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    remote age . They took Christianity and translated it into the current language of the day . It is our business to compare this translation with the original—td translate it back again- ^ -to com * pare it with the essential principles of human nature—to translate it into their language—to view it in relation to the existing state of society , and so put it forth that it may meet its wants and foster its excellencies . There cannot be a doubt that this is what the

    Apostle would do for his own writings were he now in being * He wished , when he wrote , to communicate what he knew—to win men to Christ ; he therefore wished to be understood——to convince and to sway . As a natural consequence , he studied not only the genius of the Gospel , but the condition , the intellectual and moral condition , the aptitudes , the prejudices , the aversions , the attachments , the customary trains of thought and even modes of speech ;

    of those to whom he wrote . Thus knowing Christianity , and thus knowing his audience , he preached the unsearchable riches of Christ . Acting on the same principles he would now , were he on earth * adapt himself to the present generation . The truth he would preserve , its dress and recommendations he would change . What he had done for the prejudiced Jew and the ignorant Hea- » then of the first , he would now do for the philosopher and the

    peasant of the nineteenth century . The casual form in which he first set forth the Gospel he would divest it of , and bring the mind of man purified by the lapse of time , the destruction of institutions and the general process of civilization , purified of the idols with which it was peopled , to learn at once of Christ , without a veil between to see his glory , to hear the gracious words as they came from his lips . What the Apostle cannot do for himself , we of this age may do for him .

    For this purpose , some acquaintance with the ancient history both of the Jews and Pagans is of great consequence ; and , by history , is not meant so much that which unhappily forms so large a part of what passes under the name , —not so much the details of wars , of dynasties , of conquests , —but rather the prc * - gress of society , the intellectual furniture of a people , —their moral and social condition , their pleasures , their hopes , their

    visions , —in a word , whatever constitutes the staple of their life , in its moral , intellectual , and physical aspects . He that would understand the conversation of an Englishman , must know something of the institutions and modes of life under which he ha : s been educated . Mind is but an aggregation of influences transmitted and mostly augmented from age to age ; and language is

    but a picture of mind—a picture whose hues are ever varying , and which , as is the case with some persons in regard to colours , every eye sees in hues differing from those in which it is seen by every other . To understand the writings of a Jew , then , you must learn , as much as you can , to think and feel as a Jew . You must place yourself id the point of view in which he looked at

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    674 On ike Study 6 fHL Paul ' s EpiHles ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 674, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/26/