have the same effect in nourishing and preserving our souls as the bread and wine have in nourishing and preserving our bodies. And doubtless the rite itself was instituted, because, in properly corresponding externals, internals are present with greater power than without them; and thus to the sincere communicant who ascribes all good to the Lord as its Author, he himself, with his divine graces of love and wisdom, is then more near than at other times, imparting that heavenly nourishment on which depends the life of his soul. But let this be as it may whether or not any heavenly influences are present at the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; it seems impossible to doubt that such graces as we have described are intended to be represented by those ordinances: In them, therefore, we assuredly have conclusive evidence, that the Word of God is written according to the laws of that Analogy which so clearly connects together the objects of spirit and of nature,—the intellectual and moral with the physical and material world-and that this Analogy affords the Rule by which the genuine import of the Word of God may be decy-' phered. : Here then we conclude our Proofs and Illustrations of the applicability of the Science of Analogies as a Rule for the interpretation of the Word of God and though I am aware that the instances selected have not been elucidated with half the strength and clearness which the principle admits; yet amid all the defects of the advocate, it can. hardly, I trust, be denied, that from most of the examples such a degree of light has been elicited, as to render it morally certain that the principle is correct. But to draw from these elucidations the conclusion which they are intended to support, we must still remember the principles laid down at the beginning of the fourth Lecture, on the character which must necessarily belong to the Divine Style of Writing. "If, as there stated, in a written revelation from God the Divine Truth must clothe itself with ideas and images taken from the world of nature before it could be presented to man; and if the Divine Style of Writing must thus follow the Law of that Analogy, which, as was shewn in the third Lecture, indissolubly connects natural objects and ideas with such as are spiritual and divine-it will follow, that the spiritual and divine wisdom which such a revelation must contain within it, could only be understood by a right application of this Law. And if on an application of this Law to the books called the Holy Scriptures, it should be found that they exhibit a coherent series of spiritual and divine instruction; it will follow, further, that the Scriptures are such a revelation of Divine Truth presented to man in natural language; that they are the Divine Speech, or Divine Word, which has emanated from the bosom of Deity, and presents itself under this form in this lowest sphere of creation." We have now tried the applicability of the Rule to all the species of composition which the Sacred Writings contain,—the prophetical, the historical, and the perceptive, (taking our examples of the last from the precepts relating to ceremonial rites) we have found that, when decyphered by the proposed key, a coherent series of spiritual and divine instruction every where appears : we have a right then to infer, that the Scriptures actually are composed in the truly Divine Style of Writing, and that nothing below the Plenary Divine Inspiration was adequate to their production.` V. Before I conclude this Lecture, I will add an argument which occurred to my own mind many years ago, and which to ine carried irresistible conviction. 1. It may be simply propounded thus: It is impossible for a false, yet regular rule for the interpretation of the Scriptures, to draw from them a coherent sense in every passage to which it should be applied: But the Doctrine of Analogies is thus universally applicable: Necessarily, then, the Scriptures are written throughout according to that Doctrine, and this affords the true Rule for their interpretation. And it may be illustrated thus: Suppose a book were found, written in the English tongue, but in characters grown obsolete by antiquity. The mode of decyphering it, of course, would be, by ascertaining what letters of the present alphabet answer to those in which the book was written. It is evident that if, in attempting to assign the corresponding letters, we fixed upon wrong ones, though we might appear to make out a word here and there, the sense of the series of words would be as much hidden as ever. Suppose, for instance, I assume the letter which is indeed a G to be an M, the O to be an A, and the D an N; and instead of God were to read man, wherever that combination of letters occurred although I should thus have got a single word, which, for aught that appeared in that instance alone, might be the true one, yet perhaps I might not find another case in which my misconstrued alphabet would make any word whatever; and certainly I should never find two or three words, so made out, that would read together in a coherent series. Until, then, the really corresponding letters were discovered, all would be doubt and conjecture: we might dispute whether the book were written in the English or in any other language: and probably many would contend, that it was not intended to have any series of meaning at all; just as is now generally affirmed with respect to the spiritual sense of the Scriptures. If, on the contrary, on applying any system of interpretation to the supposed mysterious book, it should be found to decypher, not one or two words only, but the whole-if the whole might be read in order, definite words and a coherent sense being found in every part; the truth of the proposed system of interpretation would be incontestable; there could be no doubt that the unknown characters really answered to the common ones which the proposed system substituted for them. Now this case, I venture to affirm, is exactly parallel to that of our proposed interpretation of the Word of God by the Rule drawn from the Doctrine of Analogies. If the signification assigned from this Doctrine to any term used in Scripture were not the true one,-did not give the properly corresponding idea, though a colourable interpretation of one or two passages might perhaps be offered, yet the application of the same sense to the same term wherever else it occurred would yield nothing but a chaos of confusion. But when we find that the contrary is the case with the system we have proposed; when it is seen, that this explains one passage as readily as another, and the whole as completely as a part; when the sense assigned by it to any individual term is found to afford a luminous meaning in every instance where that term occurs ;* the conclusion is irresistible, that the system is correct. On this ground we rest the claim of the Doctrine of Analogies to be received as the true key for the interpretation of Holy Writ; assured that in this will be found the true alphabet for decyphering the Divine Style of Writing. Let us take this for our guide, and begin with the books of Moses; and we fear not to say; Behold, their mysteries unfold. Let us proceed through the Prophets; and nothing so recondite will present itself, as will not, on the right application of this key, expand full to the view. Let us continue our researches through the Gospels and Apocalypse, and still we shall find that this Doctrine affords the universal talisman, by which the veil of the letter is every where laid open, and the wonders of God's law,-all that man can comprehend of the wisdom of Omniscience,-are revealed. * See this exemplified, with respect to the term clouds, in the fourth Lecture, p. 240, &c. and Appendix, No. IV. The two conclusions then, of our proposition above, hence result: First, That the Doctrine of Analogies, being thus applicable to the decyphering of the natural images composing the letter of the Divine Word from one end of it to the other, affords the true rule for its interpretation. Secondly That the Divine Word, being thus universally capable of being interpreted by the Doctrine of Analogies, must have been intentionally written according to it. 2. Let us extend this argument by the following supplement How can it be accounted for, that writings composed by a great number of different authors, who were scattered over a period of sixteen hundred years, and were thus without any possibility of settling a plan in concert, should be written throughout by a uniform principle of so remarkable a kind ;—especially when it is certain, that at least the greater number of the penmen were quite unconscious that their productions were governed by this principle, and were entirely unacquainted with the spiritual contents, which, by virtue of this law of their construction, their writings contained? From this circumstance alone, then, we surely are again entitled to infer, that the style in which the Scriptures are composed, following every where the Law of Analogy, is the truly Divine Style of Writing; and that nothing short of Plenary Divine Inspiration could be adequate to the production of Compositions so extraordinary. Truly, therefore, are they denominated, "THE WORD OF GOD." 48 |