluding inquiry with two 
 remarks. 
 
 First, it may be observed, that a change in some of 
 the prevailing modes of interpretation is not so much 
 a matter of expediency as of necessity. The original 
 meaning of Scripture is beginning to be clearly under- 
 stood. But the apprehension of the original meaning 
 is inconsistent with the reception of a typical or con- 
 ventional one. The time will come when educated 
 men will be no more able to believe that the words, 
 ' Out of Egypt have I called my son 1 (Matt. ii. 15 ; 
 Hos. xi. 1), were intended by the prophet to refer to 
 the return of Joseph and Mary from Egypt, than 
 they are now able to believe the Roman Catholic 
 explanation of Gen. iii. 15, ' Ipsa conteret caput 
 tuum. 1 They will no more think that the first 
 chapters of Genesis relate the same tale which Geo- 
 
 JOWETT II H
 
 98 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 logy and Ethnology unfold than they now think the 
 meaning of Joshua x. 12, 13, to be in accordance with 
 Galileo's discovery. 
 
 From the circumstance that in former ages there 
 has been a fourfold or a sevenfold Interpretation of 
 Scripture, we cannot argue to the possibility of up- 
 holding any other than the original one in our own. 
 The mystical explanations of Origen or Philo were 
 not seen to be mystical ; the reasonings of Aquinas 
 and Calvin were not supposed to go beyond the letter 
 of the text. They have now become the subject of 
 apology ; it is justly said that we should not judge 
 the greatness of the Fathers or Reformers by their 
 suitableness to our own day. But this defence of 
 them shows that their explanations of Scripture are 
 no longer tenable ; they belong to a way of thinking 
 and speaking which was once diffused over the world, 
 but has now passed away. And what we give up as 
 a general principle we shall find it impossible to 
 maintain partially, e. g., in the types of the Mosaic 
 Law and the double meanings of prophecy — at least, 
 in any sense in which it is not equally applicable to 
 all deep and suggestive writings. 
 
 The same observation may be applied to the his- 
 torical criticism of Scripture. From the fact that 
 Paley or Butler were regarded in their generation as 
 supplying a triumphant answer to the enemies of 
 Scripture, we cannot argue that their answer will be 
 satisfactory to those who inquire into such subjects 
 in our own. Criticism has far more power than it 
 formerly had ; it has spread itself over ancient, and 
 even modern, history ; it extends to the thoughts and 
 ideas of men as well as to words and facts ; it has also 
 a great place in education. Whether the habit of 
 mind which has been formed in classical studies will 
 not go on to Scripture ; whether Scripture can be
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 99 
 
 made an exception to other ancient writings, now 
 that the nature of both is more understood ; whether 
 in the fuller light of history and science the views of 
 the last century will hold out— these are questions 
 respecting which the course of religious opinion in the 
 past does not afford the means of truly judging. 
 
 Secondly, it has to be considered whether the 
 intellectual forms under which Christianity has been 
 described may not also be in a state of transition and 
 resolution, in this respect contrasting with the never- 
 changing truth of the Christian life (1 Cor. xiii. 8). 
 Looking backwards at past ages, we experience a kind 
 of amazement at the minuteness of theological dis- 
 tinctions, and also at their permanence. They seem 
 to have borne a part in the education of the Christian 
 world, in an age when language itself had also a 
 greater influence than nowadays. It is admitted that 
 these distinctions are not observed in the New Testa- 
 ment, and are for the most part of a later growth. 
 But little is gained by setting up theology against 
 Scripture, or Scripture against theology ; the Bible 
 against the Church, or the Church against the Bible. 
 At different periods either has been a bulwark against 
 some form of error : either has tended to correct the 
 abuse of the other. A true inspiration guarded the 
 writers of the New Testament from Gnostic or Mani- 
 chean tenets ; at a later stage, a sound instinct pre- 
 vented the Church from dividing the humanity and 
 Divinity of Christ. It may be said that the spirit of 
 Christ forbids us to determine beyond what is written ; 
 and the decision of the council of Nicaea has been 
 described by an eminent English prelate * as ' the 
 greatest misfortune that ever befel the Christian 
 world'. That is, perhaps, true; yet a different de- 
 
 1 [Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, d. 1853.] 
 H %
 
 100 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 cision would have been a greater misfortune. Nor 
 does there seem any reason to suppose that the human 
 mind could have been arrested in its theological 
 course. It is a mistake to imagine that the dividing 
 and splitting of words is owing to the depravity of 
 the human heart ; was it not rather an intellectual 
 movement (the only phenomenon of progress then 
 going on among men) which led, by a sort of neces- 
 sity, some to go forward to the completion of the 
 system, while it left others to stand aside ? A veil 
 was on the human understanding in the great con- 
 troversies which absorbed the Church in earlier ages ; 
 the cloud which the combatants themselves raised 
 intercepted the view. They did not see — they could 
 not have imagined — that there was a world which lay 
 beyond the range of the controversy. 
 
 And now, as the Interpretation of Scripture is 
 receiving another character, it seems that distinctions 
 of theology, which were in great measure based on 
 old interpretations, are beginning to fade away. A 
 change is observable in the manner in which doctrines 
 are stated and defended ; it is no longer held suffi- 
 cient to rest them on texts of Scripture, one, two, or 
 more, which contain, or appear to contain, similar 
 words or ideas. They are connected more closely 
 with our moral nature ; extreme consequences are 
 shunned ; large allowances are made for the ignorance 
 of mankind. It is held that there is truth on both 
 sides ; about many questions there is a kind of union 
 of opposites ; others are admitted to have been verbal 
 only ; all are regarded in the light which is thrown 
 upon them by church history and religious experience. 
 A theory has lately been put forward, apparently as 
 a defence of the Christian faith, which denies the ob- 
 jective character of any of them. And there are other 
 signs that times are changing, and we are changing too.
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 101 
 
 It would be scarcely possible at present to revive the 
 interest which was felt less than twenty years ago x in 
 the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration ; nor would 
 the arguments by which it was supported or impugned 
 have the meaning which they once had. The com- 
 munion of the Lord's Supper is also ceasing, at least 
 in the Church of England, to be a focus or centre of 
 disunion — 
 
 ' Our greatest love turned to our greatest hate. 1 
 
 A silence is observable on some other points of 
 doctrine around which controversies swarmed a 
 generation ago. Persons begin to ask what was the 
 real difference which divided the two parties. They 
 are no longer within the magic circle, but are taking 
 up a position external to it. They have arrived at 
 an age of reflection, and begin to speculate on the 
 action and reaction, the irritation and counter- 
 irritation, of religious forces ; it is a common obser- 
 vation that 'revivals are not permanent"'; the move- 
 ment is criticized even by those who are subject to its 
 influence. In the present state of the human mind, 
 any consideration of these subjects, whether from the 
 highest or lowest or most moderate point of view, is 
 unfavourable to the stability of dogmatical systems, 
 because it rouses inquiry into the meaning of words. 
 To the sense of this is probably to be attributed the 
 reserve on matters of doctrine and controversy which 
 characterizes the present day, compared with the 
 theological activity of twenty years ago. 1 
 
 These reflections bring us back to the question 
 with which we began — ' What effect will the critical 
 interpretation of Scripture have on theology and on 
 life ? ' Their tendency is to show that the result is 
 
 1 [Written in I860.]
 
 102 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 beyond our control, and that the world is not unpre- 
 pared for it. More things than at first sight appear 
 are moving towards the same end. Religion often 
 bids us think of ourselves, especially in later life, as, 
 each one in his appointed place, carrying on a work 
 which is fashioned within by unseen hands. The 
 theologian, too, may have peace in the thought, that 
 he is subject to the conditions of his age rather than 
 one of its moving powers. When he hears theo- 
 logical inquiry censured as tending to create doubt 
 and confusion, he knows very well that the cause of 
 this is not to be sought in the writings of so-called 
 rationalists or critics who are disliked partly because 
 they unveil the age to itself; but in the opposition of 
 reason and feeling, of the past and the present, in 
 the conflict between the Calvinistic tendencies of an 
 elder generation, and the influences which even in the 
 same family naturally affect the young. 
 
 This distraction of the human mind between ad- 
 verse influences and associations, is a fact which we 
 should have to accept and make the best of, whatever 
 consequences might seem to follow to individuals or 
 Churches. It is not to be regarded as a merely 
 heathen notion that 'truth is to be desired for its 
 own sake even' though no " good " result from it \ 
 As a Christian paradox it may be said, ' What hast 
 thou to do with "good"? follow thou Me. 1 But 
 the Christian revelation does not require of us this 
 Stoicism in most cases ; it rather shows how good 
 and truth are generally coincident. Even in this 
 life, there are numberless links which unite moral 
 good with intellectual truth. It is hardly too much 
 to say that the one is but a narrower form of the 
 other. Truth is to the world what holiness of life is 
 to the individual — to man collectively the source of 
 justice and peace and good.
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 103 
 
 There are many ways in which the connexion 
 between truth and good may be traced in the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture. Is it a mere chimera that 
 the different sections of Christendom may meet on 
 the common ground of the New Testament? Or 
 that the individual may be urged by the vacancy and 
 unprofitableness of old traditions to make the Gospel 
 his own — a life of Christ in the soul, instead of a 
 theory of Christ which is in a book or written down ? 
 Or that in missions to the heathen Scripture may 
 become the expression of universal truths rather than 
 of the tenets of particular men or churches ? That 
 would remove many obstacles to the reception of 
 Christianity. Or that the study of Scripture may 
 have a more important place in a liberal education 
 than hitherto ? Or that the ' rational service ' of 
 interpreting Scripture may dry up the crude and 
 dreamy vapours of religious excitement ? Or, that in 
 preaching, new sources of spiritual health may flow 
 from a more natural use of Scripture ? Or that the 
 lessons of Scripture may have a nearer way to the 
 hearts of the poor when disengaged from theological 
 formulas ? Let us consider more at length some of 
 these topics. 
 
 I. No one casting his eye over the map of the 
 Christian world can desire that the present lines of 
 demarcation should always remain, any more than he 
 will be inclined to regard the division of Christians to 
 which he belongs himself, as in a pre-eminent or 
 exclusive sense the Church of Christ. Those lines of 
 demarcation seem to be political rather than religious ; 
 they are differences of nations, or governments, or 
 ranks of society, more than of creeds or forms of 
 faith. The feeling which gave rise to them has, in 
 a great measure, passed away ; no intelligent man 
 seriously inclines to believe that salvation is to be
 
 104 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 found only in his own denomination. Examples of 
 this 'sturdy orthodoxy 1 , in our own generation, 
 rather provoke a smile than arouse serious disap- 
 proval. Yet many experiments show that these 
 differences cannot be made up by any formal con- 
 cordat or scheme of union ; the parties cannot be 
 brought to terms, and if they could, would cease to 
 take an interest in the question at issue. The friction 
 is too great when persons are invited to meet for a 
 discussion of differences ; such a process is like open- 
 ing the doors and windows to put out a slumbering 
 flame. But that is no reason for doubting that the 
 divisions of the Christian world are beginning to pass 
 away. The progress of politics, acquaintance with 
 other countries, the growth of knowledge and of 
 material greatness, changes of opinion in the Church 
 of England, the present position of the Roman 
 Communion — all these phenomena show that the 
 ecclesiastical state of the world is not destined to be 
 perpetual. Within the envious barriers which 'divide 
 human nature into very little pieces 1 (Plato, Rep. iii. 
 395), a common sentiment is springing up of religious 
 truth ; the essentials of Christianity are contrasted 
 with the details and definitions of it ; good men of 
 all religions find that they are more nearly agreed 
 than heretofore. Neither is it impossible that this 
 common feeling may so prevail over the accidental 
 circumstances of Christian communities, that their 
 political or ecclesiastical separation may be little felt. 
 The walls which no adversary has scaled may fall 
 down of themselves. We may perhaps figure to 
 ourselves the battle against error and moral evil taking 
 the place of one of sects and parties. 
 
 In this movement, which we should see more clearly 
 but for the divisions of the Christian world which 
 partly conceal it, the critical interpretation of Scrip-
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 105 
 
 ture will have a great influence. The Bible will be 
 no longer appealed to as the witness of the opinions 
 of particular sects, or of our own age ; it will cease 
 to be the battle-field of controversies. But as its true 
 meaning is more clearly seen, its moral power will 
 also be greater. If the outward and inward witness, 
 instead of parting into two, as they once did, seem 
 rather to blend and coincide in the Christian con- 
 sciousness, that is not a source of weakness, but of 
 strength. The Book itself, which links together the 
 beginning and end of the human race, will not have 
 a less inestimable value because the spirit has taken 
 the place of the letter. Its discrepancies of fact, 
 when we become familiar with them, will seem of 
 little consequence in comparison with the truths 
 which it unfolds. That these truths, instead of float- 
 ing down the stream of tradition, or being lost in 
 ritual observances, have been preserved for ever in a 
 book, is one of the many blessings which the Jewish 
 and Christian revelations have conferred on the world 
 — a blessing not the less real, because it is not 
 necessary to attribute it to miraculous causes. 
 
 Again, the Scriptures are a bond of union to the 
 whole Christian world. No one denies their authority, 
 and could all be brought to an intelligence of their 
 true meaning, all might come to agree in matters of 
 religion. That may seem to be a hope deferred, yet 
 not altogether chimerical. If it is not held to be a 
 thing impossible that there should be agreement in 
 the meaning of Plato or Sophocles, neither is it to be 
 regarded as absurd that there should be a like agree- 
 ment in the interpretation of Scripture. The disap- 
 pearance of artificial notions and systems will pave 
 the way to such an agreement. The recognition of 
 the fact, that many aspects and stages of religion are 
 found in Scripture ; that different, or even opposite
 
 106 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 parties existed in the Apostolic Church ; that the 
 first teachers of Christianity had a separate and 
 individual mode of regarding the Gospel of Christ ; 
 that any existing communion is necessarily much 
 more unlike the brotherhood of love in the New 
 Testament than we are willing to suppose — Pro- 
 testants in some respects, as much so as Catholics 
 — that rival sects in our own day — Calvinists and 
 Arminians — those who maintain and those who deny 
 the final restoration of man — may equally find texts 
 which seem to favour their respective tenets (Mark 
 ix. 44-48 ; Romans xi. 32) — the recognition of 
 these and similar facts will make us unwilling to 
 impose any narrow rule of religious opinion on the 
 ever-varying conditions of the human mind and 
 Christian society. 
 
 II. Christian missions suggest another sphere in 
 which a more enlightened use of Scripture might offer 
 a great advantage to the teacher. The more he is 
 himself penetrated with the universal spirit of Scrip- 
 ture, the more he will be able to resist the literal and 
 servile habits of mind of Oriental nations. You 
 cannot transfer English ways of belief, and almost 
 the history of the Church of England itself, as the 
 attempt is sometimes made — not to an uncivilized 
 people, ready like children to receive new impressions, 
 but to an ancient and decaying one, furrowed with 
 the lines of thought, incapable of the principle of 
 growth. But you may take the purer light or element 
 of religion, of which Christianity is the expression, 
 and make it shine on some principle in human nature 
 which is the fallen image of it. You cannot give a 
 people who have no history of their own, a sense of 
 the importance of Christianity, as an historical fact : 
 but, perhaps, that very peculiarity of their character 
 may make them more impressible by the truths or
 
 LNTERFRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 107 
 
 ideas of Christianity. Neither is it easy to make 
 them understand the growth of Revelation in suc- 
 cessive ages — that there are precepts of the Old 
 Testament which are reversed in the New — or that 
 Moses allowed many things for the hardness of men's 
 hearts. They are in one state of the world, and the 
 missionary who teaches them is in another, and the 
 Book through which they are taught does not alto- 
 gether coincide with either. Many difficulties thus 
 arise which we are most likelv to be successful in 
 meeting when we look them in the face. To one 
 inference they clearly point, which is this : that it is 
 not the Book of Scripture which we should seek to give 
 them, to be reverenced like the Vedas or the Koran, 
 and consecrated in its words and letters, but the truth 
 of the Book, the mind of Christ and His Apostles, 
 in which all lesser details and differences should be 
 lost and absorbed. We want to awaken in them the 
 sense that God is their Father, and they His children ; 
 — that is of more importance than any theory about 
 the inspiration of Scripture. But to teach in this 
 spirit, the missionary should himself be able to 
 separate the accidents from the essence of religion ; 
 he should be conscious that the power of the Gospel 
 resides not in the particulars of theology, but in the 
 Christian life. 
 
 III. It may be doubted whether Scripture has ever 
 been sufficiently regarded as an element of liberal 
 education. Few deem it worth while to spend in 
 the study of it the same honest thought or pains 
 which are bestowed on a classical author. Nor, as at 
 present studied, can it be said always to have an 
 elevating effect. It is not a useful lesson for the 
 young student to apply to Scripture principles which 
 he would hesitate to apply to other books ; to make 
 formal reconcilements of discrepancies which he would
 
 108 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 not think of reconciling in ordinary history ; to 
 divide simple words into double meanings ; to adopt 
 the fancies or conjectures of Fathers and Commenta- 
 tors as real knowledge. This laxity of knowledge 
 is apt to infect the judgement when transferred to 
 other subjects. It is not easy to say how much of 
 the unsettlement of mind which prevails among intel- 
 lectual young men is attributable to these causes; 
 the mixture of truth and falsehood in religious 
 education certainly tends to impair, at the age when 
 it is most needed, the early influence of a religious 
 home. 
 
 Yet Scripture studied in a more liberal spirit might 
 supply a part of education which classical literature 
 fails to provide. 'The best book for the heart might 
 also be made the best book for the intellect. 1 The 
 noblest study of history and antiquity is contained 
 in it; a poetry which is also the highest form of 
 moral teaching ,• there, too, are lives of heroes and 
 prophets, and especially of One whom we do not name 
 with them, because He is above them. This history, 
 or poetry, or biography, is distinguished from all 
 classical or secular writings by the contemplation of 
 man as he appears in the sight of God. That is a 
 sense of things into which we must grow as well as 
 reason ourselves, without which human nature is but 
 a truncated, half-educated sort of being. But this 
 sense or consciousness of a Divine presence in the 
 world, which seems to be natural to the beginnings of 
 the human race, but fades away and requires to be 
 renewed in its after history, is not to be gathered 
 from Greek or Roman literature, but from the Old 
 and New Testament. And before we can make the 
 Old and New Testament a real part of education, we 
 must read them not by the help of custom or tradi- 
 tion, in the spirit of apology or controversy, but in
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 109 
 
 accordance with the ordinary laws of human know- 
 ledge. 
 
 IV. Another use of Scripture is that in sermons, 
 which seems to be among the tritest, and yet is far 
 from being exhausted. If we could only be natural 
 and speak of things as they truly are, with a real 
 interest and not merely a conventional one ! The 
 words of Scripture come readily to hand, and the 
 repetition of them requires no effort of thought in the 
 writer or speaker. But, neither does it produce any 
 effect on the hearer, which will always be in propor- 
 tion to the degree of feeling or consciousness in 
 ourselves. It may be said that originality is the gift 
 of few ; no Church can expect to have, not a hundred, 
 but ten such preachers as Robertson or Newman. 
 But, without originality, it seems possible to make 
 use of Scripture in sermons in a much more living 
 way than at present. Let the preacher make it a 
 sort of religion, and proof of his reverence for Scrip- 
 ture, that he never uses its words without a distinct 
 meaning; let him avoid the form of argument from 
 Scripture, and catch the feeling and spirit. Scripture 
 is itself a kind of poetry, when not overlaid with 
 rhetoric. The scene and country has a freshness 
 which may always be renewed ; there is the interest 
 of antiquity and the interest of home or common life 
 as well. The facts and characters of Scripture might 
 receive a new reading by being described simply as 
 they are. The truths of Scripture again would have 
 greater reality if divested of the scholastic form in 
 which theology has cast them. The universal and 
 spiritual aspects of Scripture might be more brought 
 forward to the exclusion of questions of the Jewish 
 law, or controversies about the sacraments, or exag- 
 gerated statements of doctrines which seem to be at 
 variance with morality. The life of Christ, regarded
 
 110 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 quite naturally as of one ' who was in all points 
 tempted like as we are, yet without sin \ is also the 
 life and centre of Christian teaching. There is no 
 higher aim which the preacher can propose to him- 
 self than to awaken what may be termed the feeling 
 of the presence of God and the mind of Christ in 
 Scripture ; not to collect evidences about dates and 
 books, or to familiarize metaphysical distinctions ; 
 but to make the heart and conscience of his hearers 
 bear him witness that the lessons which are contained 
 in Scripture — lessons of justice and truth — lessons 
 of mercy and peace — of the need of man and the 
 goodness of God to him, are indeed not human but 
 divine. 
 
 V. It is time to make an end of this long disquisi- 
 tion — let the end be a few more words of application 
 to the circumstances of a particular class in the 
 present age. If any one who is about to become a 
 clergyman feels, or thinks that he feels, that some of 
 the preceding statements cast a shade of trouble or 
 suspicion on his future walk of life ; who, either from 
 the influence of a stronger mind than his own, or from 
 some natural tendency in himself, has been led to 
 examine those great questions which lie on the thresh- 
 old of the higher study of theology, and experiences 
 a sort of shrinking or dizziness at the prospect which 
 is opening upon him ; let him lay to heart the follow- 
 ing considerations : — First, that he may possibly not 
 be the person who is called upon to pursue such 
 inquiries. No man should busy himself with them 
 who has not clearness of mind enough to see things 
 as they are, and a faith strong enough to rest in that 
 degree of knowledge which God has really given ; or 
 who is unable to separate the truth from his own 
 religious wants and experiences. For the theologian 
 as well as the philosopher has need of 'dry light 1 ,
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 111 
 
 'unmingled with any tincture of the affections' — the 
 more so as his conclusions are oftener liable to be 
 disordered by them. He who is of another tempera- 
 ment may find another work to do, which is in some 
 respects a higher one. Unlike philosophy, the Gospel 
 has an ideal life to offer, not to a few only, but to all. 
 There is one word of caution, however, to be given to 
 those who renounce inquiry ; it is, that they cannot 
 retain the right to condemn inquirers. Their duty 
 is to say with Nicodemus, ' Doth the Gospel condemn 
 any man before it hear him ? ' although the answer 
 may be only ' Art thou also of Galilee ? ' They have 
 chosen the path of practical usefulness, and they 
 should acknowledge that it is a narrow path. For 
 any but a * strong swimmer , will be insensibly drawn 
 out of it by the tide of public opinion or the current 
 of party. 
 
 Secondly, let him consider that the difficulty is not 
 so great as imagination sometimes paints it. It is a 
 difficulty which arises chiefly out of differences of 
 education in different classes of society. It is a 
 difficulty which tact, and prudence, and, much more, 
 the power of a Christian life may hope to surmount. 
 Much depends on the manner in which things are 
 said ; on the evidence in the writer or preacher of a 
 real good will to his opponents, and a desire for the 
 moral improvement of men. There is an aspect of 
 truth which may always be put forward so as to find 
 a way to the hearts of men. If there is danger and 
 shrinking from one point of view, from another there 
 is freedom and sense of relief. The wider contempla- 
 tion of the religious world may enable us to adjust 
 our own place in it. The acknowledgement of 
 churches as political and national institutions is the 
 basis of a sound government of them. Criticism 
 itself is not only negative ; if it creates some diffi-
 
 112 ESSAY ON THE 
 
 culties, it does away others. It may put us at 
 variance with a party or section of Christians in our 
 own neighbourhood. But, on the other hand, it 
 enables us to look at all men as they are in the sight 
 of God, not as they appear to human eye, separated 
 and often interdicted from each other by lines of 
 religious demarcation ; it divides us from the parts 
 to unite us to the whole. That is a great help to 
 religious communion. It does away with the supposed 
 opposition of reason and faith. It throws us back 
 on the conviction that religion is a personal thing, 
 in which certainty is to be slowly won and not as- 
 sumed as the result of evidence or testimony. It 
 places us, in some respects (though it be deemed a 
 paradox to say so), more nearly in the position of the 
 first Christians to whom the New Testament was not 
 given, in whom the Gospel was a living word, not 
 yet embodied in forms or supported by ancient 
 institutions. 
 
 Thirdly, the suspicion or difficulty which attends 
 critical inquiries is no reason for doubting their value. 
 The Scripture nowhere leads us to suppose that the 
 circumstance of all men speaking well of us is any 
 ground for supposing that we are acceptable in the 
 sight of God. And there is no reason why the 
 condemnation of others should be witnessed to by 
 our own conscience. Perhaps it may be true that, 
 owing to the jealousy or fear of some, the reticence 
 of others, the terrorism of a few, we may not always 
 find it easy to regard these subjects with calmness 
 and judgement. But, on the other hand, these 
 accidental circumstances have nothing to do with 
 the question at issue ; they cannot have the slightest 
 influence on the meaning of words, or on the truth of 
 facts. No one can carry out the principle that public 
 opinion or church authority is the guide to truth,
 
 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 113 
 
 when he goes beyond the limits of his own church or 
 country. That is a consideration Avhich may well 
 make him pause before he accepts of such a guide in 
 the journey to another world. All the arguments 
 for repressing inquiries into Scripture in Protestant 
 countries hold equally in Italy and Spain for repress- 
 ing inquiries into matters of fact or doctrine, and so 
 for denying the Scriptures to the common people. 
 
 Lastly, let him be assured that there is some nobler 
 idea of truth than is supplied by the opinion of man- 
 kind in general, or the voice of parties in a church. 
 Every one, whether a student of theology or not, has 
 need to make war against his prejudices no less than 
 against his passions ; and, in the religious teacher, 
 the first is even more necessary than the last. For, 
 while the vices of mankind are in a great degree 
 isolated, and are, at any rate, reprobated by public 
 opinion, their prejudices have a sort of communion 
 or kindred with the world without. They are a 
 collective evil, and have their being in the interest, 
 classes, states of society, and other influences amid 
 which we live. He who takes the prevailing opinions 
 of Christians and decks them out in their gayest 
 colours — who reflects the better mind of the world to 
 itself — is likely to be its favourite teacher. In that 
 ministry of the Gospel, even when assuming forms 
 repulsive to persons of education, no doubt the good 
 is far greater than the error or harm. But there is 
 also a deeper work which is not dependent on the 
 opinions of men, in which many elements combine, 
 some alien to religion, or accidentally at variance 
 with it. That work can hardly expect to win much 
 popular favour, so far as it runs counter to the 
 feelings of religious parties. But he who bears a part 
 in it may feel a confidence, which no popular caresses 
 or religious sympathy could inspire, that he has by a 
 
 JOWETT II I
 
 114 INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE 
 
 Divine help been enabled to plant his foot somewhere 
 beyond the waves of time. He may depart hence be- 
 fore the natural term, worn out with intellectual toil ; 
 regarded with suspicion by many of his contempor- 
 aries ; yet not without a sure hope that the love of 
 truth, which men of saintly lives often seem to slight, 
 is, nevertheless, accepted before God.
 
 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 Religion and philosophy have often been contrasted 
 as moving in different planes, in which they can never 
 come into contact with each other. Yet there are 
 many meeting-points at which either passes into the 
 circle of the other. One of these meeting-points is 
 language, which loses nothing of its original imper- 
 fection by being employed in the service of religion. 
 Its plastic nature is an element of uncertainty in 
 the interpretation of Scripture ; its logical structure 
 is a necessary limit on human faculties in the con- 
 ception of truths above them ; whatever growth it is 
 capable of, must affect also the growth of our religious 
 ideas ; the analysis we are able to make of it, we 
 must be able also to extend to the theological use of 
 it. Religion cannot place itself above the instrument 
 through which alone it speaks to man ; our true 
 wisdom is, therefore, to be aware of their inter- 
 dependence. 
 
 One of the points in which theology and philosophy 
 are brought into connexion by language, is their 
 common usage of abstract words, and of what in the 
 phraseology of some philosophers are termed ' mixed 
 modes' 1 , or ideas not yet freed from associations of 
 time or sense. Logicians speak of the abstract and 
 concrete, and of the formation of our abstract ideas : 
 Are the abstractions of Scripture the same in kind 
 with those of philosophy ? May we venture to 
 analyse their growth, to ask after their origin, to 
 t 12
 
 116 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 compare their meaning in one age of the world and 
 in another ? The same words in different languages 
 have not precisely the same meaning. May not this 
 be the case also with abstract terms which have 
 passed from the Old Testament into the New, which 
 have come down to us from the times of the Apostles, 
 hardened by controversy, worn by the use of two 
 thousand years ? These questions do not admit of a 
 short and easy answer. Even to make them in- 
 telligible, we have to begin some way off, to enter 
 on our inquiry as a speculation rather of logic than 
 of theology, and hereafter to return to its bearing 
 on the interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 It is remarked by a great metaphysician, that 
 abstract ideas are, in one point of view, the highest 
 and most philosophical of all our ideas, while in 
 another they are the shallowest and most meagre. 
 They have the advantage of clearness and definite- 
 ness ; they enable us to conceive and, in a manner, 
 to span the infinity of things ; they arrange, as it 
 were, in the frames of a window the many-coloured 
 world of phenomena. And yet they are ' mere ' 
 abstractions removed from sense, removed from ex- 
 perience, and detached from the mind in which they 
 arose. Their perfection consists, as their very name 
 implies, in their idealism : that is, in their negative 
 nature. 
 
 For example : the idea of ' happiness ' has come 
 down from the Greek philosophy. To us it is more 
 entirely freed from etymological associations than it 
 was to Aristotle, and further removed from any 
 particular state of life, or, in other words, it is more 
 of an abstraction. It is what everybody knows, but 
 what nobody can tell. It is not pleasure, nor wealth, 
 nor power, nor virtue, nor contemplation. Could we 
 define it, we seem at first as if we should have found
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 117 
 
 out the secret of the world. But our next thought 
 is that we should only be defining a word, that it 
 consists rather in a thousand undefinable things 
 which, partly because mankind are not agreed about 
 them, partly because they are too numerous to con- 
 ceive under any single idea, are dropt by the 
 instinct of language. It means what each person's 
 fancy or experience may lead him to connect with it ; 
 it is a vague conception to his own mind, which 
 nevertheless may be used without vagueness as a 
 middle term in conversing with others. 
 
 It is the uniformity in the use of such words that 
 constitutes their true value. Like all other words, 
 they represent in their origin things of sense, facts 
 of experience. But they are no longer pictured by 
 the sense, or tinged by the affections ; they are 
 beyond the circle of associations in which they arose. 
 When we use the word happiness, no thought of 
 chance now intrudes itself; when we use the word 
 righteousness, no thought of law or courts ; when the 
 word virtue is used, the image no longer presents 
 itself of manly strength or beauty. 
 
 The growth of abstract ideas is an after-growth of 
 language itself, which may be compared to the growth 
 of the mind when the body is already at its full 
 stature. All language has been originally the re- 
 flection of a world of sense ; the words which describe 
 the faculties have once referred to the parts of the 
 body ; the name of God himself has been derived in 
 most languages from the sun or the powers of nature. 
 It is indeed impossible for us to say how far, under 
 these earthly and sensual images, there lurked among 
 the primitive peoples of mankind a latent conscious- 
 ness of the spiritual and invisible; whether the 
 thought or only the word was of the earth earthy. 
 From this garment of the truth it is impossible for
 
 118 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 us to separate the truth itself. In this form awhile 
 it appears to grow ; even the writers of the Old 
 Testament, in its earlier portion, finding in the winds 
 or the light of heaven the natural expression of the 
 power or holiness of Jehovah. But in process of 
 time another world of thought and expression seems 
 to create itself. The words for courage, strength, 
 beauty, and the like, begin to denote mental and 
 moral qualities ; things which were only spoken of 
 as actions, become abstract ideas, the name of God 
 loses all sensual and outward associations ; until at 
 the end of the first period of Greek philosophy, the 
 world of abstractions, and the words by which they 
 are expressed, have almost as much definiteness and 
 preciseness of meaning as among ourselves. 
 
 This process of forming abstractions is ever going 
 on — the mixed modes of one language are the pure 
 ideas of another ; indeed, the adoption of words from 
 dead languages into English has, above all other 
 causes, tended to increase the number of our simple 
 ideas, because the associations of such words, being 
 lost in the transfer, they are at once refined from all 
 alloy of sense and experience. Different languages, 
 or the same at different periods of their history, are 
 at different stages of the process. We can imagine 
 a language, such as language was, as far as the 
 vestiges of it allow us to go back, in its first begin- 
 nings, in which every operation of the mind, every 
 idea, every relation, was expressed by a sensible 
 image; a language which we may describe as purely 
 sensual and material, the words of which, like the 
 first written characters, were mental pictures : we can 
 imagine a language in a state which none has ever 
 yet reached, in which the worlds of mind and matter 
 are perfectly separated from each other, and no clog 
 or taint of the one is allowed to enter into the other.
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 119 
 
 But all languages which exist are in reality between 
 these two extremes, and are passing from one to the 
 other. The Greek of Homer is at a different stage 
 from that of the Greek tragedians ; the Greek of the 
 early Ionic philosophers, at a different stage from 
 that of Plato ; so, though in a different way (for here 
 there was no advancement), the Greek of Plato as 
 compared with the Neo-Platonist philosophy. The 
 same remark is applicable to the Old Testament, the 
 earlier and later books of which may be, in a similar 
 way, contrasted with each other ; almost the whole 
 of which (though here a new language also comes in) 
 exhibits a marked difference from the Apocrypha. 
 The structure of thought insensibly changes. This 
 is the case with all languages which have a literature 
 — they are ever becoming more and more abstract — 
 modern languages, more than ancient ; the later 
 stages of either, more than the earlier. It by no 
 means follows that as Greek, Latin, and English 
 have words that correspond in a dictionary, they are 
 real equivalents in meaning, because words, the same, 
 perhaps, etymologically, may be used with different 
 degrees of abstraction, which no accuracy or peri- 
 phrasis of translation will suffice to express, belonging, 
 as they do generally, to the great underlying differ- 
 ences of a whole language. 
 
 Another illustration of degrees of abstraction may 
 be found in the language of poetry, or of common 
 life, and the language of philosophy. Poetry, we 
 know, will scarcely endure abstract terms, while they 
 form the stock and staple of morals and metaphysics. 
 They are the language of books, rather than of 
 conversation. Theology, on the other hand, though 
 its problems may seem akin to those of the moralist 
 and metaphysician, yet tends to reject them in the 
 same way that English tends to reject French words,
 
 120 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 or poetry to reject prose. He who in paraphrasing 
 Scripture spoke of essence, matter, vice, crime, would 
 be thought guilty of a want of taste ; the reason of 
 which is, that these abstract terms are not within the 
 circle of our Scripture associations. They carry us 
 into another age or country or school of thought — 
 to the ear of the uneducated they have an unusual 
 sound, while to the educated they appear to involve 
 an anachronism or to be out of place. Vice, they 
 say, is the moral, sin the theological term; nature 
 and law are the proper words in a treatise on 
 physiology, while the actions of which they are the 
 imaginary causes would in a prayer or sermon be 
 suitably ascribed to the Divine Being. 
 
 Our subject admits of another illustration from the 
 language of the Fathers as compared with that of 
 Scripture. Those who have observed the circum- 
 stance naturally ask why it is that Scriptural expres- 
 sions when they reappear in the early patristic 
 literature slightly change their signification ? that a 
 greater degree of personality is given to one word, 
 more definiteness to another, while a third has been 
 singled out to be the centre of a scheme of doctrine ? 
 The reason is, that use, and reflection, and contro- 
 versy do not allow language to remain where it was. 
 Time itself is the great innovator in the sense of 
 words. No one supposes that the meaning of con- 
 science or imagination exactly corresponds to the 
 Latin * conscientia ' or ' imaginatio \ Even within the 
 limits of our own language the terms of the scholastic 
 philosophy have acquired and lost a technical sig- 
 nification. And several changes have taken place in 
 the language of creeds and articles, which, by their 
 very attempt to define and systematize, have slightly 
 though imperceptibly departed from the use of words 
 in Scripture.
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 121 
 
 The principle of which all these instances are 
 illustrations leads to important results in the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture. It tends to show, that in 
 using the same words with St. Paul we may not be 
 using them in precisely the same sense. Nay, that 
 the very exactness with which we apply them, the 
 result of the definitions, oppositions, associations, of 
 ages of controversy, is of itself a difference of meaning. 
 The mere lapse of time tends to make the similarity 
 deceitful. For if the language of Scripture (to use 
 an expression which will have been made intelligible 
 by the preceding remarks) be really at a different 
 stage of abstraction, great differences in the use of 
 language will occur, such as in each particular word 
 escape and perplex us, and yet, on a survey of the 
 whole, are palpable and evident. 
 
 A well-known difficulty in the interpretation of the 
 Epistles is the seemingly uncertain use of hiKaioavvr], 
 aXr/deia, aytxTTt], maris, $6£a, &c, words apparently the 
 most simple, and yet taking sometimes in the same 
 passage different shades and colours of meaning. 
 Sometimes they are attributes of God, in other 
 passages qualities in man ; here realities, there mere 
 ideas, sometimes active, sometimes passive. Some of 
 them, as a/xaprta, ttiotis, have a sort of personality 
 assigned to them, while others, as irvevna, with which 
 we associate the idea of a person, seem to lose their 
 personality. They are used with genitive cases after 
 them, which we are compelled to explain in various 
 senses. In the technical language of German philo- 
 sophy, they are objective and subjective at once. For 
 example : in the first chapter of the Romans, ver. 17, 
 it is asked by commentators, * Whether the righteous- 
 ness of God, which is revealed in the Gospel,' is the 
 original righteousness of God from the beginning, 
 or the righteousness which He imparts to man, the
 
 122 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 righteousness of God in Himself or in man. So again, 
 in chap, v, ver. 5, it is doubted whether the words on 
 ri b\ya.Ttr] tov 6eov eKKe'xwcu ev rat? KapSiais, refer to the 
 love of God in man, or the love of God to man. So 
 irvevfxa deov wavers in meaning between a separate 
 existence, or the spirit of God, as we should say the 
 ' mind of man ', and the manifestation of that spirit 
 in the soul of the believer. Similar apparent ambi- 
 guities occur in such expressions as ttCotis Itjo-oC 
 XpMTTov, vttoixovt} Xpiarov, aK-qdeia deov, bo£a deov, ao<pia 
 deov, and several others. 
 
 A difficulty akin to this arises from the apparently 
 numerous senses in which another class of words, such 
 as voijlos, C<ari, Odvaros are used in the Epistles of St. 
 Paul. That vofxos should sometimes signify the law of 
 Moses, at other times the law of the conscience, and 
 that it should be often uncertain whether (ooij referred 
 to a life spiritual or natural, is inconceivable, if these 
 words had had the same precise and defined sense that 
 the corresponding English words have amongst our- 
 selves. The class of expressions before mentioned 
 seems to widen and extend in meaning as they are 
 brought into contact with God and the human soul, 
 or transferred from things earthly and temporal to 
 things heavenly and spiritual. The subtle trans- 
 formation which these latter words undergo, may be 
 best described as a metaphorical or analogous use 
 of them : not, to take a single instance, that the 
 meaning of the word ' law ' is so widened as to include 
 all 'law 1 , but that the law of Moses becomes the 
 figure or type of the law written on the heart, or of 
 the law of sin and death, and (uij, the natural life, the 
 figure of the spiritual. Each word is a reflector of 
 many thoughts, and we pass, from one reflection of it 
 to another in successive verses. 
 
 That such verbal difficulties occur much more often
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 123 
 
 in Scripture than in any other book, will be generally 
 admitted. In Plato and Aristotle, for example, they 
 can be hardly said to exist at all. What they meant 
 by elbos or ovaia is hard to conceive, but their use of 
 the words does not waver in successive sentences. 
 The language of the Greek philosophy is, on the 
 whole, precise and definite. A much nearer parallel 
 to what may be termed the infinity of Scripture is to 
 be found in the Jewish Alexandrian writings. There 
 is the same transition from the personal to the im- 
 personal, the same figurative use of language, the 
 same tendency to realize and speak of all things in 
 reference to God and the human soul. The mind 
 existed prior to the ideas, which are therefore con- 
 ceived of as its qualities or attributes, and naturally 
 coalesced with it in the Alexandrian phraseology. 
 
 The difficulty of which we have been speaking, 
 when considered in its whole extent, is its own solu- 
 tion. It does but force upon us the fact, that the use 
 of language and the mode of thought are different in 
 the writings of the Apostle from what they are 
 amongst ourselves. It is the difficulty of a person 
 who should set himself to explain the structure of a 
 language which he did not know, by one which he did, 
 and at last, in despair, begin to learn the new idiom. 
 Or the difficulty that a person would have in under- 
 standing poetry, who imagined it to be prose. It is 
 the difficulty that Aristotle or Cicero found in under- 
 standing the philosophers that were before them. 
 They were familiar with the meaning of the words 
 used by them, but not with the mode of thought. 
 Logic itself had increased the difficulty to them of 
 understanding the times before logic. 
 
 This is our own difficulty in the interpretation of 
 Scripture. Our use of language is more definite, our 
 abstractions more abstract, our structure more regular
 
 124 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 and logical. But the moment we perceive and allow 
 for this difference in the use of language in Scripture 
 and among ourselves, the difficulty vanishes. We 
 conceive ideas in a process of formation, falling from 
 inspired lips, growing in the minds of men. We throw 
 ourselves into the world of ' mixed modes ', and seek 
 to recall the associations which the technical terms of 
 theology no longer suggest. We observe what may 
 be termed the difference of level in our own ideas and 
 those of the first Christians, without disturbing the 
 meaning of one word in relation to another. 
 
 The difficulty while it is increased, is also explained 
 by the personifying character of the age. Ideas in the 
 New Testament are relative to the mind of God or 
 man, in which they seem naturally to inhere so as 
 scarcely, in the usage of language, to have an inde- 
 pendent existence. There is ever the tendency to 
 speak of good and virtue and righteousness as in- 
 separable from the Divine nature, while in evil of 
 every sort a reflection of conscience seems to be in- 
 cluded. The words biKaioavvr}, a\ij6eia, aydirrj, are 
 not merely equivalent to righteousness, truth, love, 
 but connect imperceptibly with 'the Author and 
 Father of lights \ There is no other righteousness or 
 truth but that of God, just as there is no sin without 
 the consciousness of sin in man. Consequently, the 
 two thoughts coalesce in one, and what are to us 
 ideas, which we can imagine existing even without 
 God, are to the Israelite attributes of God Himself. 
 Still, in our 'mixed modes , we must make a further 
 step ; for as these ideas cannot be separated from God, 
 so neither can they be conceived of, except as revealed 
 in the Gospel, and working in the heart of man. 
 Man who is righteous has no righteousness of his own, 
 his righteousness is the righteousness of God in him. 
 Hence, when considering the righteousness of God,
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 125 
 
 we must go on to conceive of it as the revelation of 
 His righteousness, without which it would be unknown 
 and unmeaning to us. The abstract must become 
 concrete, and must involve at once the attribute of 
 God and the quality in man. This ' concrete , notion 
 of the word righteousness is different from the ab- 
 stract one with which we are familiar. Righteousness 
 is the righteousness of God ; it is also the communion 
 of that righteousness with man. It is used almost with 
 the same double meaning as we attribute to the will 
 of God, which we speak of actively, as intending, 
 doing, and passively, as done, fulfilled by ourselves. 
 
 A part of this embarrassment in the interpretation 
 of Scripture arises out of the unconscious influence 
 of English words and ideas on our minds, in trans- 
 lating from Hellenistic Greek. The difficulty is still 
 more apparent, when the attempt is 'made to render 
 the Scriptures into a language which has not been 
 framed or moulded on Christianity. It is a curious 
 question, the consideration of which is not without 
 practical use, how far the nicer shades either of Scrip- 
 tural expression or of later theology are capable of 
 being made intelligible in the languages of India 
 or China. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, it must be remembered, 
 that neither this nor any of the other peculiarities 
 here spoken of, is a mere form of speech, but enters 
 deeply into the nature of the Gospel. For the Gospel 
 has necessarily its mixed modes, not merely because 
 it is preached to the poor, and therefore adopts the 
 expressions of ordinary life ; nor because its language 
 is incrusted with the phraseology of the Alexandrian 
 writers ; but because its subject is mixed, and, as it 
 were, intermediate between God and man. Natural 
 theology speaks clearly, but it is of God only ; moral 
 philosophy speaks clearly, but it is of man only : but
 
 126 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 the Gospel is, as it were, the communion of God and 
 man, and its ideas are in a state of transition or 
 oscillation, having two aspects towards God and 
 towards man, which it is hard to keep in view at once. 
 Thus, to quote once more the example just given, 
 the righteousness of God is an idea not difficult to 
 us to comprehend, human justice and goodness are 
 also intelligible ; but to conceive justice or righteous- 
 ness as passing from heaven to earth, from God to 
 man, actu et potentid at once, as a sort of life, or 
 stream, or motion, is perplexing. And yet this 
 notion of the communion of the righteousness of God 
 being what constitutes righteousness, is of the very 
 essence of the Gospel. It was what the Apostle and 
 the first believers meant and felt, and what, if we 
 could get the simple unlettered Christian, receiving 
 the Gospel as a little child, to describe to us his 
 feelings, he would describe. 
 
 Scripture language may thus be truly said to belong 
 to an intermediate world, different at once both from 
 the visible and invisible world, yet partaking of the 
 nature of both. It does not represent the things 
 that the eye sees merely, nor the things that are 
 within the veil of which those are the images, but 
 rather the world that is in our hearts ; the things 
 that we feel, but nobody can express in words. His 
 body is the communion of His body ; His spirit is 
 the communion of His spirit ; the love of God is 
 * loving as we are loved ' ; the knowledge of God is 
 ' knowing as we are known , ; the righteousness of faith 
 is Divine as well as human. Hence language seems 
 to burst its bounds in the attempt to express the 
 different aspects of these truths, and from its very 
 inadequacy wavers and becomes uncertain in its mean- 
 ing. The more intensely we feel and believe, and the 
 less we are able to define our feelings, the more shall
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 127 
 
 we appear to use words at random ; employing some- 
 times one mode of expression, sometimes another; 
 passing from one thought to another, by slender 
 threads of association ; ' going off upon a word, 1 as it 
 has been called ; because in our own minds all is 
 connected, and, as it were, fulfilled with itself, and 
 from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 
 To understand the language of St. Paul it is necessary, 
 not only to compare the uses of words with one 
 another, or to be versed in Alexandrian modes of 
 thought, but to lead the life of St. Paul, to have the 
 mind of St. Paul, to be one with Christ, to be dead 
 to sin. Otherwise the world within becomes un- 
 meaning to us. The inversion of all human things 
 of which he speaks, is attributed to the manner of his 
 time, or the peculiarity of his individual character ; 
 and at the very moment when we seem to have 
 attained most accurately the Apostle's meaning, it 
 vanishes away like a shadow. 
 
 No human eye can pierce the cloud which overhangs 
 another life ; no faculty of man can ' by understand- 
 ing find out' or express in words the Divine nature. 
 Yet it does not follow that our ideas of spiritual 
 things are wholly indefinite. There are many symbols 
 and images of them in the world without and below. 
 There is a communion of thoughts, feelings, and 
 affections, even on earth, quite sufficient to be an 
 image of the communion with God and Christ, of 
 which the Epistles speak to us. There are emotions, 
 and transitions, and passings out of ourselves, and 
 states of undefined consciousness, which language is 
 equally unable to express as it is to describe justifica- 
 tion, or the work of grace, or the relation of the 
 believer to his Lord. All these are rather intimated 
 than described or defined by words. The sigh of 
 sorrow, the cry of joy or despair, are but inarticulate
 
 128 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 sounds, yet expressive, beyond the power of writing, 
 or speech. There are many such 'still small voices 1 
 of warning or of consolation in Scripture, beyond the 
 power of philosophy to analyse, yet full of meaning 
 to him who catches them aright. The life and force 
 of such expressions do not depend on the clearness 
 with which they state a logical proposition, or the 
 vividness with which they picture to the imagination 
 a spiritual world. They gain for themselves a truth 
 in the individual soul. Even logic itself affords 
 negative helps to the feebleness of man in the concep- 
 tion of things above him. It limits us by our own 
 faculties ; it guards us against identifying the images 
 of things unseen with the 'very things themselves'; 
 it bars remote inferences about terms which are really 
 metaphorical. Lastly, it helps us to define by op- 
 position. Though we do not know what spirit is, we 
 know what body is, and we conceive of spirit as what 
 body is not. ' There is a spiritual body, and there is 
 a natural body. 1 We imagine it at once both like 
 and unlike. We do not know what heaven, or the 
 glory of God, or His wisdom, is ; but we imagine 
 them unlike this world, or the wisdom of this world, 
 or the glory of the princes of this world, and yet, 
 in a certain way, like them, imaged and symbolized 
 by what we see around us. We do not know what 
 eternity is, except as the negative of time ; but 
 believing in its real existence, in a way beyond our 
 faculties to comprehend, we do not confine it within 
 the limits of past, present, or future. We are unable 
 to reconcile the power of God and the freedom of 
 man, or the contrast of this world and another, or 
 even the opposite feelings of our own minds about the 
 truths of religion. But we can describe them as the 
 Apostle has done, in a paradox (2 Cor. iv. 12 ; 
 vi.8-10).
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 129 
 
 There is yet a further way in which the ideas of 
 Scripture may be defined, that is, by use. It has 
 been already observed that the progress of language 
 is from the concrete to the abstract. Not the least 
 striking instance of this is the language of theology. 
 Embodied in creeds, it gradually becomes developed 
 and precise. The words are no longer 'living crea- 
 tures with hands and feet ', as it were, feeling after the 
 hearts of men ; but they have one distinct, unchang- 
 ing meaning. When we speak of justification or 
 truth, no question arises whether by this is meant 
 the attribute of God, or the quality in man. Time 
 and usage have sufficiently circumscribed the diver- 
 sities of their signification. This is not to be regarded 
 as a misfortune to Scriptural truth, but as natural 
 and necessary. Part of what is lost in power and life 
 is regained in certainty and definiteness. The usage 
 of language itself would forbid us, in a discourse 
 or sermon, to give as many senses to the word ' law 1 
 as are attributed to it by St. Paul. Only in the 
 interpretation of Scripture, if we would feel as St. 
 Paul felt, or think as he thought, it is necessary to go 
 back to that age before creeds, in which the water 
 of life was still a running stream. 
 
 The course of speculation which has been adopted 
 in this essay, may seem to introduce into Scripture 
 an element of uncertainty. It may seem to cloud 
 truth with metaphysics, and rob the poor and un- 
 educated of the simplicity of the Gospel. But 
 perhaps this is not so. Whether it be the case that 
 such speculations introduce an element of uncertainty 
 or difficulty into Scripture or not, they introduce a 
 new element of truth. For without the'consideration 
 of such questions as that of which a brief sketch has 
 been here attempted, there is no basis for Scriptural 
 interpretation. We are ever liable to draw the 
 
 JOWETI II K
 
 130 ESSAY ON THE ABSTRACT IDEAS 
 
 meaning of words this way or that, according to the 
 theological system of which we are the advocates ; 
 to fall under the slavery of an illogical logic, which 
 first narrows the mind by definitions, and then wearies 
 it with far-fetched inferences. Metaphysics must 
 enter into the interpretation of Scripture, not for 
 the sake of intruding upon it a new set of words or 
 ideas, but with the view of getting rid of meta- 
 physics and restoring to Scripture its natural sense. 
 
 But the Gospel is still preached to the poor as 
 before, in the same sacred yet familiar language. 
 They could not understand questions of grammar 
 before ; they do not understand modes of thought 
 now. It is the peculiar nature of our religious ideas 
 that we are able to apply them, and to receive com- 
 fort from them, without being able to analyse or 
 explain them. All the metaphysical and logical 
 speculations in the world will not rob the poor, the 
 sick, or the dying of the truths of the Gospel. Yet 
 the subject which we have been considering is not 
 without a practical result. It warns us to restore 
 the Gospel to its simplicity, to turn from the letter 
 to the spirit, to withdraw from the number of the 
 essentials of Christianity points almost too subtle 
 for the naked eye, which depend on modes of thought 
 or Alexandrian usages, to require no more of precise- 
 ness or definition than is necessary to give form and 
 substance to our teaching. Not only the feebleness 
 of human faculties, but the imperfection of language 
 itself, will often make silence our truest wisdom. 
 The saying of Scaliger, taken not seriously but in 
 irony, is full of meaning : ' Many a man has missed 
 of his salvation from ignorance of grammar. 1 
 
 To the poor and uneducated, at times to all, no 
 better advice can be given for the understanding of 
 Scripture than to read the Bible humbly with prayer.
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 131 
 
 The critical and metaphysical student requires an- 
 other sort of rule for which this can never be made a 
 substitute. His duty is to throw himself back into 
 the times, the modes of thought, the language of the 
 Apostolic age. He must pass from the abstract to 
 the concrete, from the ideal and intellectual to the 
 spiritual, from later statements of faith or doctrine 
 to the words of inspiration which fell from the lips 
 of the first believers. He must seek to conceive the 
 religion of Christ in its relation to the religions of 
 other ages and distant countries, to the philosophy 
 of our own or other times ; and if in this effort his 
 mind seems to fail or waver, he must win back in life 
 and practice the hold on the truths of the Gospel 
 which he is beginning to lose in the mazes of specula- 
 tion. 
 
 K %
 
 ESSAY ON 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 ROMANS IV. 
 
 'WviKa b av iwiOTptipri npos Kvpiov, rrepiaipeiTai to Ka\vpifia. 
 2 Cor. iii. 16. 
 
 Thus we have reached another stage in the develop- 
 ment of the great theme. The new commandment 
 has become old ; faith is taught in the Book of the 
 Law. ' Abraham had faith in God, and it was counted 
 to him for righteousness. , David spoke of the forgive- 
 ness of sins in the very spirit of the Gospel. The Old 
 Testament is not dead, but alive again. It refers 
 not to the past, but to the present. The truths 
 which we daily feel, are written in its pages. There 
 are the consciousness of sin and the sense of accept- 
 ance. There is the veiled remembrance of a former 
 world, which is also the veiled image of a future one. 
 
 To us the Old and New Testaments are two books, 
 or two parts of the same book, which fit into one 
 another, and can never be separated or torn asunder. 
 They are double one against the other, and the New 
 Testament is the revelation of the Old. To the first 
 believers it was otherwise : as yet there was no New 
 Testament ; nor is there any trace that the authors 
 of the New Testament ever expected their own 
 writings to be placed on a level with the Old. We 
 can scarcely imagine what would have been the feel- 
 ing of St. Paul, could he have foreseen that later ages 
 would look not to the faith of Abraham in the law,
 
 ESSAY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 133 
 
 but to the Epistle to the Romans, as the highest 
 authority on the doctrine of justification by faith ; or 
 that they would have regarded the allegory of Hagar 
 and Sarah, in the Epistle to the Galatians, as a 
 difficulty to be resolved by the inspiration of the 
 Apostle. Neither he who wrote, nor those to whom 
 he wrote, could ever have thought that words which 
 were meant for a particular Church were to give life 
 also to all mankind ; and that the Epistles in which 
 they occurred were one day to be placed on a level with 
 the Books of Moses themselves. 
 
 But if the writings of the New Testament were 
 regarded by the contemporaries of the Apostle in a 
 manner different from that of later ages, there was a 
 difference, which it is far more difficult for us to appre- 
 ciate, in their manner of reading the Old Testament. 
 To them it was not half, but the whole, needing no- 
 thing to be added to it or to counteract it, but contain- 
 ing everything in itself. It seemed to come home to 
 them ; to be meant specially for their age ; to be 
 understood by them, as its words had never been 
 understood before. 'Did not their hearts burn 
 within them ? , as the Apostles expounded to them 
 the Psalms and Prophets. The manner of this 
 exposition was that of the age in which they lived. 
 They brought to the understanding of it, not a 
 knowledge of the volume of the New Testament, but 
 the mind of Christ. Sometimes they found the 
 lesson which they sought in the plain language of 
 Scripture ; at other times, coming round to the same 
 lesson by the paths of allegory, or seeming even in 
 the sound of a word to catch an echo of the 
 Redeemer's name. Various as are the writings of the 
 Old Testament, composed by such numerous authors, 
 at so many different times, so diverse in style and 
 subject, in them all they read only — the truth of
 
 134 ESSAY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Christ. They read without distinctions of moral and 
 ceremonial, type and antitype, history and prophecy, 
 without inquiries into the original meaning or con- 
 nexion of passages, without theories of the relation 
 of the Old and New Testaments. Whatever contrast 
 existed was of another kind, not of the parts of a 
 book, but of the law and faith ; of the earlier and 
 later dispensations. The words of the book were all 
 equally for their instruction ; the whole volume 
 lighted up with new meaning. 
 
 What was then joined cannot now be divided or 
 put asunder. The New Testament will never be 
 unclothed of the Old. No one in later ages can 
 place himself in the position of the heathen convert 
 who learnt the name of Christ first, afterwards the 
 Law and the Prophets. Such instances were prob- 
 ably rare even in the first days of the Christian 
 Church. No one can easily imagine the manner in 
 which St. Paul himself sets the Law over against the 
 Gospel, and at the same time translates one into the 
 language of the other. Time has closed up the rent 
 which the law made in the heart of man ; and 
 the superficial resemblances on which the Apostle 
 sometimes dwells, have not the same force to us 
 which they had to his contemporaries. But a real 
 unity remains to ourselves as well as to the Apostle, 
 the unity not of the letter, but of the spirit, like the 
 unity of life or of a human soul, which lasts on amid 
 the changes of our being. The Old Testament and 
 the New do not dovetail into one another like the 
 parts of an indenture ; it is a higher figure than this, 
 which is needed to describe the continuity of the 
 Divine work. Or rather, the simple fact is above all 
 figures, and can receive no addition from philosophical 
 notions of design, or the observation of minute coin- 
 cidences. What we term the Old and New dispensa-
 
 ESSAY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 135 
 
 tion is the increasing revelation of God, amid the 
 accidents of human history: first, in Himself; secondly, 
 in His Son, gathering not one nation only, but all 
 mankind into His family. It is the vision of God 
 Himself, true and just, and remembering mercy in one 
 age of the world ; not ceasing to be true and just, 
 but softening also into human gentleness, and love, 
 and forgiveness, and making His dwelling in the 
 human heart in another. The wind, and the earth- 
 quake, and the fire pass by first, and after that ' the 
 still small voice \ This is the great fulfilment of the 
 Law and the Prophets in the Gospel. No other 
 religion has anything like it. And the use of 
 language, and systems of theology, and the necessity 
 of 'giving ideas through something', and the prayers 
 and thoughts of eighteen hundred years, have formed 
 another connexion between the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, more accidental and outward, and also more 
 intricate and complex, which is incapable of being 
 accurately drawn out, and ought not to be imposed 
 as an article of faith ; which yet seems to many to 
 supply a want in human nature, and gives expression 
 to feelings which would otherwise be unuttered. 
 
 It is not natural, nor perhaps possible, to us to 
 cease to use the figures in which ' holy men of old , 
 spoke of that which belonged to their peace. But it 
 is well that we should sometimes remind ourselves, 
 that ' all these things are a shadow, but the body is 
 of Christ \ Framed as our minds are, we are ever 
 tending to confuse that which is accidental with that 
 which is essential, to substitute the language of 
 imagery for the severity of our moral ideas, to en- 
 tangle Divine truths in the state of society in which 
 they came into the world or in the ways of thought 
 of a particular age. ' All these things are a shadow '; 
 that is to say, not only the temple and tabernacle,
 
 186 ESSAY OX THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 and the victim laid on the altar, and the atonement 
 offered once a year for the sins of the nation ; but the 
 conceptions which later ages express by these words, 
 so far as anything human or outward or figurative 
 mingles with them, so far as they cloud the Divine 
 nature with human passions, so far as they imply, or 
 seem to imply, anything at variance with our notions 
 of truth and right, are as much, or even more a shadow 
 than that outward image which belonged to the elder 
 dispensation. The same Lord who compared the 
 scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven to a 
 householder who brought forth out of his treasure 
 things new and old, said also in a figure, that ' new 
 cloth must not be put on an old garment ' or * new 
 wine into old bottles 1 .
 
 ESSAY OX 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 
 
 ROMANS XI. 
 
 Every reader of the Epistles must have remarked 
 the opposite and apparently inconsistent uses, which 
 the Apostle St. Paul makes of the Old Testament. 
 This appearance of inconsistency arises out of the 
 different and almost conflicting statements, which 
 may be read in the Old Testament itself. The law 
 and the prophets are their own witnesses, but they 
 are witnesses also to a truth which is beyond them. 
 Two spirits are found in them, and the Apostle sets 
 aside the one, that he may establish the other. 
 When he savs that ' the man that doeth these things 
 shall live in them ', x. 5, and again two verses after- 
 wards, ' the word is very nigh unto thee, even in thy 
 mouth and in thy heart, 1 he is using the authority of 
 the law, first, that out of its own mouth he may 
 condemn the law ; secondly, that he may confirm 
 the Gospel by the authority of that which he con- 
 demns. Still more striking are the contrasts of 
 prophecy in which he reads, not only the rejection 
 of Israel, but its restoration ; the over-ruling provi- 
 dence of God, as well as the free agency of man ; not 
 only as it is written, ' God gave unto them a spirit of 
 heaviness," 1 but, ' who hath believed our report ; , nor 
 only, ' all day long I have stretched forth my hand to 
 a disobedient and gainsaying people,' but 'there shall 
 come out of Sion a deliverer and He shall turn away
 
 138 ESSAY ON 
 
 iniquities from Jacob 1 . Experience and faith seem 
 to contend together in the Apostle's own mind, and 
 alike to find an echo in the two voices of prophecy. 
 
 It were much to be wished that we could agree 
 upon a chronological arrangement of the Old Testa- 
 ment, which would approach more nearly to the true 
 order in which the books were written, than that 
 in which they have been handed down to us. Such 
 an arrangement would throw great light on the 
 interpretation of prophecy. At present, we scarcely 
 resist the illusion exercised upon our minds by ' four 
 prophets the greater, followed by twelve prophets 
 the less , ; some of the latter being of a prior date to 
 any of the former. Even the distinction of the law 
 and the prophets as well as of the Psalms and the 
 prophets leads indirectly to a similar error. For 
 many elements of the prophetical spirit enter into 
 the law, and legal precepts are repeated by the 
 prophets. The continuity of Jewish history is further 
 broken by the Apocrypha. The four centuries before 
 Christ were as fruitful of hopes and struggles and 
 changes of thought and feeling in the Jewish people 
 as any preceding period of their existence as a nation, 
 perhaps more so. And yet we piece together the 
 Old and New Testament as if the interval were blank 
 leaves only. Few, if any, English writers have ever 
 attempted to form a conception of the growth of the 
 spirit of prophecy, from its first beginnings in the 
 law itself, as it may be traced in the lives and 
 characters of Samuel and David, and above all, of 
 Elijah and his immediate successor ; as it reappears 
 a few years later, in the written prophecies respecting 
 the house of Israel, and the surrounding nations (not 
 even in the oldest of the prophets, without reference 
 to Messiah's kingdom) ; or again after the carrying 
 away of the ten tribes, as it concentrates itself in
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 139 
 
 Judah, uttering a sadder and more mournful cry in 
 the hour of captivity, yet in the multitude of sorrows 
 increasing the comfort ; the very dispersion of the 
 people widening the prospect of Christ's kingdom, 
 as the nation ' is cut short in righteousness ', God 
 being: so much the nearer to those who draw near 
 to Him. 
 
 The fulfilment of prophecy has been sought for in 
 a series of events which have been sometimes bent 
 to make them fit, and one series of events has fre- 
 quently taken the place of another. Even the passing 
 circumstances of to-day or yesterday, at the distance 
 of about two thousand years, and as many miles, 
 which are but shadows flitting on the mountains 
 compared with the deeper foundations of human 
 history, are thought to be within the range of the 
 prophet's eye. And it may be feared that, in attempt- 
 ing to establish a claim which, if it could be proved, 
 might be made also for heathen oracles and pro- 
 phecies, commentators have sometimes lost sight of 
 those great characteristics which distinguish Hebrew 
 prophecy from all other professing revelations of 
 other religions : (i) the sense of the truthfulness, and 
 holiness, and loving-kindness of the Divine Being, 
 with which the prophet is as one possessed, which he 
 can no more forget or doubt than he can cease to be 
 himself; (2) their growth, that is, their growing 
 perception of the moral nature of the revelation of 
 God to man, apart from the commandments of the 
 law or the privileges of the house of Israel. 
 
 There are some prophecies more national, of which 
 the fortunes of the Jewish people are the only subject ; 
 others more individual, seeming to enter more into 
 the recesses of the human soul, and which are, at the 
 same time, more universal, rising above earthly things, 
 and passing into the distant heaven. At one time
 
 140 ESSAY ON 
 
 the prophet embodies 'these thoughts of many hearts' 
 as present, at another as future ; in some cases as 
 following out of the irrevocable decree of God, in 
 others as dependent on the sin or repentance of man. 
 At one moment he is looking for the destruction of 
 Israel, at another for its consolation ; going from 
 one of these aspects of the heavenly vision to another, 
 like St. Paul himself in successive verses. And some- 
 times he sees the Lord's house exalted in the top of 
 the mountains, and the image of the 'Wonderful, 
 Counsellor, the Mighty Prince, the Everlasting God \ 
 At other times, his vision is of the Servant whom it 
 ' pleased the Lord to bruise ', whose form was ' marred 
 more than that of the sons of men \ who was * led as 
 a lamb to the slaughter \ 
 
 National, individual, — spiritual, temporal, — pre- 
 sent, future, — rejection, restoration, — faith, the law, 
 — Providence, freewill, — mercy, sacrifice, — Messiah 
 suffering and triumphant, — are so many pairs of 
 opposites with reference to which the structure of 
 prophecy admits of being examined. It is true that 
 such an examination is nothing more than a trans- 
 lation or decomposition of prophecy into the modes 
 of thought of our own time, and is far from repro- 
 ducing the living image which presented itself to the 
 eyes of the prophet. But, like all criticism, it makes 
 us think ; it enables us to observe fresh points of 
 connexion between the Old Testament and the New ; 
 it keeps us from losing our way in the region of 
 allegory or of modern history. Many things are 
 unlearnt as well as learnt by the aid of criticism ; it 
 clears the mind of conventional interpretations, teach- 
 ing us to look amid the symbols of time and place 
 for the higher and universal meaning. 
 
 Prophecy has a human as well as a Divine element : 
 that is to say, it partakes of the ordinary workings
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 141 
 
 of the mind. There is also something beyond which 
 the analogy of human knowledge fails to explain. 
 Could the prophet himself have been asked what was 
 the nature of that impulse by which he was carried 
 away, he would have replied that ' the God of Israel 
 was a living God ' who had ' ordained him a prophet 
 before he came forth from the womb \ Of the Divine 
 element no other account can be given — 'it pleased 
 God to raise up individuals in a particular age and 
 country, who had a purer and loftier sense of truth 
 than their fellow men. 1 Prophecy would be no 
 longer prophecy if we could untwist its soul. But 
 the human part admits of being analysed like poetry 
 or history, of which it is a kind of union ; it is written 
 with a man's pen in a known language ; it is cast 
 in the imaginative form of early language itself. 
 The truth of God comes into contact with the world, 
 clothing itself in human feelings, revealing the lesson 
 of historical events. But human feelings and the 
 lesson of events vary, and in this sense the prophetic 
 lesson varies too. Even in the workings of our own 
 minds we may perceive this ; those who think much 
 about themselves and God cannot but be conscious 
 of great changes and transitions of feeling at different 
 periods of life. We are the creatures of impressions 
 and associations; and although Providence has not 
 made our knowledge of Himself dependent on these 
 impressions, He has allowed it to be coloured by them. 
 We cannot say that in the hours of prosperity and 
 adversity, in health and sickness, in poverty and 
 wealth, our sense of God's dealings with us is abso- 
 lutely the same ; still less, that all our prayers and 
 aspirations have received the answer that we wished 
 or expected. And sometimes the thoughts of our 
 own hearts go before to God ; at other times, the 
 power of God seems to anticipate the thoughts of our
 
 142 ESSAY ON 
 
 hearts. And sometimes, in looking back at our past 
 lives, it seems as if God had done everything; at 
 other times, we are conscious of the movement of our 
 own will. The wide world itself also, and the political 
 fortunes of our country, have been enveloped in the 
 lierht or darkness which rested on our individual 
 soul. 
 
 Especially are we liable to look at religious truth 
 under many aspects, if we live amid changes of re- 
 ligious opinions, or are witnesses of some revival or 
 reaction in religion, or supposing our lot to be cast in 
 critical periods of history, such as extend the range 
 and powers of human nature, or certainly enlarge our 
 experience of it. Then the germs of new truths will 
 subsist side by side with the remains of old ones ; and 
 thoughts, that are really inconsistent, will have a 
 place together in our minds, without our being able 
 to perceive their inconsistency. The inconsistency- 
 will be traced by posterity ; they will remark that up 
 to a particular point we saw clearly ; but that no 
 man is beyond his age — there was a circle which we 
 could not pass. And some one living in our own day 
 may look into the future with 'eagle eye'; he may 
 weigh and balance with a sort of omniscience the 
 moral forces of the world, perhaps with something 
 too much of confidence that the right will ultimately 
 prevail even on earth ; and after ages may observe 
 that his predictions were not always fulfilled or not 
 fulfilled at the time he said. 
 
 Such general reflections may serve as an introduc- 
 tion to what at first appears an anomaly in prophecy, 
 — that it has not one, but many lessons ; and that the 
 manner in which it teaches those lessons is through 
 the alternations of the human soul itself. There are 
 failings of prophecy, just as there are failings in 
 our own anticipations of the future. And sometimes
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 143 
 
 when we had hoped to be delivered it has seemed 
 good to God to afflict us still. But it does not follow 
 that religion is therefore a cunningly devised fable, 
 either now or then. Neither the faith of the people, 
 nor of the prophet, in the God of their fathers is 
 shaken because the prophecies are not realized before 
 their eyes ; because ' the vision ', as they said, ' is 
 delayed ' ; because in many cases events seem to occur 
 which make it impossible that it should be accom- 
 plished. A true instinct still enables them to separate 
 the prophets of Jehovah from the numberless false 
 prophets with whom the land swarmed ; they are 
 gifted with the 'same discernment of spirits , which 
 distinguished Micaiah from the four hundred whom 
 Ahab called. The internal evidence of the true 
 prophet we are able to recognize in the written pro- 
 phecies also. In the earliest as well as the latest of 
 them there is the same spirit one and continuous, the 
 same witness of the invisible God, the same character 
 of the Jewish people, the same law of justice and 
 mercy in the dealings of Providence with respect to 
 them, the same ' walking with God , in the daily life 
 of the prophet himself. 
 
 * Novum Testamentum in vetere latet,"' has come to 
 be a favourite word among theologians, who have 
 thought they saw in the truths of the Gospel the 
 original design as well as the evangelical application 
 of the Mosaical law. With a deeper meaning, it may 
 be said that prophecy grows out of itself into the 
 Gospel. Not, as some extreme critics have conceived, 
 that the facts of the Gospel history are but the 
 crystallization of the imagery of prophecy. Say, 
 rather, that the river of the water of life is beginning 
 again to flow. The Son of God himself is 'that 
 prophet' — the prophet, not of one nation only, but 
 of all mankind, in whom the particularity of the old
 
 144 ESSAY ON 
 
 prophets is finally done away, and the ever-changing 
 form of the ' servant in whom my soul delighteth ' at 
 last finds rest. St. Paul, too, is a prophet who has 
 laid aside the poetical and authoritative garb of old 
 times, and is wrapped in the rhetorical or dialectical 
 one of his own age. The language of the old prophets 
 comes unbidden into his mind ; it seems to be the 
 natural expression of his own thoughts. Separated 
 from Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah by an in- 
 terval of about eight hundred years, he finds their 
 words very near to him 'even in his mouth and his 
 heart ' ; that is the word which he preached. When 
 they spoke of forgiveness of sins, of non-imputation of 
 sins, of a sudden turning to God, what did this mean 
 but righteousness by faith ? when they said ' I will have 
 mercy, and not sacrifice ', here also was imaged the 
 great truth, that salvation was not of the law. If St. 
 Paul would have no ' man judged for a new moon or 
 sabbath 1 , the prophets of old time had again and 
 again said in the name of Jehovah ' Your new moons 
 and sabbaths I cannot away with'. Like the elder 
 prophets, he came not ' to build up a temple made 
 with hands ', but to teach a moral truth ; like them 
 he went forth alone, and not in connexion with the 
 Church at Jerusalem. His calling is to be Apostle of 
 the Gentiles ; they also sometimes pass beyond the 
 borders of Israel, to receive Egypt and Assyria into 
 covenant with God. 
 
 It is not, however, this deeper unity between St. 
 Paul and the prophets of the old dispensation that we 
 are about to consider further, but a more superficial 
 parallelism, which is afforded by the alternation or 
 successive representation of the purposes of God 
 towards Israel, which we meet with in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and which recurs in the Epistle to the Romans. 
 Like the elder prophets, St. Paul also ' prophesies in
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 145 
 
 part', feeling after events rather than seeing them, 
 and divided between opposite aspects of the dealings 
 of Providence with mankind. This changing feeling 
 often finds an expression in the words of Isaiah or the 
 Psalmist, or the author of the book of Deuteronomy. 
 Hence a kind of contrast springs up in the writings 
 of the Apostle, which admits of being traced to its 
 source in the words of the prophets. Portions of his 
 Epistles are the disjecta membra of prophecy. Oppo- 
 sitions are brought into view by him, and may be said 
 to give occasion to a struggle in his own mind, which 
 were unobserved by the prophets themselves. For so 
 far from prophecy setting forth one unchanging pur- 
 pose of God, it seems rather to represent a succession 
 of purposes conditional on men's actions ; speaking as 
 distinctly of the rejection as of the restoration of 
 Israel ; and of the restoration almost as the cor- 
 relative of the rejection ; often too making a transi- 
 tion from the temporal to the spiritual. Some of 
 these contrasts it is proposed to consider in detail as 
 having an important bearing on St. Paul's Epistles, 
 especially on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, and 
 on chapters x-xii of the Epistles to the Romans. 
 
 (1) All the prophets are looking for and hastening 
 to ' the day of the Lord ', the ' great day ', ' which 
 there is none like, 1 'the day of the Lord's sacrifice,' 
 the ' day of visitation ', of ' the great slaughter ', in 
 which the Lord shall judge 'in the valley of Jehosha- 
 phat ', in which ' they shall go into the clefts of the 
 rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear 
 of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when 
 he ariseth to shake terribly the earth '. That day is 
 the fulfilment and realization of prophecy, without 
 which it would cease to have any meaning, just as 
 religion itself would cease to have any meaning to 
 ourselves, were there no future life, or retribution of 
 
 JOWETT II
 
 146 ESSAY ON 
 
 good and evil. All the prophets are in spirit present 
 at it ; living alone with God, and hardly mingling 
 with men on earth, they are fulfilled with its terrors 
 and its glories. For the earth is not to go on for 
 ever as it is, the wickednesses of the house of Israel 
 are not to last for ever. First, the prophet sees the 
 pouring out of the vials of wrath upon them ; then, 
 more at a distance, follows the vision of mercy, in 
 which they are to be comforted, and their enemies, 
 the ministers of God's vengeance on them, in turn 
 punished. And evil and oppression everywhere, so 
 far as it comes within the range of the prophet's eye, 
 is to be punished in that day, and good is to prevail. 
 In these ' terrors of the day of the Lord ', of which 
 the prophets speak, the fortunes of the Jewish people 
 mingle with another vision of a more universal 
 judgement, and it has been usual to have recourse to 
 the double senses of prophecy to separate the one 
 from the other, an instrument of interpretation which 
 has also been applied to the New Testament for the 
 same purpose. Not in this way could the prophet 
 or apostle themselves have conceived them. To them 
 they were not two, but one ; not ' double one against 
 the other', or separable into the figure and the thing 
 signified. For the figure is in early ages the mode 
 of conception also. More true would it be to say 
 that the judgements of God on the Jewish people 
 were an anticipation or illustration of His dealings 
 with the world generally. If a separation is made 
 at all, let us rather separate the accidents of time 
 and place from that burning sense of the righteous- 
 ness of God, which somewhere we cannot tell where, 
 at some time we cannot tell when, must and will have 
 retribution on evil ; which has this other note of its 
 Divine character, that in judgement it remembers 
 mercy, pronouncing no endless penalty or irreversible
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 147 
 
 doom, even upon the house of Israel. This twofold 
 lesson of goodness and severity speaks to us as well 
 as to the Jews. Better still to receive the words of 
 prophecy as we have them, and to allow the feeling 
 which it utters to find its way to our hearts, without 
 stopping to mark out what was not separated in the 
 prophet's own mind and cannot therefore be divided 
 by us. 
 
 Other contrasts are traceable in the teaching of the 
 prophets respecting the day of the Lord. In that 
 day the Lord is to judge Israel, and He is to punish 
 Egypt and Assyria ; and yet it is said also, the Lord 
 shall heal Egypt, and Israel shall be the third with 
 Egypt and Assyria whom the Lord shall bless (Is. 
 xix. 25). In many of the prophecies also the judge- 
 ment is of two kinds ; it is a judgement on Israel, 
 which is executed by the heathen ; it is a judgement 
 against the heathen, and in favour of Israel, in which 
 God himself is sometimes said to be their advocate 
 as well as their judge 'in that day 1 . A singular 
 parallel with the New Testament is presented by 
 another contrast which occurs in a single passage. 
 That the day of the Lord is near, ' it cometh, it 
 cometh, 1 is the language of all the prophets ; and 
 yet there were those who said also in EzekiePs time, 
 'The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth. 
 Tell them therefore, Thus saith the Lord God ; I 
 will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no 
 more use it as a proverb in Israel ; but say unto them, 
 The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision ' 
 (xii. 22, 23). (Compare 2 Pet. iii. 4, 'Where is the 
 promise of his coming ? ') On the other hand, in the 
 later chapters of Isaiah (xl. seq.) we seem to trace 
 the same feeling as in the New Testament itself : the 
 anticipation of prophecy has ceased ; the hour of its 
 fulfilment has arrived ; men seem to be conscious 
 
 L 2
 
 148 ESSAY ON 
 
 that they are living during the restoration of Israel 
 as the disciples at the day of Pentecost felt that they 
 were living amid the things spoken of by the prophet 
 Joel. 
 
 (2) A closer connexion with the Epistle to the 
 Romans is furnished by the double and, on the 
 surface, inconsistent language of prophecy respecting 
 the rejection and restoration of Israel. These seem 
 to follow one another often in successive verses. It 
 is true that the appearance of inconsistency is greater 
 than the reality, owing to the lyrical and concentrated 
 style of prophecy (some of its greatest works being 
 not much longer than this ' cobweb l ' of an essay) ; 
 and this leads to opposite feelings and trains of 
 thought being presented to us together, without the 
 preparations and joinings which would be required 
 in the construction of a modern poem. Yet, after 
 making allowance for this peculiarity of the ancient 
 Hebrew style, it seems as if there were two thoughts 
 ever together in the prophet's mind : captivity, re- 
 storation, — judgement, mercy, — sin, repentance, — 
 ' the people sitting in darkness, and the great light \ 
 
 There are portions of prophecy in which the dark- 
 ness is deep and enduring, 'darkness that may be 
 felt,' in which the prophet is living amid the sins 
 and sufferings of the people ; and hope is a long way 
 off from them — when they need to be awakened 
 rather than comforted ; and things must be worse, 
 as men say, before they can become better. Such is 
 the spirit of the greater part of the book of Jeremiah. 
 But the tone of prophecy is on the whole that of 
 alternation ; God deals with the Israelites as with 
 children ; he cannot bear to punish them for long ; 
 his heart comes back to them when they are in 
 captivity ; their very helplessness gives them a claim 
 
 1 Carlyle.
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 149 
 
 on him. Vengeance may endure for a time, but soon 
 the full tide of His mercy returns upon them. 
 Another voice is heard, saying, ' Comfort ye, comfort 
 ye, my people.'' ' Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, 
 and say unto her that she hath received of the Lord's 
 hand double for all her sins.' So from the vision of 
 God on Mount Sinai, at the giving of the Law amid 
 storms and earthquakes, arises that tender human 
 relation in which the Gospel teaches that He stands, 
 not merely to His Church as a body, but to each one 
 of us. 
 
 Naturally this human feeling is called forth most 
 in the hour of adversity. As the affliction deepens, 
 the hope also enlarges, seeming often to pass beyond 
 the boundaries of this life into a spiritual world. 
 Though their sins are as scarlet, they shall be white 
 as snow ; when Jerusalem is desolate, there shall be 
 a tabernacle on Mount Sion. The formula in which 
 this enlargement of the purposes of God is introduced 
 is itself worthy of notice. ' It shall be no more said, 
 The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of 
 Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord 
 liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from 
 the land of the North, and from all the lands whither 
 he had driven them.' Their old servitude in Egypt 
 came back to their minds now that they were captives 
 in a strange land, and the remembrance that they 
 had already been delivered from it was an earnest 
 that they were yet to return. Deeply rooted in the 
 national mind, it had almost become an attribute of 
 God himself that He was their deliverer from the 
 house of bondage. 
 
 With this narrower view of the return of the 
 children of Israel from captivity, not without a 
 remembrance of that great empire which had once 
 extended from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates,
 
 150 ESSAY ON 
 
 there blended also the hope of another kingdom in 
 which dwelt righteousness — the kingdom of Solomon 
 'become the kingdom of Christ and God\ The 
 children of Israel had been in their origin ' the fewest 
 of all people ', and the most alien to the nations 
 round about. The Lord their God was a jealous 
 God, who would not suffer them to mingle with the 
 idolatries of the heathen. And in that early age of 
 the world, when national life was so strong and in- 
 dividuals so feeble, we cannot conceive how the 
 worship of the true God could have been otherwise 
 preserved. But the day had passed away when the 
 nation could be trusted with the preservation of the 
 faith of Jehovah ; ' it had never been good for much 
 at any time. 1 The prophets, too, seem to withdraw 
 from the scenes of political events ; they are no longer 
 the judges and leaders of Israel ; it is a part of their 
 mission to commit to writing for the use of after ages 
 the predictions which they utter. We pass into 
 another country, to another kingdom in which the 
 prospect is no more that which Moses saw from 
 Mount Pisgah, but in which the ' Lord's horn is 
 exalted in the top of the mountains, and all nations 
 flock to it '. 
 
 In this kingdom the Gentiles have a place, still on 
 the outskirts, but not wholly excluded from the circle 
 of God's providence. Sometimes they are placed on 
 a level with Israel, the 'circumcised with the uncir- 
 cumcised', as if only to teach the Apostle's lesson, 
 'that there is no respect of persons with God' (Jer. 
 ix. 25, 26; compare Rom. ii. 12-28). At other 
 times they are themselves the subjects of promises 
 and threatenings (Jer. xii. 14-17). It is to them 
 that God will turn when His patience is exhausted 
 with the rebellions of Israel ; for whom it shall be 
 ' more tolerable ' than for Israel and Judah in the
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 151 
 
 day of the Lord. They are those upon whom, though 
 at a distance, the brightness of Jehovah must over- 
 flow ; who, in the extremities of the earth, are bathed 
 with the light of His presence. Helpers of the joy 
 of Israel, they pour with gifts and offerings through 
 the open gates of the city of God. They have a 
 part in Messiah's kingdom, not of right, but because 
 without them it would be imperfect and incomplete. 
 In one passage only, which is an exception to the 
 general spirit of prophecy, Israel ' makes the third "' 
 with Egypt and Assyria, 'whom the Lord of Hosts 
 shall bless' (Is. xix. 18-25). 
 
 It was not possible that such should be the relation 
 of the Gentiles to the people of God in the Epistles 
 of St. Paul. Experience seemed to invert the natural 
 order of Providence — the Jew first and afterwards 
 the Gentile. Accordingly, what is subordinate in 
 the prophets, becomes of principal importance in the 
 application of the Apostle. The dark sayings about 
 the Gentiles had more meaning than the utterers of 
 them were aware of. Events connected them with 
 the rejection of the Jews, of which the same prophets 
 spoke. Not only had the Gentiles a place on the 
 outskirts of the people of God, gathering up the 
 fragments of promises ' under the table , ; they them- 
 selves were the spiritual Israel. When the prophets 
 spoke of the Mount Sion, and all nations flowing to it, 
 they were not expecting literally the restoration of 
 the kingdom to Israel. They spoke of they knew 
 not what — of something that had as yet no existence 
 upon the earth. What that was, the vision on the 
 way to Damascus, no less than the history of the 
 Church and the world, revealed to the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 (3) Another characteristic of Hebrew prophecy is 
 the transition from the nation to the individual.
 
 152 ESSAY ON 
 
 That is to say, first the nation becomes an individual ; 
 it is spoken of, thought of, dealt with, as a person, 
 it ' makes the third ' with God and the prophet. 
 Almost a sort of drama is enacted between them, the 
 argument of which is the mercy and justice of God ; 
 and the Jewish nation itself has many parts assigned to 
 it. Sometimes she is the 'adulterous sister', the 
 'wife of whoredoms 1 , who has gone astray with 
 Chaldean and Egyptian lovers. In other passages, 
 still retaining the same personal relation to God, 
 the ' daughter of my people ' is soothed and com- 
 forted ; then a new vision rises before the prophet's 
 mind — not the same with that of the Jewish people, 
 but not wholly distinct from it, in which the suffering 
 prophet himself, or Cyrus the prophet king, have 
 a part — the vision of 'the servant of God 1 , 'the 
 Saviour with dyed garments 1 from Bosra — 'he shall 
 grow up before him as a tender plant ; ' ' he is led as 
 a lamb to the slaughter 1 (Is. liii. % 7 ; compare Jer. 
 xi. 19). Yet there is a kind of glory even on earth 
 in this image of gentleness and suffering : 'A bruised 
 reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he 
 not quench, until he hath brought forth judgement 
 unto victory. 1 We feel it to be strange, and yet it is 
 true. So we have sometimes seen the image of the 
 kingdom of God among ourselves, not in noble 
 churches or scenes of ecclesiastical power or splendour, 
 but in the face of some child or feeble person, 
 who, after overcoming agony, is about to depart and 
 be with Christ. 
 
 Analogies from Greek philosophy may seem far- 
 fetched in reference to Hebrew prophecy, yet there 
 are particular points in which subjects the most 
 dissimilar receive a new light from one another. In 
 the writings of Plato and Aristotle, and the philo- 
 sophers who were their successors, moral truths
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 153 
 
 gradually separate from politics, and the man is 
 acknowledged to be different from the mere citizen : 
 and there arises a sort of ideal of the individual, who 
 has a responsibility to himself only. The growth of 
 Hebrew prophecy is so different ; its figures and 
 modes of conception are so utterly unlike ; there 
 seems such a wide gulf between morality which 
 almost excludes God, and religion which exists only 
 in God, that at first sight we are unwilling to allow 
 any similarity to exist between them. Yet an im- 
 portant point in both of them is really the same. 
 For the transition from the nation to the individual 
 is also the more perfect revelation of God Himself, 
 the change from the temporal to the spiritual, from 
 the outward glories of Messiah's reign to the kingdom 
 of God which is within. Prophets as well as apostles 
 teach the near intimate personal relation of man 
 to God. The prophet and psalmist, who is at one 
 moment inspired with the feelings of a whole people, 
 returns again to God to express the lowliest sorrows of 
 the individual Christian. The thought of the Israel 
 of God is latent in prophecy itself, not requiring 
 a great nation or company of believers ; ' but where 
 one is' there is God present with him. 
 
 There is another way also in which the individual 
 takes the place of the nation in the purposes of God ; 
 'a remnant shall be saved \ In the earlier books 
 of the Old Testament, the whole people is bound 
 up together for good or for evil. In the law especially, 
 there is no trace that particular tribes or individuals 
 are to be singled out for the favour of God. Even 
 their great men are not so much individuals as repre- 
 sentatives of the whole people. They serve God as a 
 nation ; as a nation they go astray. If, in the earlier 
 times of Jewish history, we suppose an individual 
 good man living 'amid an adulterous and crooked
 
 154 ESSAY ON 
 
 generation', we can scarcely imagine the relation in 
 which he would stand to the blessings and cursings 
 of the law. Would the righteous perish with the 
 wicked? That be 'far from thee, O Lord'. Yet 
 ' prosperity, the blessing of the Old Testament ', was 
 bound up with the existence of the nation. Gradually 
 the germ of the new dispensation begins to unfold 
 itself; the bands which held the nation together are 
 broken in pieces ; a fragment only is preserved, a 
 branch, in the Apostle's language, cut off" from the 
 patriarchal stem, to be the beginning of another 
 Israel. 
 
 The passage quoted by St. Paul in the eleventh 
 chapter of the Romans is the first indication of this 
 change in God's mode of dealing with His people. 
 The prophet Elijah wanders forth into the wilderness 
 to lay before the Lord the iniquities of the people : 
 'The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, 
 thrown down thine altars, and slain thv prophets 
 with the sword.' ' But what,' we may ask with the 
 Apostle, ' saith the answer of God to him ? ' Not 
 'They are corrupt, they are altogether become abo- 
 minable', but 'Yet I have seven thousand men who 
 have not bowed the knee to Baal'. The whole 
 people were not to be regarded as one ; there were a 
 few who still preserved, amid the general corruption, 
 the worship of the true God. 
 
 The marked manner in which the answer of God 
 is introduced, the contrast of the ' still small voice ' 
 with the thunder, the storm, and the earthquake, 
 the natural symbols of the presence of God in the 
 law — the contradiction of the words spoken to the 
 natural bent of the prophet's mind, and the greatness 
 of Elijah's own character — all tend to stamp this 
 passage as marking one of the epochs of prophecy. 
 The solitude of the prophet and his separation in
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 155 
 
 ' the mount of God ', from the places in which ' men 
 ought to worship ', are not without meaning. There 
 had not always 'been this proverb in the house of 
 Israel ' ; but from this time onwards it is repeated 
 again and again. We trace the thought of a remnant 
 to be saved in captivity, or to return from captivity, 
 through a long succession of prophecies — Hosea, 
 Amos, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel; — it is the 
 text of almost all the prophets, passing, as a familiar 
 word, from the Old Testament to the New. The 
 voice uttered to Elijah was the beginning of this 
 new Revelation. 
 
 (4) Coincident with the promise of a remnant is the 
 precept, ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice, 1 which, 
 in modern language, opposes the moral to the cere- 
 monial law. It is another and the greatest step 
 onward towards the spiritual dispensation. Moral 
 and religious truths hang together ; no one can admit 
 one of them in the highest sense, without admitting 
 a principle which involves the rest. He who acknow- 
 ledged that God was a God of mercy and not of 
 sacrifice, could not long have supposed that He dealt 
 with nations only, or that He raised men up for no 
 other end but to be vessels of His wrath or monu- 
 ments of His vengeance. For a time there might be 
 ' things too hard for him ', clouds resting on his 
 earthly tabernacle, when he ' saw the ungodly in such 
 prosperity 1 ; yet had he knowledge enough, as he 
 ' went into the sanctuary of God ', and confessed him- 
 self to be 'a stranger and pilgrim upon the earth'. 
 
 It is in the later prophets that the darkness begins 
 to be dispelled and the ways of God justified to man. 
 Ezekiel is above all others the teacher of this ' new 
 commandment 1 . The familiar words, 'when the 
 wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and 
 doeth that which is lawfui and right, he shall save his
 
 156 ESSAY ON 
 
 soul alive," 1 are the theme of a great part of this 
 wonderful book. Other prophets have more of 
 poetical beauty, a deeper sense of Divine things, a 
 tenderer feeling of the mercies of God to His people ; 
 none teach so simply this great moral lesson, to ns 
 the first of all lessons. On the eve of the captivity, 
 and in the midst of it, when the hour of mercy is past, 
 and no image is too loathsome to describe the 
 iniquities of Israel, still the prophet does not forget 
 that the Lord will not destroy the righteous with the 
 wicked : ' Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the 
 land, as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver 
 neither son nor daughter ; they shall deliver but their 
 own souls by their righteousness ' (xiv. 20). ' Yet, 
 behold, therein shall be left a remnant ; and they 
 shall know that I have not done without cause all 
 that I have done, saith the Lord ' (ver. 22, 23). 
 
 It is observable that, in the Book of Ezekiel as well 
 as of Jeremiah, this new principle on which God 
 deals with mankind is recognized as a contradiction 
 to the rule by which he had formerly dealt with them. 
 At the commencement of chap, xviii, as if with the 
 intention of revoking the words of the second com- 
 mandment, * visiting the sins of the fathers upon the 
 children,' 1 it is said : — 
 
 'The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, 
 
 ' What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning 
 the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge ? 
 
 ' As\ live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have 
 occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. 
 
 ' Behold, all souls are mine ; as the soul of the 
 father, so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul 
 that sinneth, it shall die.' 
 
 Similar language occurs also in Jer. xxxi. 29, in a 
 connexion which makes it still more remarkable, as
 
 CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 157 
 
 the new truth is described as a part of that fuller 
 revelation which God will give of himself, when He 
 makes a new covenant with the house of Israel. And 
 yet the same prophet, as if not at all times conscious 
 of his own lesson, says also in his prayer to God (Lam. 
 v. 7.), 'Our fathers have sinned and are not, and we 
 have borne their iniquities. 1 The truth which he felt 
 was not one and the same always, but rather two 
 opposite truths, like the Law and the Gospel, which 
 for a while seemed to struggle with one another in 
 the teaching of the prophet and the heart of man. 
 
 And yet this opposition was not necessarily con- 
 scious to the prophet himself. Isaiah, who saw the 
 whole nation going before to judgement, did not 
 refrain from preaching the lessons, ' If ye be willing 
 and obedient, 1 and 'Let the wicked forsake his way, 
 and the unrighteous man his thoughts 1 . Ezekiel, the 
 first thought and spirit of whose prophecies might be 
 described in modern language as the responsibility of 
 man, like Micaiah in the Book of Kings, seemed to 
 see the false prophets inspired by Jehovah Himself to 
 their own destruction. As in the prophet, so in the 
 Apostle, there was no sense that the two lessons were 
 in any degree inconsistent with each other. It is an 
 age of criticism and philosophy, which, in making the 
 attempt to conceive the relation of God to the world 
 in a more abstract way, has invented for itself the 
 perplexity, or, may we venture to say, by the very fact 
 of acknowledging it, has also found its solution. The 
 intensity with which the prophet felt the truths that 
 he revealed, the force with which he uttered them, the 
 desire with which he yearned after their fulfilment, 
 have passed from the earth ; but the truths them- 
 selves remain an everlasting possession. We seem to 
 look upon them more calmly, and adjust them more 
 truly. They no longer break through the world of
 
 158 ESSAY ON CONTRASTS OF PROPHECY 
 
 sight with unequal power; they can never again be 
 confused with the accidents of time and place. The 
 history of the Jewish people has ceased to be the only 
 tabernacle in which they are enshrined ; they have an 
 independent existence, and a light and order of their 
 own.
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY THAT 
 
 MANY OF ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES 
 
 HAVE BEEN LOST 
 
 'Ev vaa-p imaroXfj — 'In every Epistle.'— 2 Thess. iii. 17. 
 
 These three words, dropping out by the way, open 
 a field for reflection to those who maintain the 
 genuineness of the Epistle in which they occur, 
 because they imply, or at least make it probable, 
 that St. Paul wrote other Epistles, which were never 
 reckoned among the Canonical books, and of which 
 all trace must therefore have disappeared in eccle- 
 siastical history, even in that early age in which the 
 Canon was beginning to be fixed. 
 
 Other expressions in the writings of the Apostle 
 lead to the same inference. In the second chapter 
 of the Epistle from which they are taken, which it is 
 important to observe is almost the earliest of those 
 extant, and the words of which cannot therefore refer 
 to the Epistles which are familiar to us, he twice 
 speaks of 'a letter as from us', as a common and 
 possible occurrence (ver. 2, 15). In the Second Epistle 
 to the Corinthians, x. 10, the Apostle supposes his 
 adversaries to say 'that his letters are weighty and 
 powerful ' ; to which he replies in the next verse, 
 ' Such as we are in word by letters when absent, such 
 will we also be in deed when we are present \ Is 
 it likely that the Apostle is here referring to the 
 First Epistle only ? The words of 1 Cor. v. 9, ' I 
 wrote unto you in the epistle,' probably allude,
 
 160 ESSAY ON 
 
 notwithstanding the tense, to the letter which he was 
 writing at the time, and have, therefore, nothing 
 to do with our present inquiry. But the general 
 character of both Epistles to the Corinthians leads to 
 the conviction that he was in habits of correspondence 
 with the teachers of the Church of Corinth. It 
 appears also from 1 Cor. xvi. 3 that he was intending 
 (although the intention in this instance was not 
 fulfilled) to send messengers with letters of intro- 
 duction, as we term them, to the Church at Jeru- 
 salem ; — letters of Christian courtesy, of which one 
 only— the short Epistle to Philemon — has been 
 preserved to after-ages. Similar occasions must 
 often have occurred in the course of a long life and 
 ministry ; St. Paul did not cease to be St. Paul in his 
 feelings towards others, because what he wrote in 
 the privacy of the closet was not destined to be read 
 afterwards by the whole Christian world. Once 
 more, in the Epistle to the Colossians, iv. 16, the 
 Apostle enjoins the Churches of Colossae and Laodicea 
 to interchange the letters which they had received 
 from him. It is only a conjecture, and one which is 
 not favoured by the similarity of the Epistles to the 
 Colossians and Ephesians, that the Epistle here 
 referred to as the Epistle to the Laodiceans is the 
 extant Epistle to the Ephesians. Here then are signs 
 of another lost Epistle. The allusion in the Second 
 Epistle of St. Peter, iii. 15, 16, 'Even as our beloved 
 brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given 
 unto him, hath written unto you ; as also in all his 
 epistles, speaking in them of these things ; in which 
 are some things hard to be understood, which they 
 that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do 
 also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction, 1 
 may be mentioned also, though it has only a general 
 bearing on our present subject.
 
 THE LOST EPISTLES 161 
 
 (ii) The character of the Apostle is a further 
 presumption on the same side of the question. He 
 who lives in himself the life of all the Churches, who 
 is praying for his converts night and day, and who 
 allows no other concerns to occupy his mind, — of such 
 an one is it reasonable to suppose that, during his 
 whole ministry, to all his followers in many lands, 
 he would write no other Epistles but those which 
 have come down to us ? One might have thought 
 that every year, almost every month, he would have 
 found some exhortation to give to them ; that he 
 would have received news of them from some quarter 
 or other touching divisions which required healing, 
 or persecution under which his children needed 
 comfort, or advances of the truth which called for 
 his counsel and sympathy. One might have thought 
 that his affection for them, and his extreme (may we 
 call it ?) sensitiveness to their feelings towards himself, 
 would have led him to make use of every opportunity 
 for writing to them or hearing from them. He who 
 had no rest in his soul until he had sent Timothy to 
 know their state, could not have borne to have passed 
 a great portion of his life without knowledge of them 
 or intercourse with them. But if so, the Canonical 
 Epistles or Letters cannot be the only ones of which 
 the Apostle was the author. For, including the 
 Pastoral Epistles, their number is but thirteen, not 
 one in two years for the entire active portion of the 
 Apostle's life, and these very unequally spread over 
 different periods. Of the first ten or fifteen years no 
 Epistle is extant ; then two short ones begin the 
 series ; after an interval of some years succeeded by 
 another short one : then in a single year follow the 
 three larger Epistles together, more than half the 
 whole : lastly, in the years of his imprisonment, we 
 have not much more than a short Epistle for every 
 
 JOWETT II M
 
 162 ESSAY ON 
 
 year. Is it likely that there were no others ? — or are 
 we suffering ourselves to be imposed upon by the 
 fear of disturbing a natural but superficial impres- 
 sion ? 
 
 (iii) The Epistles which are extant, with the 
 exception of the Epistle to the Romans, are unlike 
 the compositions of one who in his whole life wrote 
 only ten letters. They are too lively and draw too 
 near to the hearts of men. Those especially to the 
 Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians 
 (compare Philemon) imply habits of familiar inter- 
 course between the Apostle and the distant Churches. 
 Messengers are passing from him to them, and he is 
 minutely informed of their circumstances. There is 
 no trace of ignorance on the Apostle's part of what is 
 going on among them. There is none of that natural 
 formality which grows up in letters between unknown 
 persons. Would the Apostle have written to a 
 Church which he only addressed once in his life in 
 a style which is more like talking than writing ? — 
 and without the least allusion anywhere to the 
 singularity of the circumstance of his writing to 
 them ? 
 
 But if, as the allusions which have been mentioned 
 and the reason of the thing, and the style of the 
 extant Epistles themselves, lead us to suppose, 
 St. Paul wrote other Epistles, which have not been 
 handed down to us, then many reflections arise in our 
 minds, some of which have an important bearing on 
 the interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 1. It has been observed that within a single year of 
 his life the Apostle wrote the Epistle to the Romans 
 and the two Epistles to the Corinthians, which are in 
 quantity equal to more than half the whole of his 
 Epistles, and not much short of a seventh portion of 
 the entire New Testament. Nor is it certain that
 
 THE LOST EPISTLES 163 
 
 these were the only Epistles written by him in the 
 same year : the reverse is more likely. Now suppose 
 we take this as the criterion of the probable amount 
 of his lost writings, and that during each year of his 
 ministry, which extended over a period of at least 
 twenty-five years, he wrote an equal quantity, — though 
 it would not be true to say that 'the world itself 
 would not contain the books that would have been 
 written,"' yet the result would have been a volume 
 three times the size of the New Testament. There is 
 nothing extravagant in this speculation, although 
 there is no proof of it ; the allusions to lost Epistles 
 make the idea extremely probable. Nor would any 
 one think it extravagant if the Apostle had not been 
 one of the Canonical writers, whose writings we are 
 accustomed to regard as supernaturally preserved to 
 us. 
 
 2. Suppose, further, that in a distant part of the 
 world, in some Syriac, or Armenian, or Aethiopic 
 transcript, or even in its original language, buried in 
 the unexcavated portions of Herculaneum or Pompeii, 
 one of these lost Epistles were suddenly brought to 
 light : with what feelings would it be received by the 
 astonished world ! The return of the Apostle himself 
 to earth would hardly be a more surprising event. 
 There are minds to whom such a discovery would 
 seem to involve more danger than the loss of an 
 Epistle which we already have. It is not impossible 
 that it might be suppressed or ever it found its way 
 to the Christian public. Suppose it to escape this 
 fate ; it is printed and translated : with what anxiety 
 do men turn over its pages, to find in them something 
 which has a bearing on this or that controverted 
 point ! If touching upon disputed matters, is it too 
 much to conceive that it would not find equal accept- 
 ance with disputants on both sides — supposing that it 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ESSAY ON 
 
 favoured one of them rather than the other ? Time 
 would elapse before the new Epistle would find its 
 way into the language of theology. There would be 
 no Fathers or Commentators to overlay it with tra- 
 ditional interpretations. It is strange but also true 
 that it could never receive the deference and respect 
 which has attached to those more legitimate Epistles 
 in the possession of which the Christian Church has 
 gloried for above eighteen centuries. And some one 
 standing aloof might ask whether any article of faith 
 which such an accident might disturb could be neces- 
 sary to salvation. 
 
 3. Another supposition may be raised of the dis- 
 covery not of one but of many lost Epistles of St. Paul, 
 which suggests a new question. Would the balance 
 of Christian truth be thereby altered ? Not so. A 
 moment's reflection will remind us that the servant is 
 not above his Lord, nor the disciple above his Master. 
 If we have failed to gather from the words of Christ 
 the spirit of the Gospel, a new Epistle of St. Paul 
 would hardly enlighten us ; if we are partakers of 
 that spirit we have more religious knowledge than it 
 is possible to exhaust on earth. The alarm is no 
 sooner raised than dispelled. The chief use of 
 bringing the supposition before our minds is to 
 remind us of the simplicity of the faith of Christ. It 
 may help to indicate also to the theological student 
 the nature of the problem which he has to consider in 
 the interpretation of Scripture, at once harder and 
 easier than he at first supposed, — easier because 
 simpler, harder because beset with artificial difficulties. 
 Were the Epistles bearing the name of St. Paul not 
 ten but thirty in number, a great change would take 
 place in our mode of studying them. Is it not their 
 shortness which provokes microscopic criticism ? — the 
 scantiness of materials giving rise to conjectures, the
 
 THE LOST EPISTLES 165 
 
 fragmentary thought itself provoking system ? Words 
 and phrases such as 'justification by faith without the 
 works of the law ' could not have had such a powerful 
 and exclusive influence on the theology of after times 
 had they been found in two only out of thirty 
 Epistles. Theories and constructions soon come to an 
 end when materials are abundant ; ingenuity ceases to 
 make an attempt to fill up the blanks of knowledge 
 when the mind is distinctly conscious that it is dealing 
 not with the whole but with a part only. 
 
 4. No difference is made by the supposition which 
 has been raised respecting the extant Epistles con- 
 sidered as a rule of life and practice. Almost any one 
 of them is a complete witness to the Author and 
 Finisher of our faith ; a complete text-book of the 
 truths of the Gospel. But it is obvious that the 
 supposition, or rather the simple fact, that Epistles 
 have been lost which were written by St. Paul, is 
 inconsistent with the theory of a plan which is some- 
 times attributed to the extant ones, which are regarded 
 as a temple having many parts, even as there are 
 many members in one body, and all members have 
 not the same office. A mistaken idea of design is one 
 of the most attractive errors in the interpretation of 
 Scripture no less than of nature. No such plan or 
 unity can be really conceived as existing in the 
 Apostle's own mind ; for he could never have distin- 
 guished between the Epistles destined to be lost and 
 those which have been allowed to survive. And to 
 attribute such a plan to an overruling Providence 
 would be an arbitrary fancy, involving not inspiration, 
 but the supernatural selection and preservation of 
 particular Epistles, and destructive to all natural ideas 
 of the Gospel. It is a striking illustration of what 
 may be termed the incidental character of Christi- 
 anity, that (not without a Providence in this as in all
 
 166 ESSAY ON THE LOST EPISTLES 
 
 other earthly things) some of the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 in the course of nature, as if by chance, are for ever 
 lost to us ; while others, as if by chance, are handed 
 down to be the treasures of the Christian world 
 throughout all ages. 
 
 5. There is no reason to suppose that those Epistles 
 of St. Paul which have been preserved were more 
 sacred or inspired than those which were lost, or 
 either more so than his discourses in the synagogue at 
 Thessalonica during ' three Sabbath days ', at Athens, 
 at Corinth, at Rome, or the other places in which he 
 preached the Gospel. The supposition of the lost 
 Epistles indefinitely extends itself when we think of 
 lost words. Of these it might be truly said, ' that if 
 they were written every one, even the world itself 
 would not contain the books that should be written.' 
 The writings of the Apostle, like the words of our 
 Saviour, are but a fragment of his life. And they 
 must be restored to their context before they can be 
 truly understood. They do not acquire any real 
 sacredness by isolation from the rest. It would be a 
 loss, not a gain, to deprive the New Testament of its 
 natural human character, — instead of receiving a 
 higher and diviner meaning, it would only be reduced 
 to a level with the sacred writings of the Asiatic 
 religions. ' So Christ and his Apostles went about 
 speaking day after day, 1 is a truer and more instruc- 
 tive thought than ' these things were formally set 
 down for our instruction \ Nor does it really diminish 
 the power of Scripture to describe it, as it appears to 
 the eye of the critical student, as a collection of 
 fragmentary and occasional pieces. For these frag- 
 ments are living plants ; the germ of eternal life is in 
 them all ; the least of all seeds, when compared in 
 bulk with human literature, they have grown up into 
 a tree, the shade of which covers the earth.
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS THE 
 
 STRENGTH OF SIN 
 
 'The strength of sin is the law.' — 1 Cor. xv. 56. 
 
 In another sense than that in which the Apostle 
 employs the words, ' the law is dead to us, and we to 
 the law."' The lapse of ages has but deepened the 
 chasm which separates Judaism from Christianity. 
 Between us and them there is a gulf fixed, so that few 
 are they who pass from them to us, nor do any go 
 from us to them. The question remains, What 
 application is it possible for us to make of that which 
 has preceded ? Is there anything in the world around 
 standing in the same relation to us that the law did 
 to the contemporaries of St. Paul ? 
 
 One answer that might be given is, 'the Roman 
 Catholic Church.' The experience of Luther seems 
 indeed not unlike that struggle which St. Paul 
 describes. But whatever resemblance may be found 
 between Romanism and the ancient Jewish religion, — 
 whether in their ceremonial or sacrificial character, 
 or in the circumstance of their both resting on 
 outward and visible institutions, and so limiting the 
 worship of Spirit and truth, — it cannot be said that 
 Romanism stands in the same relation to us individu- 
 ally that the law did to the Apostle St. Paul. The 
 real parallels are more general, though less obvious. 
 The law St. Paul describes as without us, but not 
 in that sense in which an object of sense is without 
 us: though without us it exercises an inward power;
 
 168 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS 
 
 it drives men to despair ; it paralyses human nature ; 
 it causes evil by its very justice and holiness. It is 
 like a barrier which we cannot pass ; a chain where- 
 with a nation is bound together; a rule which is 
 not adapted to human feelings, but which guides 
 them into subjection to itself. 
 
 It has been already remarked that a general parallel 
 to 'the law as the strength of sin' is to be found 
 in that strange blending of good and evil, of truth 
 and error, which is the condition of our earthly 
 existence. But there seem also to be cases in which 
 the parallel is yet closer ; in which good is not only 
 the accidental cause of evil, but the limiting principle 
 which prevents man from working out to the utter- 
 most his individual and spiritual nature. In some 
 degree, for example, society may exercise the same 
 tyranny over us, and its conventions be stumbling- 
 blocks to us of the same kind as the law to the 
 contemporaries of St. Paul ; or, in another way, the 
 thought of self and the remembrance of our past life 
 may ' deceive and slay us.' As in the description of 
 the seventh chapter of the Romans : — ' It was I, and 
 it was not I ; and who can deliver me from the 
 influence of education and the power of my former 
 self?' Or faith and reason, reason and faith may 
 seem mutually to limit each other, and to make the 
 same opposition in speculation that the law and the 
 flesh did to the Apostle in practice. Or, to seek 
 the difficulty on a lower level, while fully assured of 
 the truths of the Gospel, we may seem to be excluded 
 from them by our mental or bodily constitution, 
 which no influences of the Spirit or power of habit 
 may be capable of changing. 
 
 I. The society even of a Christian country — and 
 the same remark applies equally to a Church — is 
 only to a certain extent based upon Christian prin-
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SIN 169 
 
 ciple. It rests neither on the view that all mankind 
 are evil, nor that they are all good, but on certain 
 motives, supposed to be strong enough to bind 
 mankind together ; on institutions handed down from 
 former generations ; on tacit compacts between op- 
 posing parties and opinions. Every government must 
 tolerate, and therefore must to a certain degree 
 sanction, contending forms of faith. Even in refer- 
 ence to those more general principles of truth and 
 justice which, in theory at least, equally belong to all 
 religions, the government is limited by expediency, 
 and seeks only to enforce them so far as is required for 
 the preservation of society. Hence arises a necessary 
 opposition between the moral principles of the in- 
 dividual and the political principles of a state. A 
 good man may be sensitive for his faith, zealous for 
 the honour of God, and for every moral and spiritual 
 good ; the statesman has to begin by considering the 
 conditions of human society. Aristotle raises a famous 
 question, whether the good citizen is the good man ? 
 We have rather to raise the question, whether the 
 good man is the good citizen ? If matters of state 
 are to be determined by abstract principles of morality 
 and religion, — if, for the want of such principles, 
 whole nations are to be consigned to the vengeance of 
 heaven, — if the rule is to be not ' my kingdom is not 
 of this world ', but, ' we ought to obey God rather 
 than man ' — there is nothing left but to supersede 
 civil society, and found a religious one in its stead. 
 
 It is no imaginary spectre that we are raising, but 
 one that acts powerfully on the minds of religious 
 men. Is it not commonly said by many, that the 
 government is unchristian, that the legislature is 
 unchristian, that all governments and all legislatures 
 are the enemies of Christ and His Church ? Herein 
 to them is the fixed evil of the world ; not in vice, or
 
 170 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS 
 
 in war, or in injustice, or in falsehood; but simply 
 in the fact that the constitution of their country 
 conforms to the laws of human society. It is not 
 necessary to suppose that they will succeed in carrying 
 out their principles, or that a civilized nation will 
 place its liberties in the keeping of a religious party. 
 But, without succeeding, they do a great deal of harm 
 to themselves and to the world. For they draw the 
 mind away from the simple truths of the Gospel to 
 manifestations of opinion and party spirit ; they waste 
 their own power to do good ; some passing topic of 
 theological controversy drains their life. We may not 
 * do evil that good may come ', they say ; and * what is 
 morally wrong cannot be politically right ' ; and with 
 this misapplied 'syllogism of the conscience , they 
 would make it impossible, in the mixed state of human 
 affairs, to act at all, either for good or evil. He who 
 seriously believes that not for our actual sins, but 
 for some legislative measure of doubtful expediency, 
 the wrath of God is hanging over his country, is in so 
 unreal a state of mind as to be scarcely capable of 
 discerning the real evils by which we are surrounded. 
 The remedies of practical ills sink into insignificance 
 compared with some point in which the interests of 
 religion appear to be, but are not, concerned. 
 
 But it is not only in the political world that 
 imaginary forms of evil present themselves, and we 
 are haunted by ideas which can never be carried out 
 in practice ; the difficulty comes nearer home to most 
 of us in our social life. If governments and nations 
 appear unchristian, the appearance of society itself is 
 in a certain point of view still more unchristian. 
 Suppose a person acquainted with the real state of 
 the world in which we live and move, and neither 
 morosely depreciating nor unduly exalting human 
 nature, to turn to the image of the Christian Church
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SIN 171 
 
 in the New Testament, how great would the differ- 
 ence appear ! How would the blessing of poverty 
 contrast with the real, even the moral advantages of 
 wealth ! the family of love, with distinctions of ranks ! 
 the spiritual, almost supernatural, society of the first 
 Christians, with our world of fashion, of business, of 
 pleasure ! the community of goods, with our meagre 
 charity to others ! the prohibition of going to law 
 before the heathen, with our endless litigation before 
 judges of all religions ! the cross of Christ, with our 
 ordinary life ! How little does the world in which 
 we live seem to be designed for the tabernacle of 
 immortal souls ! How large a portion of mankind, 
 even in a civilized country, appears to be sacrificed to 
 the rest, and to be without the means of moral and 
 religious improvement ! How fixed, and steadfast, 
 and regular do dealings of money and business 
 appear ! how transient and passing are religious ob- 
 jects ! Then, again, consider how society, sometimes 
 in self-defence, sets a false stamp on good and evil ; as 
 in the excessive punishment of the errors of women, 
 compared with Christ's conduct to the woman who 
 was a sinner. Or when men are acknowledged to be 
 in the sight of God equal, how strange it seems that 
 one should heap up money for another, and be 
 dependent on him for his daily life. Susceptible 
 minds, attaching themselves, some to one point, some 
 to another, may carry such reflections very far, until 
 society itself appears evil, and they desire some 
 primitive patriarchal mode of life. They are tired of 
 conventionalities ; they want, as they say, to make 
 the Gospel a reality ; to place all men on a religious, 
 social, and political equality. In this, as in the last 
 case, ' they are kicking against the pricks' ; what they 
 want is a society which has not the very elements of 
 a social state ; they do not perceive that the cause of
 
 172 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS 
 
 the evil is human nature itself, which will not cohere 
 without mixed motives and received forms and dis- 
 tinctions, and that Providence has been pleased to 
 rest the world on a firmer basis than is supplied by 
 the fleeting emotions of philanthropy, viz. self-interest. 
 We are not, indeed, to sit with our arms folded, and 
 acquiesce in human evil. But we must separate the 
 accidents from the essence of this evil : questions of 
 taste, things indifferent, or customary, or necessary, 
 from the weightier matters of oppression, falsehood, 
 vice. The ills of society are to be struggled against 
 in such a manner as not to violate the conditions of 
 society ; the precepts of Scripture are to be applied, 
 but not without distinctions of times and countries ; 
 Christian duties are to be enforced, but not identified 
 with political principles. To see the world, — not as it 
 ought to be, but as it is, — to be on a level with the 
 circumstances in which God has placed them, to 
 renounce the remote and impossible for what is 
 possible and in their reach ; above all, to begin 
 within, — these are the limits which enthusiasts should 
 set to their aspirations after social good. It is a 
 weary thing to be all our life long warring against 
 the elements, or, like the slaves of some eastern lord, 
 using our hands in a work which can only be accom- 
 plished by levers and machines. The physician of 
 society should aid nature instead of fighting against 
 it ; he must let the world alone as much as he can ; 
 to a certain degree, he will even accept things as they 
 are, in the hope of bettering them. 
 
 II. Mere weakness of character will sometimes 
 afford an illustration of the Apostle's words. If there 
 are some whose days are ' bound each to each by 
 natural piety', there are others on whom the same 
 continuous power is exercised for evil as well as good ; 
 they are unable to throw off their former self; the
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SIN 173 
 
 sins of their youth lie heavy on them ; the influence 
 of opinions which they have ceased to hold discolours 
 their minds. Or it may be that their weakness takes 
 a different form, viz. that of clinging to some 
 favourite resolve, or of yielding to some fixed idea 
 which gets dominion over them, and becomes the 
 limit of all their ideas. A common instance of this 
 may be found in the use made by many persons of 
 conscience. Whatever they wish or fancy, whatever 
 course of action they are led to by some influence 
 obvious to others, though unobserved by themselves, 
 immediately assumes the necessary and stereotyped 
 form of the conscientious fulfilment of a duty. To 
 every suggestion of what is right and reasonable, they 
 reply only with the words — ' their consciences will not 
 allow it. 1 They do what they think right ; they do 
 not observe that they never seem to themselves to do 
 otherwise. No voice of authority, no opinion of 
 others, weighs with them when put in the scale 
 against the dictates of what they term conscience. As 
 they get older, their narrow ideas of right acquire a 
 greater tenacity ; the world is going on, and they are 
 as they were. A deadening influence lies on their 
 moral nature, the peculiarity of which is, that, like 
 the law, it assumes the appearance of good, differing 
 from the law only in being unconscious. Conscience, 
 one may say, putting their own character into the 
 form of a truth or commandment, ' has deceived and 
 slain them."' 
 
 Another form of conscience yet more closely re- 
 sembles the principle described in the seventh chapter 
 of the Romans. There is a state in which man is 
 powerless to act, and is, nevertheless, clairvoyant of 
 all the good and evil of his own nature. He places 
 the good and evil principle before him, and is ever 
 oscillating between them. He traces the labyrinth
 
 174 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS 
 
 of conflicting principles in the world, and is yet 
 further perplexed and entangled. He is sensitive to 
 every breath of feeling, and incapable of the per- 
 formance of any duty. Or take another example : 
 it sometimes happens that the remembrance of past 
 suffering, or the consciousness of sin, may so weigh a 
 man down as fairly to paralyse his moral power. 
 He is distracted between what he is and what he 
 was ; old habits and vices, and the new character 
 which is being fashioned in him. Sometimes the 
 balance seems to hang equal ; he feels the earnest 
 wish and desire to do rightly, but cannot hope to 
 find pleasure and satisfaction in a good life ; he 
 desires heartily to repent, but can never think it 
 possible that God should forgive. ' It is I, and it is 
 not I, but sin that dwelleth in me. 1 *I have, and 
 have never ceased to have, the wish for better things, 
 even amid haunts of infamy and vice. -1 In such 
 language, even now, though with less fervour than in 
 * the first spiritual chaos of the affections ', does the 
 soul cry out to God — 'O wretched man that I am, 
 who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ' 
 
 III. There is some danger of speculative difficulties 
 presenting the same hindrance and stumbling-block 
 to our own generation, that the law is described as 
 doing to the contemporaries of St. Paul. As the law 
 was holy, just, and good, so many of these difficulties 
 are true, and have real grounds: all of them, except 
 in cases where they spring from hatred and opposition 
 to the Gospel, are at least innocent. And yet, by 
 undermining received opinions, by increasing vanity 
 and egotism, instead of strengthening the will and 
 fixing the principles, their promulgation may become 
 a temporary source of evil ; so that, in the words of 
 the Apostle, it may be said of them that, taking 
 occasion by the truth, they deceive and slay men.
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SIN 175 
 
 What then ? is the law sin ? is honest inquiry wrong ? 
 God forbid ! it is we ourselves who are incapable of 
 receiving the results of inquiry ; who will not believe 
 unless we see ; who demand a proof that we cannot 
 have ; who begin with appeals to authority, and 
 tradition, and consequences, and, when dissatisfied 
 with these, imagine that there is no other foundation 
 on which life can repose but the loose and sandy 
 structure of our individual opinions. Persons often 
 load their belief in the hope of strengthening it ; 
 they escape doubt by assuming certainty. Or they 
 believe ' under an hypothesis , ; their worldly interests 
 lead them to acquiesce ; their higher intellectual 
 convictions rebel. Opinions, hardly Avon from study 
 and experience, are found to be at variance with early 
 education, or natural temperament. Opposite ten- 
 dencies grow together in the mind ; appearing and 
 reappearing at intervals. Life becomes a patchwork 
 of new and old cloth, or like a garment which changes 
 colour in the sun. 
 
 It is true that the generation to which we belong 
 has difficulties to contend with, perhaps greater than 
 those of any former age ; and certainly different from 
 them. Some of those difficulties arise out of the 
 opposition of reason and faith ; the critical inquiries 
 of which the Old and New Testament have been the 
 subject are a trouble to many ; the circumstance 
 that, while the Bible is the word of life for all men, 
 such inquiries are open only to the few, increases the 
 irritation. The habit of mind which has been formed 
 in the study of Greek or Roman history may be 
 warned off the sacred territory, but cannot really be 
 prevented from trespassing : still more impossible is 
 it to keep the level of knowledge at one point in 
 Germany, at another in England. Geology, ethno- 
 logy, historical and metaphysical criticism, assail in
 
 176 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS 
 
 succession not the Scriptures themselves, but notions 
 and beliefs which in the minds of many good men 
 are bound up with them. The eternal strain to keep 
 theology where it is while the world is going on, 
 specious reconcilements, political or ecclesiastical 
 exigencies, recent attempts to revive the past, and 
 the reaction to which they have given birth, the 
 contrast that everywhere arises of old and new, all 
 add to the confusion. Probably no other age has 
 been to the same extent the subject of cross and 
 contradictory influences. What can be more unlike 
 than the tone of sermons and of newspapers ? or the 
 ideas of men on art, politics, and religion, now, and 
 half a generation ago ? The thoughts of a few 
 original minds, like wedges, pierce into all received 
 and conventional opinions and are almost equally 
 removed from either. The destruction of 'shams, 1 
 that is, the realization of things as they are amid all 
 the conventions of thought and speech and action, 
 is also an element of unsettlement. The excess of 
 self-reflection, again, is not favourable to strength or 
 simplicity of character. Every one seems to be 
 employed in decomposing the world, human nature, 
 and himself. The discovery is made that good and 
 evil are mixed in a far more subtle way than at first 
 sight would have appeared possible ; and that even 
 extremes of both meet in the same person. The 
 mere analysis of moral and religious truth, the fact 
 that we know the origin of many things which the 
 last generation received on authority, is held by some 
 to destroy their sacredness. Lastly, there are those 
 who feel that all the doubts of sceptics put together 
 fall short of that great doubt which has insinuated 
 itself into their minds, from the contemplation of 
 mankind — saying one thing and doing another. 
 It is foolish to lament over these things ; it would
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SIN 177 
 
 be still more foolish to denounce them. They are 
 the mental trials of the age and country in which 
 God has placed us. If they seem at times to exercise 
 a weakening or unsettling influence, may we not hope 
 that increasing love of truth, deeper knowledge of 
 ourselves and other men, will, in the end, simplify 
 and not perplex the path of life ? We may leave off 
 in mature years where we began in youth, and receive 
 not only the kingdom of God, but the world also, as 
 ' little children \ The analysis of moral and religious 
 truth may correct its errors without destroying its 
 obligations. Experience of the illusions of religious 
 feeling at a particular time should lead us to place 
 religion on a foundation which is independent of 
 feeling. Because the Scripture is no longer held to 
 be a book of geology or ethnology, or a supernatural 
 revelation of historical facts, it will not cease to be 
 the law of our lives, exercising an influence over us, 
 different in kind from the ideas of philosophical 
 systems, or the aspirations of poetry or romance. 
 Because the world (of which we are a part) is 
 hypocritical and deceitful, and individuals go about 
 dissecting their neighbours'' motives and lives, that is 
 a reason for cherishing a simple and manly temper of 
 mind, which does not love men the less because it 
 knows human nature more ; which pierces the secrets 
 of the heart, not by any process of anatomy, but by 
 the light of an eye from which the mists of selfishness 
 are dispersed. 
 
 IV. The relation in which science stands to us may 
 seem to bear but a remote resemblance to that in 
 which the law stood to the Apostle St. Paul. Yet 
 the analogy is not fanciful, but real. Traces of 
 physical laws are discernible everywhere in the world 
 around us; in ourselves also, whose souls are knit 
 together with our bodies, whose bodies are a part of 
 
 JOWETT U N
 
 178 ESSAY ON THE LAW AS 
 
 the material creation. It seems as if nature came so 
 close to us as to leave no room for the motion of our 
 will : instead of the inexhaustible grace of God 
 enabling us to say, in the language of the Apostle, 
 * I can do all things through Christ that strengthened 
 me, 1 we become more and more the slaves of our own 
 physical constitution. Our state is growing like that 
 of a person whose mind is over-sensitive to the nervous 
 emotions of his own bodily frame. And as the self- 
 consciousness becomes stronger and the contrast 
 between faith and experience more vivid, there arises 
 a conflict between the spirit and the flesh, nature and 
 grace, not unlike that of which the Apostle speaks. 
 No one who, instead of hanging to the past, will look 
 forward to the future, can expect that natural science 
 should stand in the same attitude towards revelation 
 fifty years hence as at present. The faith of mankind 
 varies from age to age ; it is weaker, or it may be 
 stronger, at one time than at another. But that 
 which never varies or turns aside, which is always 
 going on and cannot be driven back, is knowledge 
 based on the sure ground of observation and ex- 
 periment, the regular progress of which is itself 
 matter of observation. The stage at which the few 
 have arrived is already far in advance of the many, 
 and if there were nothing remaining to be discovered, 
 still the diffusion of the knowledge that we have, 
 without new addition, would exert a great influence 
 on religious and social life. Still greater is the 
 indirect influence which science exercises through the 
 medium of the arts. In one century a single in- 
 vention has changed the face of Europe : three or 
 four such inventions might produce a gulf between us 
 and the future far greater than the interval which 
 separates ancient from modern civilization. Doubtless 
 God has provided a way that the thought of Him
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SIN 179 
 
 should not be banished from the hearts of men. And 
 habit, and opinion, and prescription may 'last our 
 time, 1 and many motives may conspire to keep our 
 minds off the coming change. But if ever our present 
 knowledge of geology, of languages, of the races and 
 religions of mankind, of the human frame itself, shall 
 be regarded as the starting-point of a goal which has 
 been almost reached, supposing too the progress of 
 science to be accompanied by a corresponding de- 
 velopment of the mechanical arts, we can hardly 
 anticipate, from what we already see, the new relation 
 that will then arise between reason and faith. 
 Perhaps the very opposition between them may have 
 died away. At any rate experience shows that 
 religion is not stationary when all other things are 
 moving onward. 
 
 Changes of this kind pass gradually over the world ; 
 the mind of man is not suddenly thrown into a state 
 for which it is unprepared, No one has more doubts 
 than he can carry ; the way of life is not found to 
 stop and come to an end in the midst of a volcano, or 
 on the edge of a precipice. Dangers occur, not from 
 the disclosure of any new, or hitherto unobserved, 
 facts, for which, as for all other blessings, we have 
 reason to be thankful to God ; but from our conceal- 
 ment or denial of them, from the belief that we can 
 make them other than they are ; from the fancy that 
 some a priori notion, some undefined word, some 
 intensity of personal conviction, is the weapon with 
 which they are to be met. New facts, whether 
 bearing on Scripture, or on religion generally, or on 
 morality, are sure to win their way ; the tide refuses 
 to recede at any man's bidding. And there are not 
 wanting signs that the increase of secular knowledge 
 is beginning to be met by a corresponding progress in 
 religious ideas. Controversies are dying out ; the 
 
 N 3
 
 180 LAW AS THE STRENGTH OF SIN 
 
 lines of party are fading into one another ; niceties of 
 doctrine are laid aside. The opinions respecting the 
 inspiration of Scripture, which are held in the present 
 day by good and able men, are not those of fifty 
 years ago ; a change may be observed on many points, 
 a reserve on still more. Formulas of reconciliation 
 have sprung up : ' the Bible is not a book of science, 1 
 * the inspired writers were not taught supernaturally 
 what they could have learned from ordinary sources, 1 
 resting-places in the argument at which travellers are 
 the more ready to halt, because they do not perceive 
 that they are only temporary. For there is no real 
 resting-place but in the entire faith, that all true 
 knowledge is a revelation of the will of God. In the case 
 of the poor and suffering, we often teach resignation 
 to the accidents of life ; it is not less plainly a duty 
 of religious men, to submit to the progress of know- 
 ledge. That is a new kind of resignation, in which 
 many Christians have to school themselves. When 
 the difficulty may seem, in anticipation, to be greatest, 
 they will find, with the Apostle, that there is a way 
 out : ' The truth has made them free. 1
 
 ESSAY ON PREDESTINATION 
 AND FREE WILL 
 
 The difficulty of necessity and free will is not 
 peculiar to Christianity. It enters into all religions 
 at a certain stage of their progress ; it reappears in 
 philosophy and is a question not only of speculation 
 but of life. Wherever man touches nature, wherever 
 the stream of thought which flows within meets and 
 comes into conflict with scientific laws, reflecting on 
 the actions of an individual in relation to his ante- 
 cedents, considering the balance of human actions in 
 many individuals ; when we pass into the wider field 
 of history, and trace the influence of circumstances on 
 the course of events, the sequence of nations and 
 states of society, the physical causes that lie behind 
 all; in the region of philosophy, as we follow the 
 order of human thoughts, and observe the seeming 
 freedom and real limitation of ideas and systems ; 
 lastly in that higher world of which religion speaks to 
 us, when we conceive man as a finite being, who has 
 the witness in himself of his own dependence on God, 
 whom theology too has made the subject of many 
 theories of grace, new forms appear of that famous 
 controversy which the last century discussed under 
 the name of necessity and free will. 
 
 I shall at present pursue no further the train of 
 reflections which are thus suggested. My first object 
 is to clear the way for the consideration of the subject 
 within the limits of Scripture. Some preliminary 
 obstacles offer themselves, arising out of the opposi-
 
 182 ESSAY ON 
 
 tion which the human mind everywhere admits in the 
 statement of this question. These will be first 
 examined. We may afterwards return to the modern 
 aspects of the contradiction and of the reconcile- 
 ment. 
 
 §1. 
 
 In the relations of God and man, good and evil, 
 finite and infinite, there is much that must ever be 
 mysterious. Nor can any one exaggerate the weak- 
 ness and feebleness of the human mind in the attempt 
 to seek for such knowledge. But although we ac- 
 knowledge the feebleness of man's brain and the 
 vastness of the subject, we should also draw a dis- 
 tinction between the original difficulty of our 
 own ignorance, and the puzzles and embarrassments 
 which false philosophy or false theology have intro- 
 duced. The impotence of our faculties is not a reason 
 for acquiescing in a metaphysical fiction. Philosophy 
 has no right to veil herself in mystery at the point 
 where she is lost in a confusion of words. That we 
 know little is the real mystery ; not that we are 
 caught in dilemmas or surrounded by contradictions. 
 These contradictions are involved in the slightest as 
 well as in the most serious of our actions, which is a 
 proof of their really trifling nature. They confuse 
 the mind but not things. To trace the steps by 
 which mere abstractions have acquired this perplexing 
 and constraining power, though it cannot meet the 
 original defect, yet may perhaps assist us to under- 
 stand the misunderstanding, and to regard the 
 question of predestination and free will in a simpler 
 and more natural light. 
 
 A subject which claims to be raised above the rules 
 and requirements of logic must give a reason for the 
 exemption, and must itself furnish some other test of
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 183 
 
 truth to which it is ready to conform. The reason is 
 that logic is inapplicable to the discussion of a 
 question which begins with a contradiction in terms : 
 it can only work out the opposite aspects or prin- 
 ciples of such a question on one side or the other, but 
 is inadequate to that more comprehensive conception 
 of the subject which embraces both. We often speak 
 of language as an imperfect instrument for the ex- 
 pression of thought. Logic is even more imperfect ; 
 it is wanting in the plastic and multiform character of 
 language, yet deceives us by the appearance of a 
 straight rule and necessary principle. Questions re- 
 specting the relation of God and man, necessity and 
 free will, the finite and the infinite — perhaps every 
 question which has two opposite poles of fact and 
 idea — are beyond the sphere of its art. But if not 
 logic, some other test must be found of our theories 
 or reasonings, on these and the like metaphysical 
 subjects. This can only be their agreement with facts, 
 which we shall the more readily admit if the new 
 form of expression or statement of them be a real 
 assistance to our powers of thought and action. 
 
 The difficulties raised respecting necessity and free 
 will partake, for the most part, of the same nature as 
 the old fallacies respecting motion and space of Zeno 
 and the Eleatics, and have their ' solvitur ambulando ' 
 as well. This is the answer of Bishop Butler, who 
 aims only at a practical solution. But as it is no use 
 to say to the lame man, 'rise up and walk, 1 without a 
 crutch or helping hand, so it is no use to offer these 
 practical solutions to a mind already entangled in 
 speculative perplexities. It retorts upon you — 'I 
 cannot walk : if my outward actions seem like other 
 men's ; if I do not throw myself from a precipice, or 
 take away the life of another under the fatal influence 
 of the doctrine of necessity, yet the course of thought
 
 184 ESSAY ON 
 
 within me is different. I look upon the world with 
 other eyes, and, slowly and gradually, differences in 
 thought must beget differences also in action."' But 
 if the mind, which is bound by this chain, could be 
 shown that it was a slave only to its own abstract 
 ideas, — that it was below where it ought to be above 
 them, — that, considering all the many minds of men 
 as one mind, it could trace the fiction, — this world of 
 abstractions would gradually disappear, and not 
 merely in a Christian, but in a philosophical sense, it 
 would receive the kingdom of Heaven as a little child, 
 seeking rather for some new figure under which con- 
 flicting notions might be represented, than remaining 
 in suspense between them. It may be as surprising 
 to a future generation that the nineteenth century 
 should have been under the influence of the illusion 
 of necessity and free will, or that it should have 
 proposed the law of contradiction as an ultimate test 
 of truth, as it is to ourselves that former ages have 
 been subjected to the fictions of essence, substance, 
 and the like. 
 
 The notion that no idea can be composed of two 
 contradictory conceptions seems to arise out of the 
 analogy of the sensible world. It would be an 
 absurdity to suppose that an object should be white 
 and black at the same time ; that a captive should be 
 in chains and not in chains at the same time, and so 
 on. But there is no absurdity in supposing that the 
 mental analysis even of a matter of fact or an outward 
 object should involve us in contradictions. Objects, 
 considered in their most abstract point of view, may 
 be said to contain a positive and a negative element : 
 everything is and is not ; is in itself, and is not, in 
 relation to other things. Our conceptions of motion, 
 of becoming, or of beginning, in like manner involve 
 a contradiction. The old puzzles of the Eleatics are
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 185 
 
 merely an exemplification of the same difficulty. 
 There are objections, it has been said, against a 
 vacuum, objections against a plenum, though we need 
 not add, with the writer who makes the remark, 
 ' Yet one of these must be true. 1 How a new sub- 
 stance can be formed by chemical combination out of 
 two other substances may seem also to involve a 
 contradiction, e.g. water is and is not oxygen and 
 hydrogen. Life, in like manner, has been defined as 
 a state in which every end is a means, and every 
 means an end. And if we turn to any moral or 
 political subject we are perpetually coming across 
 different and opposing lines of argument, and con- 
 stantly in danger of passing from one sphere to 
 another ; of applying, for example, moral or theo- 
 logical principles to politics, and political priniciples 
 to theology. Men form to themselves first one system, 
 then many, as they term them different, but in reality 
 opposite to each other. Just as that nebulous mass, 
 out of which the heavens have been imagined to be 
 formed, at last, with its circling motion, subsides into 
 rings, and embodies the ' stars moving in their courses", 
 so also in the world of mind there are so many 
 different orbits which never cross or touch each other, 
 and yet which must be conceived of as the colours of 
 the rainbow, the result of a single natural pheno- 
 menon. 
 
 It is at first sight strange that some of these con- 
 tradictions should seem so trivial to us, while others 
 assume the appearance of a high mystery. In physics 
 or mathematics we scarcely think of them, though 
 speculative minds may sometimes be led by them to 
 seek for higher expressions, or to embrace both sides 
 of the contradiction in some conception of flux or 
 transition, reciprocal action, process by antagonism, 
 the Hegelian vibration of moments, or the like. In
 
 186 ESSAY ON 
 
 common life we acquiesce in the contradiction almost 
 unconsciously, merely remarking on the difference of 
 men's views, or the possibility of saying something on 
 either side of a question. But in religion the difficulty 
 appears of greater importance, partly from our being 
 much more under the influence of language in theology 
 than in subjects which we can at once bring to the test 
 of fact and experiment, and partly also from our being 
 more subject to our own natural constitution, which 
 leads us to one or the other horn of the dilemma, 
 instead of placing us between or above both. As in 
 heathen times it was natural to think of extraordinary 
 phenomena, such as thunder and lightning, as the 
 work of gods rather than as arising from physical 
 causes, so it is still to the religious mind to consider 
 the bewilderments and entanglements which it has 
 itself made as a proof of the unsearchableness of the 
 Divine nature. 
 
 The immovableness of these abstractions from 
 within will further incline us to consider the meta- 
 physical contradiction of necessity and free will in 
 the only rational way ; that is, ' historically.' To 
 say that we have ideas of fate or freedom which are 
 innate, is to assume what is at once disproved by 
 a reference to history. In the East and West, in 
 India and in Greece, in Christian as well as heathen 
 times, whenever men have been sufficiently enlightened 
 to form a distinct conception of a single Divine power 
 or overruling law, the question arises, How is the 
 individual related to this law ? The first answer to 
 this question is Pantheism ; in which the individual, 
 dropping his proper qualities, abstracts himself into 
 an invisible being, indistinguishable from the Divine. 
 God overpowers man ; the inner life absorbs the 
 outer; the ideal world is too much for this. The 
 second answer, which the East has also given to this
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 187 
 
 question, is Fatalism ; in which, without abstraction, 
 the individual identifies himself, soul and body, in 
 deed as well as thought, with the Divine will. The 
 first is the religion of contemplation ; the second, 
 of action. Only in the last, as the world itself alters, 
 the sense of the overruling power weakens; and 
 faith in the Divine will, as in Mahometan countries 
 at the present day, shows itself, not in a fanatical 
 energy, but in passive compliance and resignation. 
 
 The gradual emergence of the opposition is more 
 clearly traceable in the Old Testament Scriptures 
 or in Greek poetry or philosophy. The Israelites 
 are distinguished from all other Eastern nations — 
 certainly from all contemporary with their early 
 history— by their distinct recognition of the unity 
 and personality of God. God, who is the Creator 
 and Lord of the whole earth, is also in a peculiar 
 sense the God of the Jewish people whom He deals 
 with according to His own good pleasure, which is 
 also a law of truth and right. He is not so much 
 the Author of good as the Author of all things, 
 without whom nothing either good or evil can happen ; 
 not only the permitter of evil, but in a few instances, 
 in the excess of His power, the cause of it also. 
 With this universal attribute He combines another, 
 ' the Lord our God, who brought us out of the land 
 of bondage/ The people have one heart and one 
 soul with which they worship God and have dealings 
 with Him. Only a few individuals among them, 
 as Moses or Joshua, draw near separately to Him. 
 In the earliest ages they do not pray each one for 
 himself. There is a great difference in this respect 
 between the relation of man to God which is expressed 
 in the Psalms and in the Pentateuch. In the later 
 Psalms, certainly, and even in some of those ascribed 
 to David, there is an immediate personal intercourse
 
 188 ESSAY ON 
 
 between God and His servants. At length in the 
 books of Job and Ecelesiastes, the human spirit 
 begins to strive with God, and to ask not only, how 
 can man be just before God ? but also, how can God 
 be justified to man ? There was a time when the 
 thought of this could never have entered into their 
 minds; in which they were only, as children with 
 a father, doing evil, and punished, and returning 
 once more to the arms of His wisdom and goodness. 
 The childhood of their nation passed away, and the 
 remembrance of what God had done for their fathers 
 was forgotten ; religion became the religion of indi- 
 viduals, of Simeon and Anna, of Joseph and Mary. 
 On the one hand, there was the proud claim of those 
 who said, 'We have Abraham to our Father'; on 
 the other hand, the regretful feeling 'that God was 
 casting off' Israel, 1 which St. Paul in the manner of 
 the Old Testament rebukes with the words, 'Who 
 art thou, O man ? ' and ' We are the clay, and He 
 the potter.' 
 
 We may briefly trace the progress of a parallel 
 struggle in Grecian mythology. It presents itself, 
 however, in another form, beginning with the Fates 
 weaving the web of life, or the Furies pursuing the 
 guilty, and ending in the pure abstraction of necessity 
 or nature. Many changes of feeling may be observed 
 between the earlier and later of these two extremes. 
 The Fate of poetry is not like that of philosophy, 
 the chain by which the world is held together ; but 
 an ever-living power or curse — sometimes just, some- 
 times arbitrary, — specially punishing impiety towards 
 the Gods or violations of nature. In Homer it 
 represents also a determination already fixed, or an 
 ill irremediable by man ; in one aspect it is the folly 
 which 'leaves no place for repentance '. In Pindar 
 it receives a nobler form, * Law the king of all. 1 In
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 189 
 
 the tragedians it has a peculiar interest, giving a 
 kind of measured and regular movement to the whole 
 action of the play. The consciousness that man is 
 not his own master had deepened in the course of 
 ages ; there had grown up in the mind a sentiment 
 of overruling law. It was this half-religious, half- 
 philosophical feeling, which Greek tragedy embodied ; 
 whence it derived not only dramatic irony or contrast 
 of the real and seeming, but also its characteristic 
 feature — repose. The same reflective tone is observ- 
 able in the ' Epic ' historian of the Persian war ; who 
 delights to tell, not (like a modern narrator) of the 
 necessary connexion of causes and effects, but of 
 effects without causes, due only to the will of Heaven. 
 A sadder note is heard at intervals of the feebleness 
 and nothingness of man ; irav kcrriv avdpayTros o-v/x- 
 (fropij. In Thucydides (who was separated from 
 Herodotus by an interval of about twenty years) the 
 sadness remains, but the religious element has 
 vanished. Man is no longer in the toils of destiny, 
 but he is still feeble and helpless. Fortune and 
 human enterprise divide the empire of life. 
 
 Such conceptions of fate belong to Paganism, and 
 have little in common with that higher idea of Divine 
 predestination of which the New Testament speaks. 
 The Fate of Greek philosophy is different from either. 
 The earlier schools expressed their sense of an all- 
 pervading law in rude, mythological figures. In 
 time this passed away, and the conceptions of chance, 
 of nature, and necessity became matters of philo- 
 sophical inquiry. By the Sophists first the question 
 was discussed, whether man is the cause of his own 
 actions ; the mode in which they treated of the 
 subject being to identify the good with the voluntary, 
 and the evil with the involuntary. It is this phase 
 of the question which is alone considered by Aristotle.
 
 190 ESSAY ON 
 
 In the chain of the Stoics the doctrine has arrived at 
 a further stage, in which human action has become a 
 part of the course of the world. How the free will 
 of man was to be reconciled either with Divine power, 
 or Divine foreknowledge, was a difficulty which 
 pressed upon the Stoical philosopher equally as upon 
 the metaphysicians of the last century ; and was met 
 by various devices, such as that of the confatalism 
 of Chrysippus, which may be described as a sort of 
 identity of fate and freedom, or of an action and its 
 conditions. 
 
 Our inquiry has been thus far confined to an 
 attempt to show, first, that the question of pre- 
 destination cannot be considered according to the 
 common rules of logic ; secondly, that the contradic- 
 tions which are involved in this question are of the 
 same kind as many other contrasts of ideas ; and, 
 thirdly, that the modern conception of necessity 
 was the growth of ages, whether its true origin is to 
 be sought in the Scriptures, or in the Greek philo- 
 sophy, or both. If only we could throw ourselves 
 back to a prior state of the world, and know no 
 other modes of thought than those which existed 
 in the infancy of the human mind, the opposition 
 would cease to have any meaning for us; and thus 
 the further reflection is suggested, that if ever we 
 become fully conscious that the words which we use 
 respecting it are words only, it will again become 
 unmeaning. Historically we know when it arose, 
 and whence it came. Already we are able to con- 
 sider the subject in a simpler way, whether pre- 
 sented to us (i) in connexion with the statements 
 of Scripture, or (2) as a subject of theology and 
 philosophy.
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 191 
 
 Two kinds of predestination may be distinguished 
 in the writings of St. Paul, as well as in some parts 
 of the Old Testament. First, the predestination of 
 nations ; secondly, of individuals. The former of 
 these may be said to flow out of the latter, God 
 choosing at once the patriarchs and their descendants. 
 As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews expresses 
 it, ' By faith Abraham offered up Isaac ; and there- 
 fore sprang there of one, and him as good as dead, so 
 many as the stars of heaven in multitude.'' The life 
 of the patriarchs was the type or shadow of the 
 history of their posterity, for evil as well as good. 
 ' Simeon and Levi are brethren ; instruments of 
 cruelty are in their habitations ; Joseph is a goodly 
 bough': Moab and Amnion are children of whoredom ; 
 Ishmael is a wild man, and so on. There is also 
 the feeling that whatever extraordinary thing happens 
 in Jewish history is God's doing, not of works nor 
 even of faith, but of grace and choice ; ' He took 
 David from the sheep-folds, and set him over His 
 people Israel. 1 So that a double principle is dis- 
 cernible : first, absolute election ; and, secondly, the 
 fulfilment of the promises made to the fathers, or 
 the visitation of their sins upon the children. 
 
 The notion of freedom is essentially connected 
 with that of individuality. No one is truly free who 
 has not that inner circle of thoughts and actions in 
 which he is wholly himself and independent of the 
 will of others. A slave, for example, may be in 
 this sense free, even while in the service of his lord ; 
 constraint can apply only to his outward acts, not to 
 his inward nature. But if, in the language of 
 Aristotle, he were a natural slave, whose life seemed 
 to himself defective and imperfect, who had no
 
 192 ESSAY ON 
 
 thoughts or feelings of his own, but only instincts 
 and impulses, we could no more call him free than a 
 domestic animal which attaches itself to a master. 
 So, in that stage of society in which the State is all in 
 all, the idea of the individual has a feeble existence. 
 In the language of philosophy the whole is free, and 
 the parts are determined by the whole. So the 
 theocracy of the Old Testament seems to swallow up 
 its members. The Jewish commonwealth is governed 
 by God himself; this of itself interferes with the 
 personal relation in which He stands to the indi- 
 viduals who compose it. Through the law only, in 
 the congregation, at the great feasts, through their 
 common ancestors, the people draw near to God ; 
 they do not venture to think severally of their 
 separate and independent connexion with Him. 
 They stand or fall together ; they go astray or return 
 to Him as one man. It is this which makes so much 
 of their history directly applicable to the struggle of 
 Christian life. Religion, which to the believer in 
 Christ is an individual principle, is with them a 
 national one. 
 
 The idea of a chosen people passes from the Old 
 Testament into the New. As the Jews had been 
 predestined in the one, so it appeared to the Apostle 
 St. Paul that the Gentiles were predestined in the 
 other. In the Old Testament he observed two sorts 
 of predestination ; first, that more general one, in 
 which all who were circumcised were partakers of 
 the privilege — which was applicable to all Israelites 
 as the children of Abraham ; secondly, the more 
 particular one, in reference to which he says, ' All 
 are not Israel who are of Israel.' To the eye of faith 
 ' all Israel were saved ' ; and yet within Israel there 
 was another Israel chosen in a more special sense. 
 The analogy of this double predestination the Apostle
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 193 
 
 transfers to the Christian society. All alike were 
 holy, even those of whom he speaks in the strongest 
 terms of reprobation. The Church, like Israel of old, 
 pz'esents to the Apostle's mind the conception of a 
 definite body, consisting of those who are sealed 
 by baptism and have received 'the first fruits of 
 the Spirit '. They are elect according to the fore- 
 knowledge or predisposition of God ; sealed by God 
 unto the day of redemption ; a peculiar people, a 
 royal priesthood, taken alike from Jews and Gentiles. 
 The Apostle speaks of their election as of some 
 external fact. The elect of God have an offence 
 among them not even named among the Gentiles, 
 they abuse the gifts of the Spirit, they partake in 
 the idol's temple, they profane the body and blood ot 
 Christ. And yet, as the Israelites of old, they bear 
 on their foreheads the mark that they are God's 
 people, and are described as 'chosen saints', ' sanctified 
 in Christ Jesus.' 
 
 Again, the Apostle argues respecting Israel itself, 
 ' Hath God cast off his people whom he foreknew ? ' 
 or rather, whom He before appointed. They are in 
 the position of their fathers when they sinned against 
 Him. If we read their history we shall see, that what 
 happened to them in old times is happening to them 
 now ; and yet in the Old Testament as well as the 
 New the overruling design was not their condem- 
 nation but their salvation — ' God concluded all under 
 sin that he might have mercy upon all.' They 
 stumbled and rose again then ; they will stumble and 
 rise again now. Their predestination from the 
 beginning is a proof that they cannot be finally cast 
 off; beloved as they have been for their fathers' sakes, 
 and the children of so many promises. There is a 
 providence which, in spite of all contrary appearance, 
 in spite of the acceptance of the Gentiles, or rather 
 
 JOWETT II O
 
 194 ESSAY ON 
 
 so much the more in consequence of it, makes all 
 things work together for good to the chosen people. 
 
 In this alternation of hopes and fears, in which 
 hope finally prevails over fear, the Apostle speaks in 
 the strongest language of the right of God to do 
 what He will with His own ; if any doctrine could 
 be established by particular passages of Scripture, 
 Calvinism would rest immovable on the ninth chapter 
 of the Romans. It seemed to him no more unjust 
 that God should reject than that He should accept 
 the Israelites ; if, at that present time He cut them 
 short in righteousness, and narrowed the circle of 
 election, He had done the same with the patriarchs. 
 He had said of old, ' Jacob have I loved, and Esau have 
 I hated : ' and this preference, as the Apostle observes, 
 was shown before either could have committed actual 
 sin. In the same spirit He says to Moses, ' I will 
 have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will 
 have compassion on whom I will have compassion."' 
 And to Pharaoh, ' For this cause have I raised thee 
 up. 1 Human nature, it is true, rebels at this, and 
 says, ' Why does he yet find fault ?' To which the 
 Apostle only replies, 'Shall the thing formed say 
 unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me 
 thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay ?' 
 Some of the expressions which have become the most 
 objectionable watchwords of predestinarian theology, 
 such as ' vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy ', are in 
 fact taken from the same passage in the Epistle to 
 the Romans. 
 
 It is answered by the opponents of Calvinism, that 
 the Apostle is here speaking not of individual but of 
 national predestination. From the teaching of the 
 Old Testament respecting the election of the Jewish 
 people we can infer nothing respecting the Divine 
 economy about persons. To which in turn it may be
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 195 
 
 replied, that if we admit the principle that the free 
 choice of nations is not inconsistent with Divine 
 justice, we cannot refuse to admit the free choice of 
 persons also. A little more or a little less of the 
 doctrine cannot make it more or less reconcilable with 
 the perfect justice of God. Nor can we argue that 
 the election of nations is a part of the Old Testament 
 dispensation, which has no place in the New ; because 
 the Apostle speaks of election according to the pur- 
 pose of God as a principle which was at that time 
 being manifested in the acceptance of the Gentiles. 
 
 Yet the distinction is a sound one if stated a little 
 differently, that is to say, if we consider that the 
 predestination of Christians is only the continuance 
 of the Old Testament in the New. It is the feeling of 
 a religious Israelite respecting his race ; this the 
 Apostle enlarges to comprehend the Gentiles. As 
 the temporal Israel becomes the spiritual Israel, the 
 chosen people are transfigured into the elect. Why 
 this is so is only a part of the more general question, 
 'why the New Testament was given through the Old? 1 
 It was natural it should be so given ; humanly 
 speaking, it could not have been otherwise. The 
 Gospel would have been unmeaning, if it had been 
 'tossed into the world' separated from all human 
 antecedents ; if the heaven of its clearness had been 
 beyond the breath of every human feeling. Neither 
 is there any more untruthfulness in St. Paul's re- 
 quiring us to recognize the goodness of God in the 
 election of some and the rejection of others, than in 
 humility or any act of devotion. The untruth lies 
 not in the devout feeling, but in the logical statement. 
 When we humble ourselves before God, we may know, 
 as a matter of common sense, that we are not worse 
 than others ; but this, however true'C Father, I thank 
 thee I am not as other men '), is not the temper in 
 
 o 2
 
 196 ESSAY ON 
 
 which we kneel before Him. So in these passages, 
 St. Paul is speaking, not from a general consideration 
 of the Divine nature, but with the heart and feelings 
 of an Israelite. Could the question have been 
 brought before him in another form, — could he have 
 been asked whether God, according to His own 
 pleasure, chose out individual souls, so that some 
 could not fail of being saved while others were 
 necessarily lost, — could he have been asked whether 
 Christ died for all or for the chosen few, — whether, in 
 short, God was sincere in His offer of salvation, — can 
 we doubt that to such suggestions he would have 
 replied in his own words, ' God forbid ! for how shall 
 God judge the world P 1 
 
 It has been said that the great error in the 
 treatment of this subject consists in taking chap. ix. 
 separated from chaps, x. xi. We may say more 
 generally, in taking parts of Scripture without the 
 whole, or in interpreting either apart from history 
 and experience. In considering the question of pre- 
 destination, we must not forget that at least one-half 
 of Scripture tells not of what God does, but of what 
 man ought to do ; not of grace and pardon only, but 
 of holiness. If, in speaking of election, St. Paul 
 seems at times to use language which implies the 
 irrespective election of the Jews as a nation ; yet, on 
 the other hand, what immediately follows shows us 
 that conditions were understood throughout, and 
 that, although we may not challenge the right of God 
 to do what He would with His own, yet that in all 
 His dealings with them the dispensation was but the 
 effect of their conduct. And although the Apostle 
 is speaking chiefly of national predestination, with 
 respect to which the election of God is asserted by 
 him in the most unconditional terms ; yet, as if he 
 were already anticipating the application of his
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 197 
 
 doctrine to the individual, he speaks of human causes 
 for the rejection of Israel ; 'because they sought not 
 righteousness by the Avay of faith ' ; ' because they 
 stumble at the rock of offence. , God accepted and 
 rejected Israel of His own good pleasure ; and yet it 
 was by their own fault. How are we to reconcile 
 these conflicting statements ? They do not need 
 reconciliation ; they are but the two opposite ex- 
 pressions of a religious mind, which says at one 
 moment, * Let me try to do right ', and at another, 
 ' God alone can make me do right '. The two feelings 
 may involve a logical contradiction, and yet exist 
 together in fact and in the religious experience of 
 mankind. 
 
 In the Old Testament the only election of indi- 
 viduals is that of the great leaders or chiefs, who 
 are identified with the nation. But in the New 
 Testament, where religion has become a personal and 
 individual matter, it follows that election must also 
 be of persons. The Jewish nation knew, or seemed 
 to know, one fact, that they were the chosen people. 
 They saw, also, eminent men raised up by the hand 
 of God to be the deliverers of His servants. It is not 
 in this ' historical ' way that the Christian becomes 
 conscious of his individual election. From within, 
 not from without, he is made aware of the purpose of 
 God respecting himself. Living in close and inti- 
 mate union with God, having the mind of the Spirit 
 and knowing the things of the Spirit, he begins to 
 consider with St. Paul, ' When it pleased God, who 
 separated me from my mother's womb, to reveal his 
 Son in me. 1 His whole life seems a sort of miracle 
 to him ; supernatural, and beyond other men's in the 
 gifts of grace which he has received. If he asks 
 himself, ' Whence was this to me ? ' he finds no other 
 answer but that God gave them ' because he had a
 
 198 ESSAY ON 
 
 favour unto him. 1 He recalls the hour of his conver- 
 sion, when, in a moment, he was changed from darkness 
 to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Or, 
 perhaps, the dealings of God with him have been 
 insensible, yet not the less real ; like a child, he 
 cannot remember the time when he first began to 
 trust the love of his parent. How can he separate 
 himself from that love or refuse to believe that He 
 who began the good work will also accomplish it 
 unto the end ? At which step in the ladder of God's 
 mercy will he stop ? ' Whom he did foreknow, them 
 he did predestinate ; whom he did predestinate, them 
 he also called; whom he called, them he justified; 
 whom he justified, them he also glorified. 1 
 
 A religious mind feels the difference between 
 saying, ' God chose me ; I cannot tell why ; not for 
 any good that I have done ; and I am persuaded 
 that He will keep me unto the end 1 ; and saying, 
 ' God chooses men quite irrespective of their actions, 
 and predestines them to eternal salvation 1 ; and yet 
 more, if we add the other half of the doctrine, ' God 
 refuses men quite irrespective of their actions, and 
 they become reprobates, predestined to everlasting 
 damnation. 1 Could we be willing to return to that 
 stage of the doctrine which St. Paul taught, without 
 comparing contradictory statements or drawing out 
 logical conclusions, — could we be content to rest our 
 belief, as some of the greatest, even of Calvinistic 
 divines have done, on fact and experience, theology 
 would be no longer at variance with morality. 
 
 ' Work out your own salvation with fear and 
 trembling ; for it is God that worketh in you both 
 to do and to will of His good pleasure 1 , is the language 
 of Scripture, adjusting the opposite aspects of this 
 question. The Arminian would say, ' Work out 
 your own salvation ' ; the Calvinist, ' God worketh in
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 199 
 
 you both to do and to will of His good pleasure. 1 
 However contradictory it may sound, the Scripture 
 unites both ; work out your own salvation with fear 
 and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you 
 both to will and to do of His good pleasure. 
 
 §3. 
 
 I. We have been considering the question thus far 
 within the limits of Scripture. But it has also a 
 wider range. The primary relations of the will of 
 man to the will of God are independent of the Christian 
 revelation. Natural religion, that is to say, the Greek 
 seeking after wisdom, the Indian wandering in the 
 expanse of his own dreamlike consciousness, the Jew 
 repeating to himself that he is Abraham's seed ; each 
 in their several ways at different stages of the world's 
 history have asked the question, ' How is the freedom 
 of the human will consistent with the infinity and omni- 
 potence of God ? ' These attributes admit of a further 
 analysis into the power of God and the knowledge of 
 God. And hence arises a second form of the inquiry, 
 ' How is the freedom of the human will reconcilable 
 with Divine omniscience or foreknowledge ? ' To 
 which the Christian system adds a third question, 
 * How is the freedom of the human will reconcilable 
 with that more immediate presence of God in the 
 soul which is termed by theologians Divine grace ? ' 
 
 (1) God is everywhere ; man is nowhere. Infinity 
 exists continuously in every point of time ; it fills 
 every particle of space. Or rather, these very ideas 
 of time and space are figures of speech, for they have 
 a ' here ' and a ' there ', a future and a past — which no 
 effort of human imagination can transcend. But in 
 God there is no future and no past, neither ' here nor 
 there ' ; He is all and in all. Where, then, is room
 
 200 ESSAY ON 
 
 for man ? in what open place is he permitted to live 
 and move and have his being ? 
 
 God is the cause of all things ; without Him 
 nothing is made that is made. He is in history, in 
 nature, in the heart of man. The world itself is the 
 work of His power; the least particulars of human 
 life are ordained by Him. 'Are not two sparrows 
 sold for one farthing, and yet your heavenly Father 
 feedeth them ' ; and ' the hairs of your head are all 
 numbered '. Is there any point at which this Divine 
 causality can stop ? at which the empire of law ceases ? 
 at which the human will is set free ? 
 
 The answer is the fact ; not the fact of conscious- 
 ness as it is sometimes termed, that we are free 
 agents, which it is impossible to see or verify ; but 
 the visible tangible fact that we have a place in the 
 order of nature, and walk about on the earth, and 
 are ourselves causes drawing effects after them. 
 Does any advocate of freedom mean more than this ? 
 Or any believer in necessity less ? No one can deny of 
 himself the restrictions which he observes to be true 
 of others ; nor can any one doubt that there exists 
 in others the same consciousness of freedom and 
 responsibility which he has himself. But if so, all 
 these things are as they were before ; we need not 
 differ about the unseen foundation whether of necessity 
 or free will, spirit or body, mind or matter, upon 
 which the edifice of human life is to be reared. Just 
 as the theory of the ideality of matter leaves the 
 world where it was — they do not build houses in the 
 air who imagine Bishop Berkeley to have dissolved 
 the solid elements into sensations of the mind — so 
 the doctrine of necessity or predestination leaves 
 morality and religion unassailed, unless it intrude 
 itself as a motive on the sphere of human action. 
 
 It is remarkable that the belief in predestination,
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 201 
 
 both in modern and in ancient times, among 
 Mahometans as well as Christians, has been the 
 animating principle of nations and bodies of men, 
 equally, perhaps more than of individuals. It is 
 characteristic of certain countries, and has often 
 arisen from sympathy in a common cause. Yet it 
 cannot be said to have been without a personal 
 influence also. It has led to a view of religion in 
 which man has been too much depressed to form 
 a true conception of God Himself. For it is not to 
 be supposed that the lower we sink human nature 
 in the scale of being, the higher we raise the Author 
 of being ; worthy notions of God imply worthy 
 notions of man also. 
 
 ' God is infinite. 1 But in what sense ? Am I to 
 conceive a space without limit, such as I behold in 
 the immeasurable ether, and apply this viewless form 
 to the thought of the Almighty ? Any one will 
 admit that here would be a figure of speech. Yet 
 few of us free our notions of infinity from the imagery 
 of place. It is this association which gives them 
 their positive, exclusive character. But conceive of 
 infinity as mere negation, denying of God the limits 
 which are imposed upon finite beings, meaning only 
 that God is not a man or comprehensible by man, 
 without any suggestion of universal space, and the 
 exclusiveness disappears ; there is room for the creature 
 side by side with the Creator. Or again, press the 
 idea of the infinite to its utmost extent, till it is alone 
 in the universe, or rather is the universe itself, in 
 this heaven of abstraction, nevertheless, a cloud 
 begins to appear ; a limitation casts its shadow over 
 the formless void. Infinite is finite because it is 
 infinite. That is to say, because infinity includes all 
 things, it is incapable of creating what is external to 
 itself. Deny infinity in this sense, and the being to
 
 202 ESSAY ON 
 
 whom it is attributed receives a new power ; God is 
 greater by being finite than by being infinite. Pro- 
 ceeding in the same train of thought, we may observe 
 that the word finite is the symbol, to our own minds 
 as to the Greek, of strength and reality and truth. 
 It cannot be these which we intend to deny of the 
 Divine Being. Lastly, when we have freed our minds 
 from associations of place and from those other 
 solemn associations which naturally occur to us from 
 its application to the Almighty, are we sure that we 
 intend anything more by the ' Infinite ' than mere 
 vacancy, the * indefinite ', the word ' not , ? 
 
 It is useful to point out the ambiguities and 
 perplexities of such terms. Logic is not to puzzle us 
 with inferences about words which she clothes in 
 mystery ; at any rate, before moving a step she 
 should explain their meaning. She must admit that 
 the infinite overreaches itself in denying the existence 
 of the finite, and that there are some ' limitations ', 
 such as the impossibility of evil or falsehood, which 
 are of the essence of the Divine nature. She must 
 inquire whether it be conceivable to reach a further 
 infinite, in which the opposition to the finite is 
 denied, which may be a worthier image of the Divine 
 Being. She must acknowledge that negative ideas, 
 while they have often a kind of solemnity and 
 mystery, are the shallowest and most trifling of all 
 our ideas. 
 
 So far the will may be free unless we persist in an 
 idea of the Divine which logic and not reason 
 erroneously requires, and which is the negative not 
 only of freedom but of all other existence but its own. 
 More serious consequences may seem to flow from the 
 attribute of omnipotence. For if God is the Author 
 of all things, must it not be as a mode of Divine 
 operation that man acts ? We can get no further
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 203 
 
 than a doctrine of emanation or derivation. Again, 
 we are caught unwittingly in the toils of an ' illogical" 
 logic. For why should we assume that because God 
 is omnipotent He cannot make beings independent of 
 Himself? A figure of speech is not generally a good 
 argument ; but in this instance it is a sufficient one, 
 what is needed being not an answer but only an 
 image or mode of conception. (For in theology and 
 philosophy it constantly happens that while logic is 
 working out antinomies, language fails to supply an 
 expression of the intermediate truth.) The carpenter 
 makes a chair, which exists detached from its maker ; 
 the mechanician constructs a watch, which is wound 
 up and goes by the action of a spring or lever ; he 
 can frame yet more complex instruments, in which 
 power is treasured up for other men to use. The 
 greater the skill of the artificer the more perfect and 
 independent the work. Shall we say of God only 
 that He is unable to separate His creations from 
 Himself? That man can produce works of imagination 
 which live for ages after he is committed to the dust ; 
 nay, that in the way of nature he can bring into 
 existence another being endowed with life and con- 
 sciousness to perpetuate his name? But that God 
 cannot remove a little space to contemplate His 
 works ? He must needs be present in all their 
 movements, according to the antiquated error of 
 natural philosophers, ' that no body can act where it 
 is not.'' 
 
 (2) Yet although the freedom of the will may be 
 consistent with the infinity and omnipotence of God, 
 when rightly understood and separated from logical 
 consequences, it may be thought to be really inter- 
 fered with by the Divine omniscience. 'God knows 
 all things ; our thoughts are His before they are our 
 own ; what I am doing at this moment was certainly
 
 204 ESSAY ON 
 
 foreseen by Him ; what He certainly foresaw yester- 
 day, or a thousand years ago, or from everlasting, 
 how can I avoid doing at this time? To-day He 
 sees the future course of my life. Can I make or 
 unmake what is already within the circle of His 
 knowledge ? The imperfect judgement of my fellow- 
 creatures gives me no disquietude — they may con- 
 demn me, and I may reverse their opinion. But 
 the fact that the unerring judgement of God has 
 foreseen my doom renders me alike indifferent to 
 good and evil. 1 
 
 What shall we say to this ? First, that the dis- 
 tinction between Divine and human judgements is 
 only partially true. For as God sees with absolute 
 unerringness, so a wise man who is acquainted with 
 the character and circumstances of others may foretell 
 and assure their future life with a great degree of 
 certainty. He may perceive intuitively their strength 
 and weakness, and prophesy their success or failure. 
 Now, here it is observable, that the fact of our 
 knowing the probable course of action which another 
 will pursue has nothing to do with the action itself. It 
 does not exercise the smallest constraint on him ; it 
 does not produce the slightest feeling of constraint. 
 Imagine ourselves acquainted with the habits of some 
 animal; as we open the door of the enclosure in 
 which it is kept, we know that it will run up to or 
 away from us; it will show signs of pleasure or 
 irritation. No one supposes that its actions, what- 
 ever they are, depend on our knowledge of them. 
 Let us take another example, which is at the other 
 end of the scale of freedom and intelligence. Con- 
 ceive a veteran statesman casting his eye over the 
 map of Europe, and foretelling the parts which 
 nations or individuals would take in some coming 
 struggle, who thinks the events when they come to
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 205 
 
 pass are the consequences of the prediction ? Every- 
 one is able to distinguish the causes of the events from 
 the knowledge which foretells them. 
 
 There are degrees in human knowledge or fore- 
 knowledge proceeding from the lowest probability, 
 through increasing certainty, up to absolute demon- 
 stration. But as faint presumptions do not affect the 
 future, nor great probability, so neither does scientific 
 demonstration. Many natural laws cannot be known 
 more certainly than they are ; but we do not there- 
 fore confuse the fact with our knowledge of the fact. 
 The time of the rising of the sun, or of the ebb and 
 flow of the tide, are foretold and acted upon without 
 the least hesitation. Yet no one has imagined that 
 these or any other natural phenomena are affected by 
 our previous calculations about them. 
 
 Why, then, should we impose on ourselves the illu- 
 sion that the unerring certainty of Divine knowledge is 
 a limit or shackle on human actions ? The foreknow- 
 ledge which we possess ourselves in no way produces 
 the facts which we foresee ; the circumstance that we 
 foresee them in distant time has no more to do with 
 them than if we saw them in distant space. So, once 
 more, we return from the dominion of ideas and 
 trains of speculative consequences to rest in ex- 
 perience. God sits upon the circle of the heavens, 
 present, past, and future in a figure open before Him, 
 and sees the inhabitants of the earth like grass- 
 hoppers, coming and going, to and fro, doing or not 
 doing their appointed work : His knowledge of them 
 is not the cause of their actions. So might we our- 
 selves look down upon some wide prospect without 
 disturbing the peaceful toils of the villagers who are 
 beneath. They do not slacken or hasten their 
 business because we are looking at them. In like 
 manner God may look upon mankind without there-
 
 206 ESSAY ON 
 
 by interfering with the human will or influencing in 
 any degree the actions of men. 
 
 (3) But the difficulty with which Christianity 
 surrounds, or rather seems to surround us, winds yet 
 closer ; it rests also on the Christian consciousness. 
 The doctrine of grace may be expressed in the 
 language of St. Paul : * I can do nothing as of myself, 
 but my sufficiency is of God 1 ; that which is truly 
 self, which is peculiarly self, is yet in another point 
 of view not self but God. He who has sought most 
 earnestly to fulfil the will of God refers his efforts to 
 something beyond himself; he is humble and simple, 
 seeming to fear that he will lose the good that he 
 has, when he makes it his own. 
 
 This is the mind of Christ which is formally ex- 
 pressed in theology by theories of grace. Theories of 
 grace have commonly started from the transgression 
 of Adam and the corruption of human nature in his 
 posterity. Into the origin of sin it is not necessary 
 for us to inquire ; we may limit ourselves to the fact. 
 All men are very far gone from original righteousness, 
 they can only return to God by His grace preventing 
 them ; that is to say, anticipating and co-operating 
 with the motions of their will. (1) God wills that 
 some should be saved, whom He elects without re- 
 ference to their deserts ; (2) God wills that some 
 should be saved, and implants in them the mind of 
 salvation ; (3) God calls all men, but chooses some 
 out of those whom He calls ; (4) God chooses all 
 alike, and shows no preference to any ; (5) God calls 
 all men, even in the heathen world, and some hear 
 His voice, not knowing whom they obey. Such are 
 the possible gradations of the question of election. 
 In the first of them grace is a specific quality distinct 
 from holiness or moral virtue ; in the second it is 
 identical with holiness and moral virtue, according to
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 207 
 
 a narrow conception of them which denies their 
 existence in those who have not received a Divine 
 call ; in the third an attempt is made to reconcile 
 justice to all men with favour to some ; in the fourth 
 the justice of God extends equally to all Christian 
 men ; in the fifth we pass the boundaries of the 
 Christian world and expression is given to the 
 thought of the Apostle, ' Of a truth I perceive that 
 God is no respecter of persons, but that in every 
 nation he that feareth God is accepted of him.'' 
 
 All these theories of grace affect at various points 
 the freedom of the will, the first seeming wholly to 
 deny it, while all the others attempt some real or 
 apparent reconcilement of morality and religion. 
 The fourth and fifth meet the difficulties arising out 
 of our ideas of the justice of God, but fall into others 
 derived from experience and fact. Can we say that 
 all Christians, nominal and real, nay, that the most 
 degraded persons among the heathen, are equally 
 the subjects of Divine grace ? Then grace is some- 
 thing unintelligible ; it is a word only, to which 
 there is no corresponding idea. Again, how upon 
 any of these theories is grace distinguishable from 
 the better consciousness of the individual himself? 
 Can any one pretend to say where grace ends and 
 the movement of the will begins ? Did any one ever 
 recognize in himself those lines of demarcation of 
 which theology sometimes speaks ? 
 
 These are difficulties in which we are involved by 
 'oppositions of knowledge falsely so called'. The 
 answer to them is simple — a return to fact and 
 nature. When, instead of reading our own hearts, 
 we seek, in accordance with a preconceived theory, 
 to determine the proportions of the divine and human 
 — to distinguish grace and virtue, the word of God 
 and man — we know not where we are, the difficulty
 
 208 ESSAY ON 
 
 becomes insuperable, we have involved ourselves in 
 artificial meshes, and are bound hand and foot. But 
 when we look by the light of conscience and Scripture 
 on the facts of human nature, the difficulty of itself 
 disappears. No one doubts that he is capable of 
 choosing between good and evil, and that in making 
 this choice he may be supported, if he will, by a 
 power more than earthly. The movement of that 
 Divine power is not independent of the movement of 
 his own will, but coincident and identical with it. 
 Grace and virtue, conscience and the Spirit of God, 
 are not different from each other, but in harmony. 
 If no man can do what is right without the aid 
 of the Spirit, then every one who does what is right 
 has the aid of the Spirit. 
 
 Part of the difficulty originates in the fact that 
 the Scripture regards Christian truth from a Divine 
 aspect, ' God working in you,' while ordinary language, 
 even among religious men in modern times, deals 
 rather with human states or feelings. Philosophy 
 has a third way of speaking which is different from 
 either. Two or more sets of words and ideas are 
 used which gradually acquire a seemingly distinct 
 meaning; at last comes the question — in what relation 
 they stand to one another? The Epistles speak of 
 grace and faith at the same time that heathen 
 moralists told of virtue and Avisdom, and the two 
 streams of language have flowed on without uniting 
 even at our own day. The question arises, first, 
 whether grace is anything more than the objective 
 name of faith and love; and again, whether these 
 two latter are capable of being distinguished from 
 virtue and truth ? Is that which St. Paul called 
 faith absolutely different from that which Seneca 
 termed virtue or morality ? Is not virtue, 7rp6? deov, 
 faith ? Is faith anything without virtue ? But if
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 209 
 
 so, they are not opposed at all, or opposed only as 
 part and whole. Christianity is not the negative of 
 the religions of nature or the heathen ; it includes 
 and purifies them. 
 
 Instead, then, of arranging in a sort of theological 
 diagram the relations of the human will to Divine 
 grace, we deny the possibility of separating them. 
 In various degrees, in many ways, more or less 
 consciously in different cases, the Spirit of God is 
 working in the soul of man. It is an erroneous 
 mode of speaking, according to which the free agency 
 of man is represented as in conflict with the Divine 
 will. For the freedom of man in the higher sense is the 
 grace of God ; and in the lower sense (of mere choice) 
 is not inconsistent with it. The real opposition is 
 not between freedom and predestination, which are 
 imperfect and in some degree misleading expressions 
 of the same truth, but between good and evil. 
 
 II. Passing out of the sphere of religion, we have 
 now to examine the question of free agency within 
 the narrower limits of the mind itself. It will confirm 
 the line of argument hitherto taken, if it be found 
 that here too we are subject to the illusions of 
 language and the oppositions of logic. 
 
 (1) Every effect has a cause ; every cause an effect. 
 The drop of rain, the ray of light does not descend 
 at random on the earth. In the natural world 
 though we are far from understanding all the causes 
 of phenomena, we are certain from that part which 
 we know, of their existence in that part which we do 
 not know. In the human mind we perceive the 
 action of many physical causes ; we are therefore led 
 to infer, that only our ignorance of physiology 
 prevents our perceiving the absolute interdependence 
 of body and soul. So indissolubly are cause and 
 effect bound together, that there is a mental impossi- 
 
 JOWETT II P
 
 210 ESSAY ON 
 
 bility in conceiving them apart. Where, then in 
 the endless chain of causes and effect can the human 
 will be inserted, or how is the insertion of the will, 
 as one cause out of many, consistent with the absolute 
 freedom which Ave ascribe to it ? 
 
 The author of the Critic of pure Reason is willing 
 to accept such a statement as has been just made, and 
 yet believes himself to have found out of time and 
 space, independent of the laws of cause and effect, 
 a transcendental freedom. Our separate acts are 
 determined by previous causes ; our whole life is a 
 continuous 'effect', yet in spite of this mechanical 
 sequence, freedom is the overruling law which gives 
 the form to human action. It is not necessary to 
 analyse the steps by which Kant arrived at this 
 paradoxical conclusion. Only by adjusting the glass 
 so as to exclude from the sight everything but the 
 perplexities of previous philosophers, can we conceive 
 how a great intellect could have been led to imagine 
 the idea of a freedom from which the notion of time 
 is abstracted, of which nevertheless we are conscious 
 in time. For what is that freedom which does not 
 apply to our individual acts, hardly even to our lives 
 as a whole, like a point which has neither length 
 nor breadth, wanting both continuity and succession ? 
 
 Scepticism proceeds by a different path in reference 
 to our ideas of cause and effect ; it challenges their 
 validity, it denies the necessity of the connexion, or 
 even doubts the ideas themselves. There was a time 
 when the world was startled out of its propriety 
 at this verbal puzzle, and half believed itself a sceptic. 
 Now we know that no innovation in the use of words 
 or in forms of thought can make any impression on 
 solid facts. Nature and religion, and human life 
 remain the same, even to one who entirely renounces 
 the common conceptions of cause and effect.
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 211 
 
 The sceptic of the last century, instead of at- 
 tempting to invalidate the connexion of fact which 
 we express by the terms cause and effect, should 
 rather have attacked language as 'unequal to the 
 subtlety of nature \ Facts must be described in some 
 way, and therefore words must be used, but always 
 in philosophy with a latent consciousness of their 
 inadequacy and imperfection. The very phrase, 
 ' cause and effect,'' has a direct influence in disguising 
 from us the complexity of causes and effects. It 
 is too abstract to answer to anything in the concrete. 
 It tends to isolate in idea some one antecedent or 
 condition from all the rest. And the relation which 
 we deem invariable is really a most various one. Its 
 apparent necessity is only the necessity of relative 
 terms. Every cause has an effect, in the same sense 
 that every father has a son. But while in the latter 
 case the relation is always the same, the manifold 
 application of the terms, cause and effect, to the 
 most different phenomena has led to an ambiguity in 
 their use. Our first impression is, that a cause is one 
 thing and an effect another, but soon we find them 
 doubling up, or melting into one. The circulation of 
 the blood is not the cause of life, in the same sense 
 that a blow with the hammer may be the cause of 
 death ; nor is virtue the cause of happiness, in 
 precisely the same sense that the circulation of the 
 blood is the cause of life. Everywhere, as we ascend 
 in the scale of creation, from mechanics to chemistry, 
 from chemistry to physiology and human action, the 
 relative notion is more difficult and subtle, the cause 
 becoming inextricably involved with the effect, and 
 the effect with the cause, ' every means being an end, 
 and every end a means.'' 
 
 Hence, no one who examines our ideas of cause 
 and effect will believe that they impose any limit on 
 
 p 2
 
 212 ESSAY ON 
 
 the will ; they are an imperfect mode in which the 
 mind imagines the sequence of nature or moral 
 actions ; being no generalization from experience, but 
 a play of words only. The chain which we are 
 wearing is loose, and when shaken will drop off. 
 External circumstances are not the cause of which 
 the will is the effect ; neither is the will the cause of 
 which circumstances are the effect. But the pheno- 
 menon intended to be described by the words ' cause 
 and effect 1 is itself the will, whose motions are 
 analysed in language borrowed from physical nature. 
 
 The same explanation applies to another formula : 
 'the strongest motive.' The will of every man is 
 said to be only determined by the strongest motive : 
 what is this but another imaginary analysis of the 
 will itself? For the motive is a part of the will, and 
 the strongest motive is nothing more than the motive 
 which I choose. Nor is it true as a fact that we are 
 always thus determined. For the greater proportion 
 of human actions have no distinct motives ; the mind 
 does not stand like the schoolmen's ass, pondering 
 between opposite alternatives. Mind and will, and 
 the sequence of cause and effect, and the force of 
 motives, are different ways of speaking of the same 
 mental phenomena. 
 
 So readily are we deceived by language, so easily 
 do we fall under the power of imaginary reasonings. 
 The author of the Novum Organum has put men 
 upon their guard against the illusions of words in the 
 study of the natural sciences. It is true that many 
 distinctions may be drawn between the knowledge of 
 nature, the facts of which are for the most part 
 visible and tangible, and morality and religion, Avhich 
 run up into the unseen. But is it therefore to be 
 supposed that language, which is the source of half 
 the exploded fallacies of chemistry and physiology,
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 213 
 
 is an adequate or exact expression of moral and 
 spiritual truths ? It is probable that its analysis of 
 human nature is really as erring and inaccurate as 
 its description of physical phenomena, though the 
 error may be more difficult of detection. Those 
 * inexact natures 1 or substances of which Bacon speaks 
 exist in moral philosophy as in physics ; their names 
 are not heat, moisture, form, matter and the like, but 
 necessity, free will, predestination, grace, motive, 
 cause, which rest upon nothing and yet become the 
 foundation-stones of many systems. Logic, too, has 
 its parallels, and conjugates, and differences of kind, 
 which in life and reality are only differences of degree, 
 and remote inferences lending an apparent weight to 
 the principle on which they really drag, which spread 
 themselves over every field of thought and are hardly 
 corrected by their inconsistency with the commonest 
 facts. 
 
 III. Difficulties of this class belong to the last 
 generation rather than to the present ; they are 
 seldom discussed now by philosophical writers. 
 Philosophy in our own age is occupied in another 
 way. Her foundation is experience, which alone she 
 interrogates respecting the limits of human action. 
 How far is man a free agent ? is the question still 
 before us. But it is to be considered from without 
 rather than from within, as it appears to others or 
 ourselves in the case of others, and not with reference 
 to our internal consciousness of our own actions. 
 
 The conclusions of philosophers would have met 
 with more favour at the hands of preachers and 
 moralists, had they confined themselves to the fact. 
 Indeed, they would have been irresistible, like the 
 conclusions of natural science, for who can resist 
 evidence that any one may verify for himself? But 
 the taint of language has clung to them ; the im-
 
 214 ESSAY ON 
 
 perfect expression of manifest truths has greatly 
 hindered the general acceptance of them even among 
 the most educated. It was not understood that those 
 who spoke of necessity meant nothing which was 
 really inconsistent with free will ; when they assumed 
 a power of calculating human actions, it was not 
 perceived that all of us are every day guilty of this 
 imaginary impiety. The words, character, habit, 
 force of circumstances, temperament and constitution 
 imply all that is really involved in the idea that 
 human action is subject to uniform laws. Neither is 
 it to be denied that expressions have been used 
 equally repugnant to fact and morality ; instead of 
 regularity, and order, and law, which convey a bene- 
 ficent idea, necessity has been set up as a constraining 
 power tending to destroy, if not really destroying, 
 the accountability of man. History, too, has received 
 an impress of fatalism, which has doubtless affected 
 our estimate of the good and evil of the agents who 
 have been regarded as not really responsible for 
 actions which the march of events forced upon them. 
 According to a common way of considering this 
 subject, the domain of necessity is extending every 
 day, and liberty is already confined to a small terri- 
 tory not yet reclaimed by scientific inquiry. Mind 
 and body are in closer contact ; there is increasing 
 evidence of the interdependence of the mental and 
 nervous powers. It is probable, or rather certain, 
 that every act of the mind has a cause and effect in 
 the body, that every act of the body has a cause and 
 effect in the mind. Given the circumstances, parent- 
 age, education, temperament of each individual ; we 
 may calculate, with an approximation to accuracy, 
 his probable course of life. Persons are engaged 
 every day in making such observations ; and whatever 
 uncertainty there may be in the determination of the
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 215 
 
 future of any single individual, this uncertainty is 
 eliminated when the inquiry is extended to many 
 individuals or to a whole class. We have as good 
 data for supposing that a fixed proportion of a million 
 persons in a country will commit murder or theft as 
 that a fixed proportion will die without reaching a 
 particular age and of this or that disease under given 
 circumstances. And it so happens that we have the 
 power of testing this order or uniformity in the most 
 trifling of human actions. Nor can we doubt that 
 were it worth while to make an abstract of human life, 
 arranging under heads the least minutiae of action, 
 all that we say and do would be found to conform to 
 numerical laws. 
 
 So, again, history is passing into the domain of 
 philosophy. Nations, like individuals, are moulded 
 by circumstances ; in their first rise, and ever after in 
 their course, they are dependent on country and 
 climate, like plants or animals, embodying the 
 qualities which have di'opped upon them from sur- 
 rounding influences in national temperament; in 
 their later stages seeming to react upon these causes, 
 and coming under a new kind of law, as the earth 
 discloses its hidden treasures, or the genius of man 
 calls forth into life and action the powers which are 
 dormant in matter. Nature, which is, in other words, 
 the aggregate of all these causes, stamps nations and 
 societies, and creates in them a mind, that is to say, 
 ideas of order, of religion, of conquest, which they 
 maintain, often unimpaired by the changes in their 
 physical condition. She infuses among the mass a 
 few great intellects, according to some law unknown 
 to us, to 'instrument this lower world \ Here is a 
 new power which is partially separated from the 
 former, and yet combines with it in national existence, 
 like body and soul in the existence of man. Partly
 
 216' ESSAY ON 
 
 isolated from their age and nation, partly also 
 identified with them, it is a curious observation 
 respecting great men that while they seem to have 
 more play and freedom than others, in themselves 
 they are often more enthralled, being haunted with 
 the sense of a destiny which controls them. The 
 * heirs of all the ages' who have subjected nature to 
 the dominion of science are also nature's subjects; 
 the conquerors who have poured over the earth have 
 only continued some wave or tendency in the history 
 of the times which preceded them. From the thin 
 vapour which first floated, as some believe, in the 
 azure vault, up to that miracle of complexity which 
 Ave call man, and again from man the individual to 
 the whole human race, with its languages and re- 
 ligions, and other national characteristics, and back- 
 wards to the beginning of human history, in the 
 works of mind too as well as in the material universe, 
 there is not always development, but order, and 
 uniformity, and law. 
 
 It is a matter of some importance in what way 
 this connexion or order of nature is to be expressed. 
 For although words cannot alter facts, the right use 
 of them greatly affects the readiness with which 
 facts are admitted or received. Now the world may 
 be variously imagined as a vast machine, as an animal 
 or living being, as a body endowed with a rational or 
 divine soul. All these figures of speech, and the 
 associations to which they give rise, have an insensible 
 influence on our ideas. The representation of the 
 world as a machine is a more favourite one, in modern 
 times, than the representation of it as a living being ; 
 and with mechanism is associated the notion of 
 necessity. Yet the machine is, after all, a mere 
 barren unity, which gives no conception of the endless 
 fertility of natural or of moral life. So, again, when
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 217 
 
 we speak of a ' soul of the world ', there is no real 
 resemblance to a human soul ; there is no centre in 
 which this mundane life or soul has its seat, no 
 individuality such as characterizes the soul of man. 
 But the use of the word invariably recalls thoughts 
 of Pantheism : 
 
 'deum namque ire per omnes 
 terrasque tractusque maris, coelumque profundum. 1 
 
 So the term 'law 1 carries with it an association, 
 partly of compulsion, partly of that narrower and 
 more circumscribed notion of law, in which it is 
 applied to chemistry or mechanics. So again the 
 word 'necessity 1 itself always has a suggestion of 
 external force. 
 
 All such language has a degree of error, because it 
 introduces some analogy which belongs to another 
 sphere of thought. But when, laying aside language, 
 we consider facts only, no appearance of external 
 compulsion arises, whether in nature, or in history, 
 or in life. The lowest, and therefore the simplest 
 idea, that we are capable of forming of physical 
 necessity, is of the stone falling to the ground. No 
 one imagines human action to be necessary in any 
 such sense as this. If this be our idea of necessity, 
 the meaning of the term must be enlarged when it is 
 applied to man. If any one speaks of human action 
 as the result of necessary laws, to avoid misunder- 
 standing, we may ask at the outset of the controversy, 
 ' In what degree necessary ? ' And this brings us to 
 an idea which is perhaps the readiest solution of the 
 apparent perplexity — that of degrees of necessity. 
 For, although it is true, that to the eye of a superior 
 or divine being the actions of men would seem to be 
 the subject of laws quite as much as the falling stone,
 
 218 ESSAY ON 
 
 yet these laws are of a far higher or more delicate 
 sort; we may figure them to ourselves truly, as 
 allowing human nature play and room within certain 
 limits, as regulating only and not constraining the 
 freedom of its movements. 
 
 How degrees of necessity are possible may be 
 illustrated as follows: The strongest or narrowest 
 necessity which we ever see in experience is that of 
 some very simple mechanical fact, such as is furnished 
 by the law of attraction. A greater necessity than 
 this is only an abstraction; as, for example, the 
 necessity by which two and two make four, or the 
 three angles of a triangle equal two right angles 
 But any relation between objects which are seen is of 
 a much feebler and less absolute kind ; the strongest 
 which we have ever observed is that of a smaller body 
 to a larger. The physiology even of plants opens to 
 our minds freer and nobler ideas of law. The tree 
 with its fibres and sap, drawing its nourishment from 
 many sources, light, air, moisture, earth, is a complex 
 structure : rooted to one particular spot, no one 
 would think of ascribing to it free agency, yet as 
 little should we think of binding it fast in the chains 
 of a merely mechanical necessity. Animal life par- 
 taking with man of locomotion is often termed free ; 
 its sphere is narrowed only by instinct ; indeed the 
 highest grade of irrational being can hardly be said, 
 in point of freedom, to differ from the lowest type of 
 the human species. And in man himself are many 
 degrees of necessity or freedom, from the child who is 
 subject to its instincts, or the drunkard who is the 
 slave of his passions, up to the philosopher com- 
 prehending at a glance the wonders of heaven and 
 earth, the freeman ' whom the truth makes free ', or 
 the Christian devoting himself to God, whose freedom 
 is ' obedience to a law ' ; that law being * the law
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 219 
 
 of the Spirit of life 1 , as the Apostle expresses it; 
 respecting which, nevertheless, according to another 
 mode of speaking (so various is language on this 
 subject), ' necessity is laid upon him. 1 And between 
 these two extremes are many half freedoms, or 
 imperfect necessities : one man is under the influence 
 of habit, another of prejudice, a third is the creature 
 of some superior will ; of a fourth it is said, that 
 it was 'impossible for him to act otherwise' 1 ; a fifth 
 does by effort what to another is spontaneous ; while 
 in the case of all, allowance is made for education, 
 temperament, and the like. 
 
 The idea of necessity has already begun to expand ; 
 it is no longer the negative of freedom, they almost 
 touch. For freedom, too, is subject to limitation ; 
 the freedom of the human will is not the freedom of 
 the infinite, but of the finite. It does not pretend to 
 escape from the conditions of human life. No man 
 in his senses imagines that he can fly into the air, or 
 walk through the earth ; he does not fancy that his 
 limbs will move with the expedition of thought. 
 He is aware that he has a less, or it may be a greater, 
 power than others. He learns from experience to take 
 his own measure. But this limited or measured 
 freedom is another form of enlarged necessity. 
 Beginning with an imaginary freedom, we may 
 reduce it within the bounds of experience ; beginning 
 with an abstract necessity, we may accommodate it 
 to the facts of human life. 
 
 Attention has been lately called to the phenomena 
 (already noticed) of the uniformity of human actions. 
 The observation of this uniformity has caused a sort 
 of momentary disturbance in the moral ideas of some 
 persons, who seem unable to get rid of the illusion, 
 that nature compels a certain number of individuals 
 to act in a particular way, for the sake of keeping up
 
 220 ESSAY ON 
 
 the average. Their error is, that they confuse the 
 law, which is only the expression of the fact, with 
 the cause ; it is as though they affirmed the universal 
 to necessitate the particular. The same uniformity 
 appears equally in matters of chance. Ten thousand 
 throws of the dice, ceteris paribus, will give about the 
 same number of twos, threes, sixes : what compulsion 
 was there here? So ten thousand human lives will 
 give a nearly equal number of forgeries, thefts, or 
 other extraordinary actions. Neither is there com- 
 pulsion here ; it is the simple fact. It may be said, 
 Why is the number uniform ? In the first place, it is 
 not uniform, that is to say, it is in our power to alter 
 the proportions of crime by altering its circumstances. 
 And this change of circumstances is not separable 
 from the act of the legislator or private individual 
 by which it may be accomplished, which is in turn 
 suggested by other circumstances. The will or the 
 intellect of man still holds its place as the centre of 
 a moving world. But, secondly, the imaginary power 
 of this uniform number affects no one in particular ; 
 it is not required that A, B, C, should commit a 
 crime, or transmit an undirected letter, to enable us 
 to fill up a tabular statement. The fact exhibited in 
 the tabular statement is the result of all the move- 
 ments of all the wills of the ten thousand persons 
 who are made the subject of analysis. 
 
 It is possible to conceive great variations in such 
 tables ; it is possible, that is, to imagine, without any 
 change of circumstances, a thousand persons executed 
 in France during one year for political offences, and 
 none the next. But the world in which this pheno- 
 menon was observed would be a very different sort of 
 world from that in which we live. It would be a 
 world in which 'nations, like individuals, went mad''; 
 in which there was no habit, no custom ; almost, we
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 221 
 
 may say, no social or political life. Men must be no 
 longer different, and so compensating one another by 
 their excellencies and deficiencies, but all in the same 
 extreme ; as if the waves of the sea in a storm instead 
 of returning to their level were to remain on high. 
 The mere statement of such a speculation is enough 
 to prove its absurdity. And, perhaps, no better way 
 could be found of disabusing the mind of the 
 objections which appear to be entertained to the fact 
 of the uniformity of human actions, than a distinct 
 effort to imagine the disorder of the world which 
 would arise out of the opposite principle. 
 
 But the advocate of free will may again return to 
 the charge, with an appeal to consciousness. ' Your 
 freedom, 1 he will say, Ms but half freedom, but I 
 have that within which assures me of an absolute 
 freedom, without which I should be deprived of what 
 I call responsibility. - ' No man has seen facts of 
 consciousness, and therefore it is at any rate fair that 
 before they are received they shall be subjected to 
 analysis. We may look at an outward object which 
 is called a table ; no one would in this case demand 
 an examination into the human faculties before he 
 admitted the existence of the table. But inward 
 facts are of another sort ; that they really exist, may 
 admit of doubt ; that they exist in the particular 
 form attributed to them, or in any particular form, is 
 a matter very difficult to prove. Nothing is easier 
 than to insinuate a mere opinion, under the disguise 
 of a fact of consciousness. 
 
 Consciousness tells, or seems to tell, of an absolute 
 freedom ; and this is supposed to be a sufficient 
 witness of the existence of such a freedom. But does 
 consciousness tell also of the conditions under which 
 this freedom can be exercised ? Does it remind us 
 that we are finite beings ? Does it present to one
 
 222 ESSAY ON 
 
 his bodily, to another his mental constitution ? Is it 
 identical with self-knowledge ? No one imagines this. 
 To what then is it the witness ? To a dim and 
 unreal notion of freedom, which is as different from 
 the actual fact as dreaming is from acting. No 
 doubt the human mind has or seems to have a 
 boundless power, as of thinking so also of willing. 
 But this imaginary power, going as it does far beyond 
 experience, varying too in youth and age, greatest 
 often in idea when it is really least, cannot be 
 adduced as a witness for what is inconsistent with 
 experience. 
 
 The question, How is it possible for us to be finite 
 beings, and yet to possess this consciousness of 
 freedom which has no limit ? may be partly answered 
 by another question : How is it possible for us to 
 acquire any ideas which transcend experience ? The 
 answer is, only, that the mind has the power of 
 forming such ideas ; it can conceive a beauty, good- 
 ness, truth, which has no existence on earth. The 
 conception, however, is subject to this law, that the 
 greater the idealization the less the individuality. In 
 like manner that imperfect freedom which we enjoy 
 as finite beings is magnified by us into an absolute 
 idea of freedom, which seems to be infinite because it 
 drops out of sight the limits with which nature in 
 fact everywhere surrounds us ; and also because it is 
 the abstraction of self, of which we can never be 
 deprived, and which we conceive to be acting still 
 when all the conditions of action are removed. 
 
 Freedom is absolute in another sense, as the cor- 
 relative of obligation. Men entertain some one, 
 some another, idea of right, but all are bound to act 
 according to that idea. The standard may be re- 
 lative to their own circumstances, but the duty is 
 absolute ; and the power is also absolute of refusing
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 223 
 
 the evil and choosing the good, under any possible 
 contingency. It is a matter (not only of conscious- 
 ness but) of fact, that we have such a power, quite as 
 much as the facts of statistics, to which it is some- 
 times opposed, or rather, to speak more correctly, is 
 one of them. And when we make abstraction of this 
 power, that is, when we think of it by itself, there 
 arises also the conception of an absolute freedom. 
 
 So singularly is human nature constituted, looking 
 from without on the actions of men as they are, 
 witnessing inwardly to a higher law. ' You ought to 
 do so; you have the power to do so,'' is consistent 
 with the fact, that in practice you fail to do so. It 
 may be possible for us to unite both these aspects of 
 human nature, yet experience seems to show that we 
 commonly look first at one and then at the other. 
 The inward vision tells us the law of duty and the 
 will of God ; the outward contemplation of ourselves 
 and others shows the trials to which we are most 
 subject. Any transposition of these two points of 
 view is fatal to morality. For the proud man to say, 
 'I inherited pride from my ancestors 1 ; or for the 
 licentious man to say, ' It is in the blood ' ; for the 
 weak man to say, ' I am Meak, and will not strive ' ; 
 for any to find the excuses of their vices in their 
 physical temperament or external circumstances, is 
 the corruption of their nature. 
 
 Yet this external aspect of human affairs has a 
 moral use. It is a duty to look at the consequences 
 of actions, as well as at actions themselves ; the 
 knowledge of our own temperament, or strength, or 
 health, is a part also of the knowledge of self. We 
 have need of the wise man's warning, about 'age 
 which will not be defied" 1 in our moral any more than 
 in our physical constitution. In youth, also, there are 
 many things outward and indifferent, which cannot
 
 224 ESSAY ON 
 
 but exercise a moral influence on after life. Often 
 opportunities of virtue have to be made, as well as 
 virtuous efforts ; there are forms of evil, too, against 
 which we struggle in vain by mere exertions of the 
 will. He who trusts only to a moral or religious 
 impulse, is apt to have aspirations, which never 
 realize themselves in action. His moral nature may 
 be compared to a spirit without a body, fluttering 
 about in the world, but unable to comprehend or 
 grasp any good. 
 
 Yet more, in dealing with classes of men, we seem 
 to find that we have greater power to shape their 
 circumstances than immediately to affect their wills. 
 The voice of the preacher passes into the air ; the 
 members of his congregation are like persons 'be- 
 holding their natural face in a glass 1 ; they go their 
 way, forgetting their own likeness. And often the 
 result of a long life of ministerial work has been the 
 conversion of two or three individuals. The power 
 which is exerted in such a case may be compared to 
 the unaided use of the hand, while mechanical appli- 
 ances are neglected. Or to turn to another field of 
 labour, in which the direct influence of Christianity 
 has been hitherto small, may not the reason why the 
 result of missions is often disappointing be found in 
 the circumstance, that we have done little to improve 
 the political or industrial state of those among whom 
 our missionaries are sent ? We have thought of the 
 souls of men, and of the Spirit of God influencing 
 them, in too naked a way ; instead of attending to 
 the complexity of human nature, and the manner in 
 which God has ever revealed Himself in the history of 
 mankind. 
 
 The great lesson, Avhich Christians have to learn in 
 the present day, is to know the world as it is ; that 
 is to say, to know themselves as they are; human
 
 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL 225 
 
 life as it is ; nature as it is ; history as it is. Such 
 knowledge is also a power, to fulfil the will of God 
 and to contribute to the happiness of man. It is a 
 resting-place in speculation, and a new beginning in 
 practice. Such knowledge is the true reconcilement 
 of the opposition of necessity and free will. Not 
 that spurious reconcilement which places necessity in 
 one sphere of thought, freedom in another ; nor that 
 pride of freedom which is ready to take up arms 
 against plain facts ; nor yet that demonstration of 
 necessity in which logic, equally careless of facts, has 
 bound fast. the intellect of man. The whole question, 
 when freed from the illusions of language, is resolv- 
 able into experience. Imagination cannot conquer 
 for us more than that degree of freedom which we 
 truly have ; the tyranny of science cannot impose 
 upon us any law or limit to which we are not really 
 subject; theology cannot alter the real relations of 
 God and man. The facts of human nature and of 
 Christianity remain the same, whether we describe 
 them by the word 'necessity'' or 'freedom'', in the 
 phraseology of Lord Bacon and Locke, or in that of 
 Calvin and Augustine. 
 
 JOWETT II Q.
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 1 
 
 I have been young and now am old ; yet have I not seen 
 the righteous forsaken. — Ps. xxxvii. 25. 
 
 A great man, Richard Baxter, who died about 
 two hundred years ago, towards the close of his life 
 drew up a narrative of the errors into which upon 
 reflection he seemed to himself to have fallen in the 
 course of it. This is not the exact anniversary of 
 his death, which took place on Dec. 8, 1691. But 
 I may, perhaps, without impropriety, speak to you 
 of him on this day. The lives of great and good 
 men are the best sermons which we ever read or 
 hear ; and the preacher may do well sometimes to 
 shield himself behind them, and so to speak with 
 greater authority than his own words could fairly 
 claim. It is probable that the name of Baxter has 
 never been celebrated before within these walls ; for 
 he was the leader of the Nonconformists of his day ; 
 and it is not to be supposed that perfect justice was 
 done him in a later generation any more than in his 
 own by his opponents. But now that both he and 
 they are gone to their account, we can think of 
 them only as the servants of God who by some 
 strange accident were parted from one another here, 
 but have now entered into common rest and dwell 
 together in His presence. 
 
 I propose in this sermon to do three things — First, 
 
 1 A sermon, preached in Westminster Abbey, July 4, 1891.
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 227 
 
 I shall give a brief account of the life of this remark- 
 able man ; one of the greatest of Englishmen, not 
 only of his own, but of any time. Secondly, I shall 
 enumerate a few particulars remarked by him about 
 himself in that singular review of his own errors and 
 misconceptions to which I have already referred, and 
 which may with truth be said to be unique in 
 English literature. Thirdly, I shall ask you to 
 consider how you or I or any of us may, in a humble 
 way, either towards the end of life or in the middle 
 of it, examine our own lives in a similar spirit and 
 see ourselves as we truly are, not gilded bv self-love 
 or self-conceit, but as we appear in the sight of other 
 men and women of sense and in the sight of God. 
 
 The life of Richard Baxter coincides with a long 
 period of political trouble. He was born in the year 
 1615, and died about three years after the Revolution 
 of 1688. Both he and his father, who was an 
 excellent man, seem to have passed through the 
 awakening of Puritanism. In 1641 we find him 
 settled at Kidderminster, in which town he continued 
 to minister, with some interruptions, for seventeen 
 years. Wonderful stories are told of the effects of 
 his preaching. It might be said of him that as the 
 people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of 
 Jonah, so did the people of Kidderminster at the 
 preaching of Richard Baxter. Nor was he more 
 occupied in preaching the Gospel to his own flock 
 than in opposing the Anabaptists and other sectaries, 
 including the soldiers of Cromwell's army, with in- 
 exhaustible energy and irresistible logic. He was 
 on the side of the Parliament, but believed for a time 
 that both he and they were loyal subjects of the king. 
 Under the Commonwealth he was appointed chaplain 
 to Cromwell, and seems to have spoken his mind to 
 him with astonishing freedom about King Charles 
 
 q. 2
 
 228 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 the First. Neither of them liked or trusted the 
 other. 
 
 After the Restoration, during the short period 
 when it was the policy of the Court to conciliate the 
 Nonconformists, he was offered the Bishopric of 
 Hereford. The offer was declined. Baxter con- 
 tinued to struggle for peace and toleration until, 
 on Aug. 22, 1662, the Nonconformist ministers were 
 finally expelled by the Act of Uniformity. That 
 Avas the greatest misfortune that has ever befallen this 
 country, a misfortune which has never been retrieved. 
 For it has made two nations of us instead of one, in 
 politics, in religion, almost in our notion of right 
 and wrong : it has arrayed one class of society per- 
 manently against another. And many of the political 
 difficulties of our own time have their origin in the 
 enmities caused by the rout of Aug. 22, 1662, called 
 Black Bartholomew's Day, which Baxter vainly strove 
 to avert. 
 
 When the policy of the Church and the Court 
 could no longer be resisted, Baxter, who might have 
 been Bishop of Hereford, thought only of retiring to 
 his beloved Kidderminster. He was not permitted 
 to do so. For the next twenty-six years his life 
 was that of an exile in his own land and a prisoner 
 for conscience sake. Often there must have come into 
 his mind those words of St. Paul, which in a measure 
 represented his own sufferings : ' In labours more 
 abundant, ... in prisons more frequent, in deaths 
 oft. ... In perils by mine own countrymen, ... in perils 
 in the city, ... in perils among false brethren. . . . 
 Besides that which cometh upon me daily, the care of 
 all the churches. 1 He was also afflicted during nearly 
 the whole of his life with painful and terrible disorders 
 of the body, which had often to be endured in prison 
 and without the necessary means of support. Yet
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 229 
 
 was this the time when the activity of his mind was 
 greatest. He is said to have been the most volumi- 
 nous of English divines. He published 168 volumes ; 
 and among them one book which, with the single 
 exception of the Pilgr'uns Progress, has had a wider 
 diffusion and found a nearer way to the hearts of 
 religious men in England than any other devotional 
 writing, and may still be read for its style as well as 
 for its high merits with a deep interest, The Saints' 
 Everlasting Rest. 
 
 When we hear of such men and their labours, who 
 combined the persevering industry of the great scholar 
 with the moral force of a hero and a leader of man- 
 kind, we are apt to say, ' There were giants on the 
 earth in those days." It would be better to say, that 
 they were the sons of God who fought not in their 
 own strength — one man more than a thousand, for 
 they endured as seeing Him who is invisible. 
 
 Yet in this life of suffering, in the prison, in the 
 court of the oppressed, in the poor and mean abode, 
 amid disease and all the ills which flesh is heir to, 
 there was one star or bright spot which shed a ray 
 upon his darkness. This was a lady of gentle birth 
 and breeding who, when he was near fifty years of 
 age and she little more than twenty, gave herself to 
 God and to him. He had once thought that it was 
 better for a minister to be unmarried ; he might have 
 added the reason given by St. Paul — because of the 
 troubles of the times. But now he came to see that 
 a lot might be possible for two joined in sweet society, 
 which to a single person might have been death and 
 despair only. We may be confident that to her no 
 other life would have been acceptable. She lived 
 after her marriage nineteen years. Her name was 
 Margaret Charlton. Her husband wrote Avhat he 
 called the breviate of her life, from which and from
 
 230 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 other sources an eloquent writer of the present day 
 has drawn a portrait of her. She was one of those 
 remarkable women who have effaced themselves that 
 they might help and save others, who have found 
 their lives in losing them. After mentioning that 
 * her strangely vivid wit ' was celebrated by John 
 Howe, the great Nonconformist divine, the writer to 
 whom I have referred continues as follows : ' Timid, 
 gentle, and reserved, and nursed amid all the luxuries of 
 her age, her heart was the abode of affection so intense 
 and of fortitude so enduring that her meek spirit, im- 
 patient of one selfish wish, progressively acquired all 
 the heroism of benevolence, and seemed at length 
 incapable of one selfish fear. In prison, in sickness, 
 in every form of danger and fatigue, she was still 
 with unabated cheerfulness at the side of her husband, 
 prompting him to the discharge of every duty, 
 calming the asperities of his temper, his associate in 
 unnumbered acts of philanthropy, embellishing his 
 humble home by the little arts with which a cultivated 
 mind imparts its own gracefulness to the meanest 
 dwelling-place ; and during the nineteen years of 
 their union joining with him in one unbroken strain 
 of filial affiance to the divine mercy. Her tastes and 
 habits had been moulded with a perfect conformity 
 to his. He celebrates her catholic charity to the 
 opponents of their religious opinions and her in- 
 flexible adherence to her own ; her high esteem of 
 the active and passive virtues of the Christian life, 
 as contrasted with a barren orthodoxy ; her noble 
 disinterestedness, her skill in casuistry, her love of 
 music and her medicinal arts. 1 
 
 There is still one more fact in Richard Baxter's 
 life which, even in the shortest account of him, ought 
 not to be passed over in silence : his refusal to join 
 with the Roman Catholics against the Church of
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 231 
 
 England, who had been his persecutors during the 
 twenty years previous. When the crisis which pre- 
 ceded the Revolution of 1688 was approaching, the 
 government of James the Second sought to enlist 
 the Nonconformists in their interest by a promise of 
 toleration in their struggle against the Church of 
 England. Baxter, who had been recently imprisoned, 
 refused to join this new league and covenant, and 
 by his great influence with his brethren succeeded in 
 detaching them from it. He had no thought of 
 revenging himself on the clerical party for their per- 
 secution of him. And certainly no one ever conferred 
 a greater benefit on the Church of England or on 
 the country. For it is easy to see that, if James the 
 Second could have carried with him the Dissenters, he 
 could have settled things as he pleased. This was 
 what Baxter by his statesmanlike insight foresaw, 
 and was not disposed to gain advantages for Non- 
 conformists at the cost of the destruction of the 
 Church of England or the establishment of Popery. 
 He was the same man who, when he was committed 
 twenty years before to Clerkenwell gaol for some 
 slight infringement of ecclesiastical law, at the same 
 time obtained from King Charles the Second, through 
 the influence of one of his disciples, the charter of 
 the original Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 And so this eminent servant of God passed to his 
 rest. Considering his character and popularity, the 
 extent of his writings, his genius and learning, he 
 may be said to be the greatest of English theologians 
 (or one of the greatest), as he has certainly been one 
 of the most lasting influences on popular theology. 
 He was not without faults, of which, we gather from 
 his writings and also from the narrative to which 
 I referred at first, too great pugnacity and con-
 
 232 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 tentiousness were the most serious. In the days of 
 his youth he was too fervid and vehement and 
 inconsiderate. But we are now to hear of him from 
 his own just, judgment of himself. He left no de- 
 scendants. The scholar may be interested to know 
 that William Baxter, the contemporary of Bentley 
 and the editor of Anacreon and Horace, was the son 
 of Richard Baxter's brother. 
 
 Baxter wrote a voluminous autobiography, in which 
 at the end of the first part is found the review of 
 his own life which I am going to describe to you. 
 Why is this passage so remarkable ? Because it is 
 one of the few theological writings in which the love 
 of holiness and the love of truth seem altogether to 
 take the place of ecclesiastical and party interests ; 
 because it gets rid of conventionalities into which 
 we all of us so readily fall when writing of things which 
 are beyond us ; because it admits us behind the veil 
 into the holy place of a good man's soul. Many 
 persons have written about themselves, but no one 
 has done so with the same calm judgment or the 
 same breadth of charity towards all other men. 
 
 He looks back into the vista of the past and judges 
 his own motives and actions with the impartiality 
 of history. He sees more clearly his own errors 
 and prejudices when he is at a distance from them, 
 as we sometimes have a wider and truer view of the 
 landscape when the sun is going down and the heat 
 of the day is past. He tells us that in his youth he 
 was very apt to start upon controversies in ignorance 
 of the antipathies and enmities which were engendered 
 by them ; now he is disposed to ignore differences, 
 and to think with Lord Bacon that 'it is a great 
 benefit of Church peace and concord, when writing 
 controversies is turned into books of practical de- 
 votion \ He has learned to doubt whether men can
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 233 
 
 be reasoned into their opinions. He does not venture 
 to say anything of his opponents, because his testi- 
 mony respecting them is hardly to be believed. His 
 observation of the world has led him to doubt the 
 value of professions of religion ; he had once thought 
 that all who could pray movingly were saints, but 
 now he has more charity for many who are wanting 
 in such gifts. He is not for narrowing the Church 
 more than Christ himself alloweth ; nor for robbing 
 Him of any of His flock. He is not so much inclined 
 to pass a peremptory sentence of damnation upon 
 all who never heard of Christ, having much more 
 reason, he says, than I knew of before to think that 
 God's dealings with such are much unknown to us. 
 His censures of Papists too differ much from what 
 they were at first. For he is now assured that their 
 misexpressions and misunderstandings of us, and our 
 mistaking* of them and inconvenient expression of 
 our own opinions, has made the differences between 
 Protestant and Catholic on many points, such as 
 Justification, to seem much greater than they are, 
 and that in some points there is no difference at all. 
 The great and irreconcileable differences lie in their 
 church tyranny and usurpations, in their corruptions 
 and abasement of God's worship, and their befriending 
 of ignorance and vice. Yet he doubts not that God 
 hath many sanctified ones among them ; and he 
 cannot believe that God will ever cast a soul into 
 hell that truly loveth Him. He is farther than ever 
 from expecting unity and prosperity to the Church 
 on earth ; or that saints should dream of a kingdom 
 of this world, or flatter themselves with hopes of 
 a Golden Age, or reigning over the ungodly. The 
 observation of God's dealing with the Church in 
 every age, and His befooling of them who have 
 dreamed of glorious times, as the Anabaptists, the
 
 234 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 Fifth Monarchy Men, and others, confirms him in this. 
 If he were among the Greeks, the Lutherans, the 
 Independents, yea, even the Anabaptists, he would 
 sometimes hold communion with them. ' I cannot 
 be of their mind that think God will not accept him 
 that prayeth by the Common Prayer, nor yet can I be 
 of their mind that say the like of extempore prayers.' 
 
 One more example of his toleration shall be added 
 which, considering the country and age in which he 
 lived, is really wonderful : it goes back far into the 
 history of the past. After speaking of the prodi- 
 gious lies which had been told in his own age in the 
 interests of religion, and the tendency to believe 
 everything on the one side and nothing on the other, 
 he continues: ' Therefore I confess that I give but 
 halting credit to most histories that are written, not 
 only against the Albigenses and Waldenses, but 
 against most of the ancient heretics who have left us 
 none of their own writings in which they speak for 
 themselves ; and I heartily lament that the historical 
 writings of the ancient schismatics and heretics (as 
 they were called) perished, and that partiality suffered 
 them not to survive, that we might have had more 
 light on the Church affairs of those times and been 
 better able to judge between the Fathers and them. 
 And as I am prone to think that few of them were 
 so bad as their adversaries made them, so I am apt 
 to think that such as the Novatians, whom their 
 adversaries commend, were very good men and more 
 godlv than most Catholics, however mistaken in 
 some one point." 
 
 Two characteristics he notes of advancing years. 
 First, he feels a decline of the zeal of his youth, for 
 which he is half inclined to blame himself; he thinks 
 that he is like a person travelling a way which he 
 hath often gone, or casting up an account which
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 235 
 
 he hath often cast up, or playing upon an instrument 
 which he hath often played upon. And no doubt 
 there have been many whose religions, like their 
 other affections, have in a manner withered when 
 life was beginning to decay, and who by frequent 
 repetitions have grown tired of religious exercises. 
 But he also finds better reasons for this decline of 
 devotional fervour. For he has learned to value 
 things more truly as he grows older and to see them 
 in a juster proportion. In his youth he was quickly 
 past fundamentals, and was running up into a multi- 
 tude of controversies, and greatly delighted with 
 metaphysical and scholastic writings, but in later life 
 he laid less stress upon those controversies and curiosi- 
 ties, and found less and less certainty in them. The 
 subjective certainty of an opinion cannot go beyond 
 the objective evidence for it ; and he will not pretend 
 to be more certain than he is. He strongly urges 
 that religion should rest on the broadest foundations ; 
 on the Being of God rather than on a future state 
 of rewards and punishments, on that state itself 
 rather than on the endless duration of it ; on the 
 essentials of the Christian faith rather than on the 
 meaning of particular texts or the canonicalness of 
 some certain books. They must allow him to use 
 to Christians the arguments by which alone a heathen 
 can be touched, such as the being of a God and the 
 necessity of holiness. 
 
 There are some things for which he believes that 
 God may have forgiven him, but he cannot forgive 
 himself, especially for very rash words or deeds by 
 which he may have seemed injurious or less tender 
 and kind than he should have been to near and dear 
 relations, ' whose love, 1 he says, ' abundantly obliged 
 me. When such are dead, though we never differed 
 in point of interest or any grave matter, every pro-
 
 236" RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 voking word which I gave them maketh me almost 
 irreconcileable to myself, and tells me how repentance 
 brought some of old to pray to the dead whom they 
 had wronged to forgive them in the passion of 
 their soul.' 
 
 There is another confession which he makes true 
 to the experience, not only of himself, but probably 
 of most religious men. He says that as he grew 
 old he is troubled not so much by the consciousness 
 of past sins, but by the sensible want of the love of 
 God shed abroad in the heart. This he conceives to 
 be the top of all religion which gives value to all 
 the rest because it alters and elevates the mind. He 
 used to think such meditations tiresome, and that 
 everybody knew God to be good and great, and heaven 
 to be a blessed place, but now he would sooner read, 
 hear, or meditate on such truths than on anything else. 
 
 One more extract which speaks to our own and 
 to every other age of the Christian Church : ' I appre- 
 hend it,' he says, 'to be a matter of great necessity 
 to imprint true Catholicism in the minds of Christians, 
 it being a most lamentable thing to observe how few 
 Christians in the world there be that fall not into 
 one sect or the other, and wrong not the common 
 interest of Christianity for the promotion of the 
 interest of their sect. And how lamentably love is 
 thereby destroyed, so that most men think they are 
 not bound to love men as the members of Christ 
 which are against their party. And if they can but 
 get to be of a sect which they think to be the holiest 
 or which is the largest, they think that they are 
 sufficiently warranted to deny others to be God's 
 Church, or at least to deny them Christian love and 
 communion.'' 
 
 So I have endeavoured to place before you, very 
 imperfectly, a fragment or two of a great mind. He
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 237 
 
 was one who lived as well as preached, and whose 
 life was his most powerful sermon to posterity, as 
 well as to his own age. Some of his words speak to 
 us heart to heart, and have a far-reaching meaning 
 to the wants of our days ; there are others which are 
 not equally appropriate because the relations of the 
 Church and of the world have become different, and 
 the thoughts of men ' have widened with the process 
 of the suns \ There have been controversies in our 
 own day, not so virulent, but as widely diffused as in 
 the days of the Commonwealth and of the Restoration; 
 and must we not all of us admit that we have changed 
 many of our religious opinions during the last fifty 
 years ? There are a few here present who can 
 remember how forty years ago, or again rather more 
 than sixty years, the panic about Popery spread 
 through the country. There may have been some 
 indirect benefit which arose from such a movement, 
 but it can hardly be said to have conduced to Christian 
 charity. Reflecting on the past, and remembering all 
 the evils which for a century and more have been 
 the result of this anti-Catholic bigotry, must we not 
 apply to ourselves the censure which Christ passed 
 on His disciples, ' Ye know not what maimer of spirit 
 ye are of, 1 or perhaps on this as on some other great 
 historical occasion ask the question 'Whether nations 
 like individuals, may not go mad ' ? Or, once more, 
 we may note a remarkable change of opinion in 
 which many of us no longer agree with our former 
 selves, when the results of historical criticism in their 
 bearing on the Old and New Testament began to be 
 made known in this country ; and now that we are 
 becoming familiar with them, will any one say that 
 we ought not in some degree to alter our attitude 
 towards such inquiries as light and knowledge 
 increase, and not embark the religion of Christ in
 
 238 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 such a hopeless and unmeaning controversy ? ' While 
 we wrangle here in the dark, 1 1 am once more quoting 
 Baxter — ' while we wrangle here in the dark, we are 
 dying and passing to the world which will decide 
 all our controversies, and the safest passage is by 
 peaceable holiness. It is a great source of calm and 
 repose in our religious life always to turn from small 
 things to great, from things far away to things near 
 at hand, from the foolishness of controversy to the 
 truths which are simple and eternal, from man to God. 1 
 
 And now, leaving history and controversy and 
 subjects which most of us only hear about at a distance, 
 I will suppose a similar vein of reflection to be enter- 
 tained by an elder person living not two hundred 
 years ago, but a contemporary of our own, present 
 in this Abbey here to-night. He too has something to 
 say to us which is of interest to himself and to others. 
 Now on the threshold of old age, he may be supposed 
 to take a look backward over the sixty or seventy 
 years which have passed, not in the great world, but 
 within the limits of his own home. His religion is 
 not derived from books, but comes to him from his 
 experience of life. 
 
 First he has a deep sense of thankfulness to God 
 for all His mercies. He may have had troubles and 
 disappointments in life, but he acknowledges that all 
 things have been ordered for the best. The days 
 pass more quickly with him now than formerly and 
 make less impression on him. He will soon be 
 crossing the bar and going forth upon the ocean. 
 He is not afraid of death, it seems natural to him ; 
 he is soon about to pass into the hands of God. He 
 has many thoughts about the past which he does not 
 communicate to others — about some persons in whom 
 he has had a peculiar interest, about places in which 
 he has lived, about words spoken to him in his youth
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 239 
 
 which have strangely imprinted themselves on his 
 mind, about many things which no one living but 
 himself can remember. He wonders how he ever 
 escaped from the temptations of youth, and is some- 
 times inclined to think that the Providence which 
 watches over children and drunken people must have 
 had a special care of him. He may have been guilty 
 too of some meannesses or sins which are concealed 
 from his fellow-men ; he is thankful that they are 
 known to God only. He is not greatly troubled at 
 the remembrance of them, if he have been delivered 
 from them, but much more at the unprofitableness of 
 his whole life. 
 
 Before he departs he has some things to say to his 
 children or to his friends. He will tell them that he 
 now sees this world in different proportions, and that 
 what was once greatly valued by him now seems no 
 longer of importance. The dreams of love and of 
 ambition have fled away ; he is no longer under the 
 dominion of the hour. The disappointments which 
 he has undergone no more affect him ; he is inclined 
 to think that they may have been for his good. He 
 sees many things in his life which might have been 
 better; opportunities lost which could never afterwards 
 be by him recovered. He might have been wiser 
 about health, or the education of his children, or his 
 choice of friends, or the management of his business. 
 He would like to warn younger persons against some 
 of the mistakes which he had himself made. He 
 would tell them that no man in later life rejoiced in 
 the remembrance of a quarrel ; and that the trifles of 
 life, good temper, a gracious manner, trifles as they 
 are thought, are among the most important elements 
 of success. Above all he would exhort them to get 
 rid of selfishness and self-conceit, which are the two 
 greatest sources of human evil.
 
 240 
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 There are some reflections which would often occur 
 to his own mind though he might not speak of them 
 to others A sharp thrill of pain might sometimes 
 pierce his heart when he remembered any irremediable 
 wrong of which he had been the author, or when he 
 recal ed any unkind word to a parent which he had 
 hastily uttered, or any dishonourable conduct of which 
 he had been guilty. He need not disclose his fault to 
 men but neither will he disguise it from himself; 
 east of all, if he have repented of the sin and is no 
 longer the servant of it, should his conscience be 
 overpowered by the remembrance of it. For sin too 
 like sorrow, is healed by time ; and he who is really 
 delivered from its bondage need not fear lest God 
 should create it anew in him that He may inflict 
 punishment upon him. For in the sight of God we 
 are what we are, not what we have been at some 
 particular moment ; nor yet what we are in some 
 detail or in reference to some particular act, but what 
 we are on the whole. 
 
 Once more, when a man is drawing towards the 
 end he will be apt to think of the blessings of 
 friendship and of family life. He has done so little 
 tor others and received so much from them. The 
 old days of his childhood come back to him • the 
 memory of his father and mother and brothers and 
 sisters, all in the house together, and the lessons and 
 the games and the birthday feasts and rejoicings as 
 m a picture crowd upon his thoughts. When we 
 have grown old they are most of them taken before 
 us ; no one else can ever fill their place in our lives. 
 Also there have been friends who have been like 
 brothers and sisters to us; many of these too are 
 gone and cannot be replaced. They have sympathized 
 with our trials ; they have inspired us with higher 
 thoughts ; they have spoken words which have been
 
 RICHARD BAXTER 241 
 
 for ever imprinted on our mind. They have taken 
 trouble to do us good — sometimes a remark of one 
 of them thrown out as if by accident, or a letter 
 written at a critical time, may have saved us from 
 a fatal mistake. They have cared for our interests 
 more than for their own, they would have died for 
 us. Such experiences of disinterested friendship 
 many men have had ; and we reflect upon them 
 more as we are left more alone, and the world 
 is withdrawing from us. Living or dead the true 
 friend can never be forgotten by faithful and loyal 
 hearts. And as the days become fewer, we think 
 more of them as they once were in life — as they are 
 now with God where we too soon shall be. 
 
 Yet once more, we may suppose the statesman, who 
 is within a measurable distance of the end, 
 
 ' When the hurlyburly 's done, 
 When the battle 's lost and won,' 
 
 to make similar reflections on his own political life. 
 Perhaps he will say in the words of one who ten 
 years ago was so familiar a figure among us : * In 
 the past there are many things I condemn, many 
 things that I deplore, but a man's life must be 
 taken as a whole.'' He will not look back to party 
 triumphs or great displays of oratory with the 
 satisfaction which he once felt in them. He will 
 acknowledge that he has made endless mistakes, and 
 will sometimes wish that he had been more independent 
 of popular opinion. He has done little compared 
 with what he once hoped to do. He will value most 
 that part of his work which tended to promote 
 justice, or to save life or to increase health, or to diffuse 
 education, or to establish the foundation of peace 
 between nations and classes. And in the words of 
 one of the greatest of English statesmen, he will be 
 
 JOWETT II R
 
 242 RICHARD BAXTER 
 
 glad to be remembered with expressions of goodwill 
 in the abode of those whose lot it is to labour and to 
 earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow. 
 
 Lastly, we may extend the spirit of the reflections 
 of Richard Baxter to the religious difficulties of our 
 own day. We may imagine an aged man who has 
 lived through the last fifty or sixty years, and has 
 been watching the movements which have agitated the 
 Church from extreme to extreme and back again, each 
 tendency seeming to have as great or even a greater 
 reaction. He would see, as Baxter saw in his old age, 
 that all other things come to an end, but that of the 
 love of God and man there is no end. He would not 
 raise questions about the rites of the Church, or the 
 canonicity of the books of Scripture : these belong to 
 criticism and ecclesiastical history, not to the spiritual 
 life. He would seek for the permanent and essential 
 only in the books of Scripture, in the lives of good 
 men, in the religion of the world. To follow Christ, 
 to speak the truth in love, to do to others as you 
 would they should do to you, these are the eternal 
 elements of religion which can never pass away, and 
 he who lives in these lives in God. 
 
 Oxford : Horace Hart, Printer to the University
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 NOV 1 7 1964 
 
 Ml«L OEC 
 
 ece n 
 
 MAIN ! 
 
 
 
 ^3^-8/58 (5876*4 W^\2i3ji'-^-
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 S 5 
 
 o = 
 
 AA 000 612 378 o 
 
 t 
 
 PLEA^r DO NOT REMOVE 
 THIS BOOK CARD \ 
 
 <$£ LIBRARYQc 
 
 £ 
 
 =>o 
 
 %0JI1V3JO^ 
 University Research Library 
 
 CD 
 
 i 
 Jl 
 
 03 
 Id 
 CO