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means free from suspicion . Thus the title of the fourth Psalm , * In finem , Psalmus Cantici David / is explained with reference to our Saviour as the fulfilment of the law , * Finis legis Christus—Hie aut verba Dominici hominis post resurrectionem expectamus , aut hominis in ecclesia crederitis , et sperantis in eo . '"—Pp . 180 , 181 .
During the dark ages the method of allegorical interpretation prevailed universally among the commentators , who indeed drew their materials from the fathers already mentioned . The state of sacred literature among the Jews was such , that had Hebrew been more known than it was , no remedy of the evil could have been derived from this source : for the Rabbis were as blindly devoted to their Cabbala , as the Christians to their spiritual and secondary sense . But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the grammatical study of Hebrew and the historical interpretation of Scripture were revived
by Aben Esra , Jarchi , and Kimchi ; and the Christian theologians , being engaged in eager controversy with the Jews , were obliged to pay more attention to the literal sense . Nicolas de Lyra , who flourished towards the beginning of the fourteenth century , is reckoned by Mr . Conybeare one of the first whose method of exposition was improved by this means . But his innovations were unpopular , and the weight of authority against which he had to contend did not allow of his succeeding to any great extent . Nothing less than the revived study of the Greek and Roman classics was sufficient
to expose the absurdity of the mode of interpretation to which the Scriptures had so long been subjected , nor till the appearance of the paraphrases of Erasmus was any effectual impression made upon the ancient system . That while he bore his testimony against the excesses of Origen , Hilary and Am * brose , Jerome and Augustine , he still admitted a limited use of the same method , may have been the result of the prudence which he infused into
every act of opposition to the opinions of his age , or of habit , not admitting him at once to see the full extent to which his own principles should consistency be carried : in the passage which Mr . Conybeare quotes from him , { p . 224 , ) we do not , however , see a recognition of the fact that Scripture was designed to have more than one meaning , but only to produce in different minds different feelings and emotions . " Non absurdum est voluisse
Spintum S . ut sacra Scnptura nonnunquam vanos gignat sensus , pro cujusque affectu . Neque hsec est Scripturarum incertitudo sed foeeunditas . " In fact , in his Annotations on the New Testament , he seldom notices the spiritual expositions , so popular in his day , except for the purpose of refuting them . Melancthon imitated his example , and the writings of Luther , although affording some instances of a very fanciful application of Scripture , tended on the whole to re-establish the literal sense . By encouraging their
readers to throw off this servile devotion to authority and tradition , all these eminent men contributed indirectly to the same end , though their own practice may not always have been uniform and consistent . It is to Calvin , however , above . all the other Reformers , that we are indebted for the first promulgation , at least in modern times , of a principle , without which the interpretation of the Old Testament can never be freely
and independently carried on , namely , that we are not to suppose that the passages quoted from it in the New Testament , really had tnat meaning which those who quote them assign to them , because the New-Testament . writers are in the habit ot deflecting or accommodating what they cite , to the purpose which they have in view . ' •* Non tam interpretatus , " says he of Ps . lxiii . 19 , quoted Ephes . iv . 3 " quam pia , deflexionc ad Christi personani pecommodat . " So in the passages which have been supposed
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Hemew . ~ The Bampton and Huhean Lectures . 11 J
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 117, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/45/
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