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    two-fold arrangement , Mr . Noble considers as referring to and imaging * though in a remote and imperfect aaanner , the duality of essential properties in the First Cause of all . . That there is a general analogy running through the works of creation .

    implying a uniformity of plan and design , will be readily admitted . It fur * rushes , in fact , one of the best and strongest arguments of natural religion for the unity of God . But the inference which the author deduces of an alleged correspondence between the two-fold arrangement which these works occasionally evince , and the arbitrary distribution which he has thought proper to adopt of the Divine perfections under two leading denominations , appears to us visionary and fanciful in the extreme . And even if it were to be admitted , the consequence would not follow , for the sake of which the whole of this speculation ( in pursuing which we are carried far away from the main subject ) has been introduced , ; namely , that inferior things are universally to be considered as the types , images , or expressions of superior —material things of spiritual .

    * ' Were this relation , however , well understood , we are assured that a style of writing might be constructed , in which , while none but natural images were used , purely intellectual ideas should be most fully expressed : indeed it will be eyident , that even a narrative , in appearance the most simple , treating ,: in its literal expression , merely of the objects of nature , if framed b y that infinite knowledge to which the proper qualities of natural objects all lie displayed , 3 , nd which sees infallibly of what spiritual antitypes these are the types , might include lessons of wisdom far beyond all that philosoph y ever reached /'—P . 171 .

    Doubtless a language migJtf be thus constructed ; but the question is , what is the fact ? Have we any good grounds from Scripture itself for supposing that it is to be thus interpreted ? A language might be thus constructed ; but unless the grammar and dictionary of this language are put into our hands , whatever is written in it is to us a sealed work . The Scripture may be written in cipher , but unless we are furnished with the key to this cipher , in a more distinct and authentic form than any which we can derive from the vague speculations and fanciful analogies of pur author , whatever lessons of wisdom it may contain are in vain spread before our

    eyes . But perhaps a few examples may enable our readers to form a more precise estimate of Che real merits of this singular hypothesis . We must be contented , however , for the most part , to give these examples in an abridged form ; for Mr . Noble ' s style is unfortunately so very diffuse , that to present them as they are detailed at length in the author ' s own words , would oblige us to occupy more of our pages with extracts than either the merit of the work or the interest of the subject would justify .

    The offerings of gold , frankincense , and myrrh , wheuthe wise men of the east came to " worship" the infant Saviour , are to be understood , we are told , ( p . 197 , ) as emblems of spiritual gifts entirely different . They express the qualities which belong to pure an 4 spiritual worship . GoM , it seems , from its peculiar physical properties , is expressive of pure love or gpoduess *

    Hence it was so much used in the holy furniture of . the tabernacle . Frankincense represents worship from a principle , of trqtfr in the understanding , as may be inferred , \ m are told , from its being the chisf ingredient ; in the holy perfume or incense which was burnt Mpon the altar ; Jthe sw&e of the incense k symbolical of tW aspirations to the JU > rd of a heaven-directed mind . Again , the offering of myrrh represents worshi p from a suitable life

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    Review . ~~* Noi > U on the Inspiration of the Scnpttir ^ 527

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1827, page 527, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1798/page/55/