MR. BURGON'S REPLY TO "M. C. W."

61

Zech. ix. 11.) for whose needs St. Matthew is thought to have specially written his Gospel, must be allowed to be far less intelligible to Gentile minds than the phrase "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood." The sense of the latter expression is perceived at once. It is implied thereby, that as that elder Covenant had been ratified "by the blood of calves and of goats," (consider Heb. ix. 18-22.) so this was to be confirmed in, to be ratified by, the precious blood of Christ. (Consider Jer. xxxi. 31, 32; quoted Heb. viii. 7—9.)

III. I may remark, in conclusion, that the language of the Prayer of Consecration in our Reformed Communion Office (1549) seems exactly to represent, in every minute particular, what our Lord actually said at the institution of the Last Supper.*

Let me hope that your correspondent will be satisfied with what I have offered, and that he will afford me the comfort (if he conscientiously can) of admitting that, on second thoughts, there really does appear to be no contradiction whatever between St. Mark xiv. 24, and St. Luke xxii. 20. JOHN W. BURGON.

Oriel, December 15th, 1864.

DIVINE INSPIRATION.

No. I.-CURSORY THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS READINGS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

THERE is no church to which the literal sense of Scripture is of more importance than the New Church. Who among us can be ignorant that the truths of the literal sense of the Word are meant by the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem? That the Word is expressly designed for the salvation of the human race? That its literal sense is the basis, continent, and firmament of the spiritual and celestial senses? And that without the literal sense the Word would be like a palace without foundation—in the air not on the earth-the shadow of a palace which would soon vanish away?

To take away the literal sense of the Word is, then, to take away the foundations of the building. But what is the literal sense? It is the sense of the letter. But what is the letter? This is the question. There are, we will say, a hundred manuscripts, each one differing from

* The forms of the Churches of Cæsarea and of Constantinople approach nearest to ours; next come the Spanish, Gallican, and Alexandria forms. That of Rome, as usual, goes off in alia omnia :-"Hic est enim calix Saguinis Mei, novi et æterni testamenti, mysterium fidei,” &c.

the other, in regard to some particular passage, as to what the letter is, and thus supplying various readings. It would seem therefore that to be uncertain as to what the letter is, is to be uncertain about the foundations of the building; and as these support the spiritual and celestial superstructure, the strength of the edifice might thus appear to be doubtful.

Now it is very certain that the recent discoveries which have been made with respect to the variety of readings in Biblical manuscripts, have been the cause of embarrassment to some religious minds. Archbishop Whately thought it was an argument against the verbal or plenary inspiration of Scripture: the late Dr. Henderson thought it was an argument against any spiritual sense of Scripture and many have thought that it is an argument against the historical veracity of Scripture.

before the discovery of How can I, it may be

In this state of perplexity with regard to the Divine authority of the Scriptures, and especially of the letter, what is the course which a member of the New Church ought to take? It is this: not to be perplexed at the various readings of the letter of the Word. "You adopted," we should say, "the received text these readings; continue to adopt it now." replied, when it is doubtful whether, if not certain that, the received text is erroneous? We answer, If it be certain that in a given passage the received text is erroneous, and this error be manifest because the true reading has been discovered, there is in this case no reason for perplexity. If the new reading be only the more probable, then adopt it as being such; if the received text be questionable, and be regarded as anywhere possibly or probably wrong, and yet you know not what reading to substitute in its place, in this case continue to abide by the received text as before. But it may be replied, Shall I receive as true what is possibly or probably only a mistake? I answer, Yes; until it be proved to be a mistake. A simple-minded person reads the Bible, and believes that God is angry, and that He sometimes repents. This is a mistake; and yet if his mistake leads him to avoid sin, and to believe in the Divine compassion, he is far nearer the truth than the philosopher who sees the mistake, but who regards God as invisible and unknown. He who has a reverence for the received text of Scripture, but whose mind is open to correction, even though he should reverence what is erroneous, is far more likely to receive with reverence the true reading when it is discovered, and to make it conducive to life, than the critic who has succeeded in discovering the true reading, pities the

credulity of those who believe in the received version, but has no more faith in the spiritual sense of the new reading than he had in that of the old.

This then is the general answer which might be given to those whose minds might be perplexed by the modern discoveries of new manuscripts and various readings.

But may we not take higher ground? Assuredly we may. With those who believe in the interior sense of Scripture, the method commonly adopted is to deduce the interior sense of Seripture from the literal. But if the literal sense be uncertain, how can we be certain of the interior sense? Moreover, is not the genuine literal sense, or letter itself, a mere affair of manuscripts? We answer, Whatever it may be to others, it is not so to the member of the New Church, whose position in some important respects is different from that of the members of any other religious community, and who views the Hebrew language from a stand-point very different from that of critics and grammarians in general. Let us attend for instance to the following passage from the Spiritual Diary, art. 2631:—

"That the Hebrew language is such as to comprehend within itself ideas, and that its words are such that in each one are comprised many ideas, so that in these words there is a greater number of general ideas than in the words of any other language, may be evident from many circumstances; as for instance, that it originally had no vowels, in order that the sense of the letter might be known from the interior sense, not the interior sense from the sense of the letter, which latter method is adopted rather when the vowels are adjoined. He therefore who perceives the sense of the letter from the interior sense, understands what is written in the Hebrew language better without vowels than with them. For this reason it is, that proper names are not distinguished by larger initials, that there is no distinction by commas and the like, such as there is in languages in which attention is required to a merely literal sense. Moreover the method of speaking in the Word is natural, not artificial; for instance, where things are spoken, it is almost everywhere as if the person himself were speaking: it is not said that the person thus spoke, but he is himself represented as speaking. There is a like absence of artificial method in other instances."

Now if the interior sense is to be deduced from the literal, and the literal sense be uncertain in consequence of various readings of the letter, in what way do the foregoing remarks assist a member of the New Church toward ascertaining the true reading? In this way: first of all, supposing him to be skilled in the Hebrew language, he must dispense with the vowels: he must next find the general and interior meaning belonging to the whole sentence; he will then see by the laws of correspondence what is the word required to complete the meaning,

and out of the various readings will make his selection accordingly. Of course with critics and grammarians in general this system would be deemed conjectural and fanciful, because they deny the existence of a spiritual sense. But with the member of the New Church the case is different. In those particular instances in which the letter is uncertain or erroneous, he cannot deduce the spiritual sense from the literal, but he may the literal, and hence the letter from the spiritual; especially with the aid of various manuscripts, which then become to him not a source of embarrassment and perplexity, but of real assistance, and hence, so far from imperilling any jot or tittle of the law, tend to establish it.

The reason for which, in most instances, the vowels should be thus dispensed with, is further explained in the Spiritual Diary, art. 2414:

"I have learned from angels, that the Hebrew language is such that it is not the letter but the sense of the letter that is to be attended to; as may be confirmed by many considerations. It is for this reason that the language was originally written without points, and, when thus read without points, then the sense only was attended to, and from this were formed accents for the vowels, as any one skilled in that language may know. If any one in reading this language in the Word reads it without points, unless he follows out the sense of the passage, he can never know what the sense is, especially in the Prophets: the vowels and similar adjuncts only bring down the sense to the mere letter. Accordingly, if many persons were to read the same Prophetical books without points, they would thence form to themselves numerous senses; and if they supplied the vowels, every one would do so according to his own meaning. In this case the letters would have different vowels assigned to them by different readers, and where the readers could not assign vowels conformably to their own meaning, they would seek for anomalies in the words, yet so as to form the word into agreement with the sense they impose; for the language is such as to contain very many anomalies. For this reason it seems to have been permitted, in order that readers might not distort the sense, each one conformably to his own fancy; it seems to have been permitted, I say (in consideration of the present state of the human mind, namely, that while living in the body men would pervert the sense variously, each one according to his own idiosyncracy) that points should be added at a subsequent period. Whether these points are themselves Divinely inspired may in some measure be known from the Prophetic writings, where the sense is understood by no one except by the Lord and those to whom the Lord is pleased to reveal it."

Now on this passage we would suggest, with all diffidence, the following remarks :

First if these points are anywhere divinely inspired, it must be in consequence of their being the signs of divine affections. May not, then, these very points in the Prophetical books be regarded as among the jots and tittles which were to be fulfilled; and being fulfilled, were

they afterwards to be lost in various readings, and virtually to pass away like the heavens and earth of the Jewish representative church, or indeed the heavens and earth of the succeeding Christian church? Even could we suppose that such a transition might take place, the church would still be left in possession of the language as originally written, and might, as originally, pass from the interior to the literal sense. But the words of our Lord upon this subject seem to have a primary reference not to the written Word upon earth, but to the written Word in heaven. The heavens and earth of the spiritual world did pass away, but the jots and tittles of the Word there did not pass away. Accordingly, in The True Christian Religion, art. 241, after observing that in the celestial kingdom the letters in use are in some societies like Arabic characters, in others like the old Hebrew letters, but inflected above and beneath, with marks above, between, and within them, each of which in itself involves some entire sense-it is added:-

"A copy of the Word written by angels under the Lord's inspiration, is kept by every considerable society in a sacred repository appointed for that purpose, lest it should suffer alteration in any of its points and marks.”

Of course the alteration in the points and marks would correspond with what we call various readings in the copies of the Word upon earth. The heavens and earth, then, passed away in the spiritual world; but the jots and tittles of the Word are there preserved. The heavens and earth have passed away in the natural world, and we are left to various readings. How so? Because the church upon earth has never yet been one with the church in heaven; and mere verbal or textual criticism will never supply this want of unity; for so long as this want continues, even were the text perfectly restored, it would again be liable to similar corruptions. We know how writing in the spiritual world is said to disappear when it is not written from the spirit of truth; and it may be well to consider, how far it may have arisen from the fact that the Christian church gradually fell into the merely natural degree, that the custody of the text should be more or less at the mercy of natural causes, without any corrective from those which are spiritual. In proportion as the New Church upon earth becomes one with the church in heaven, she will, under the Divine guidance, supply a sure and corresponding basis for the jots and tittles of the written Word in heaven; and that basis will be permanent. Whether this will be the case with all copies of the Word all over the world, where there is no genuine church, is another question.