SERMON V."

INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.-INSPIRED INTERPRETATION.-THE BIBLE IS NOT TO BE INTERPRETED LIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.-GOD, (NOT MAN,) THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE.

ST. MATTHEW iv. 4.

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

IT is impossible to preserve exact method in Sermons

like these, uncertain in number, and delivered at irregular intervals. It shall only be stated that, having already spoken at considerable length, of the INSPIRATION of Holy Scripture;-not, one part more, one part less, but every part equally inspired throughout; not general, (whatever the exact notion may be of a book generally inspired,) but particular, by which I mean that every word is none other than the utterance of the HOLY GHOST: having, moreover, explained the

• Preached at St. Mary-the-Virgin, on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 3rd, 1861.

b"It cannot be said that this, [viz. that the Bible is the Word of GOD,] is always remembered. It cannot be said that they who write respecting the Bible, even Christian writers who are looked up to, always appear to have been in that frame of mind while contemplating the statements of the Sacred Volume, which they, the same men, would have been in if they had been listening for a voice out of a cloud; a word reaching them which was simply, and in that sense, the Word of God. Yet the Sacred Volume comes to us with

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INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

[SERM.

reasonableness,(the logical necessity, as it seems,)— of giving such an account of the Bible;-I propose to-day to proceed to the subject of INTERPRETATION. Really, it has become the fashion of a School of unbelief which has lately emerged into infamous notoriety, to deal with both these questions in so insolent a style of dogmatism, that the preacher is compelled to halt in limine; and to explain that he begs that no offence may be taken at the account which he has just given of the Bible; for that really he means no more than Bp. Pearson meant when he said that "the Scripture phrase" is "the Language of the HOLY GHOST."— that he desires to say no other thing than what He said, by whose Spirit, (as St. Peter declares,) the prophets prophesied ;-the preacher, I say, wishes to explain that he desires to mean no other thing than our LORD JESUS CHRIST Himself meant, when He spoke of every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

I. INTERPRETATION, then, in the largest sense of the term, I take to denote the discovery of the method and meaning of Holy Scripture.-I exclude those critical labours which merely aim at establishing a correct text. I exclude also the learning which merely investigates the grammatical force of single words. True, that even to translate is often to interpret; but this results only from the imperfection of language, which can seldom represent the words of one idiom by the words of another, without at the

no less claims than as conveying such a message; and on every feature of it, it carries that claim. It professes to be this,—an account of what went on in the secret council-chamber of the MOST HIGH."-Eden's Sermons, pp. 150-1.

с

Exposition of the Creed, Art. II. ("Our LORD,")-vol. i. p. 183. d 1 St. Peter i. 11.

v.]

THREE SOURCES OF INTERPRETATION.

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same time parting with the associations which belong to the old words, and importing those which are inseparable from the new.-Moreover, except occasionally, it is presumed that the lore of the Antiquary, Geographer, and so forth, does not aspire to the dignity of Interpretation.-To be brief,-whatever simply puts us on a level with ordinary hearers of ancient days; does no more than inform us what custom, locality, or date is intended by the sacred writer; (things which once were obvious, and which ought not to be any difficulty now ;)—all this, I say, seems external to the province of Interpretation; the purpose of which is to discover the method and the meaning of Holy Writ. And I find that every extant specimen of this sacred Science is either (1) what God hath Himself revealed; or (2) what the Church hath with authority delivered; or (3) what individuals have thought themselves competent to declare.

Of these three authorities concerning the sense of Scripture, it is evident that the last-named is entitled to least notice. So unimportant indeed is it, as scarcely to be of any weight at all. What one individual asserts, on his own unsupported authority, another individual may, with as much or as little authority, deny; and who is to decide?

But the authority indicated in the second place, clearly challenges very different attention. When, for example, our own Hooker declares, concerning the 5th verse of the iiird chapter of St. John, that "of all the ancients there is not one to be named that ever did otherwise expound or allege this place than as implying external Baptism," we perceive at once that such consent, on the part of men in whose ears the echoes of the ApoEccl. Pol., B. v. c. lix. § 3.

e

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BP. BULL ON PATRISTIC INTERPRETATION.

[SERM. stolic Age had not yet quite ceased to vibrate; and who were themselves professors of that Divine Science which takes cognizance of the subject-matter in hand: -such general consent of Antiquity, I say, on a point of Interpretation, must evidently be held to be decisive.

"Religio mihi est, eritque, contra torrentem omnium Patrum, Sanctas Scripturas interpretari; nisi quando me argumenta cogunt evidentissima,quod nunquam eventurum credo "." So spake one who had read the Fathers with no common care, and who turned his reading to no common account. "I persuade myself," he says, "that you will learn the modesty of submitting your judgment to that of the Catholic Doctors, where they are found generally to concur in the interpretation of a text of Scripture, how absurd soever that interpretation may, at first appearance, seem to be. For upon a diligent search you will find, that aliquid latet quod non patet,-'there is a mystery in the bottom :' and that which at first view seemed even ridiculous, will afterwards appear to be a most certain truth." "No man can oppose Catholic consent, but he will at last be found to oppose both the Divine Oracles and Sound Reason "."

Bp. Bull, Defensio Fid. Nic. 1. i. 9, (Works, vol. v. i. p. 22.) g Disc. v. The state of Man before the Fall. Bull's Works, vol. ii. p. 99.

h"DEUS novit cordis mei secreta: in dogmatis theologicis a novaturiendi prurigine (quam etiam supremi Judicis tribunal insiliens fidenter mihi tribuit theologiæ professor) adeo alienus sum, ut quæcunque catholicorum Patrum et veterum episcoporum consensu comprobata sunt, etiamsi meum ingeniolum ea non assequatur, tamen omni reverentia amplexurus sim. Nimirum non paucis experimentis monitus didiceram, cum adhuc juvenis Harmoniam scriberem, (quod mihi jam confirmata ætate persuasissimum est,) neminem

v.]

EUSEBIUS ON JOSHUA V. 13-15.

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The distinction thus drawn between individual opinion and the collective voice of the Church, was far better understood anciently than at present. The interpretation of a Council, especially if œcumenical, was accounted decisive. Even the generally consentient voice of Doctors and Fathers, as far as it could be ascertained, was held to be of the same authoritative kind. An interesting illustration occurs. Than Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, few Fathers of the fourth century were more learned in Holy Scripture. He, commenting upon "the Captain of the LORD's Host," mentioned in the vth chapter of the Book of Joshua, delivers it as his opinion that it was the same Personage who spoke to Moses 'in the Bush ;' viz. the Eternal Son. On which opinion, a learned man of the same age, in a scholion of singular beauty which has come down to us, remarks as follows:-" Aye, but the Church, O most holy Eusebius, holds a view on this subject altogether at variance with thine *."

catholico consensui repugnare posse, quin is (utcunque ipsi aliquantisper adblandiri videantur sacræ Scripturæ loca nonnulla perperam intellecta, et levicularum ratiuncularum phantasmata) tandem et Divinis Oraculis et sanæ rationi repugnasse deprehendatur."-Bp. Bull's Works, vol. iv. p. 313.

In days of unbelief, one is tempted to add a note even on a Theological truism like that in the text,-"Esto igitur, inquies ; fuerit DEUS, qui in Veteri Testamento, sive per Angelum, sive sub angelicâ repræsentatione sanctis viris apparuit et locutus est; at quâ demum ratione adducti crediderunt doctores, fuisse DEI FILIUM? Respondeo: Ratione, ni fallor, optimâ, quam ex traditione Apostolica edidicerant." - Def. Fid. Nicæn. 1. i. 12. Bp. Bull's Works, vol. v. i. p. 27.

* ̓Αλλ' ἡ ἐκκλησία, ὦ ἁγιώτατε Εὐσέβιε, ἑτέρως τὰ περὶ τούτου νομίζει καὶ οὐχ ὡς σύ. τὸν μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῇ βάτῳ φανέντα τῷ Μωϋσῇ θεολογεῖ τὸν δὲ ἐν Ιεριχῷ τῷ μετ ̓ αὐτὸν ὀφθέντα, τὸν τῶν Ἑβραίων ἐπιστασίαν λαχόντα, μάχαιραν ἐσπασμένον, καὶ τῷ Ἰησοῦ λῦσαι προστάττοντα τὸ ὑπόδημα, τοῦτον