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Untitled Article
to bear a double relation * 64 k& few ^ h mi ihe Christian
Mr . Conybeare * s seventh Lecture is devote ^ to the history secondary interpretation since the days of the Reformers . The Romish Chttrch , as might be expected , continued to adhere to the system which was sanctioned Jb y so many of the most eminent fathers ; among the Protestants great diversity of practice prevailed , a few adopting the principle of Calvin , the majority , according to their knowledge and taste , and the predominence of fancy or judgment in their minds , adopting , to a greater or less degree , the
spiritual interpretation . Grotius , ( of whom Mr , Oonybeare rather strangely remarks , " that he betrayed an attachment , perhaps somewhat excessive , to the more learned and temperate of the Jewish expositors , " ) in his commentaries on the Old Testament , very generally restricted to the history of the Jews those passages which had been hitherto considered as prophetic of the Messiah , admitting , however , a secondary referenpe to the Christian dispensation . Though he by no means denies the existence of a mystical sense or
typical prefiguration , the tendency of his commentaries to produce a disbelief in them is visible enough in those who adopted him for their guide , and especially in subsequent critics of the Remonstrant Church . Among these Le Clerc , as might be expected , is mentioned by JWfr . Conybeare with strong reprobation , as carrying his notions of accommodation to such an excess , as nearly to invalidate the prophetical character of the Old Testament , and indirecdy at least to depreciate the divine authority of the New . We will , nevertheless , venture to predict , that the name of Le Clere wiU be preserved
by distant generations with gratitude , as of a man who , by unwearied activity and fearless independence of thought , gave a powerful impulse to the minds of his contemporaries . While Grotius and his followers tnus contracted the secondary interpretation within the very narrowest limits , the learned Coccehis extended them beyond the wildest flights of the ancient allegorists , by maintaining , that " Scripture signifies whatever it can si g nify , ** in other words , whatever it can be made to signify . That the Cocceiaft school is not wholly extinct may be inferred from the work of > the Rev . Mr . Noble , reviewed in rjie last volume of the Repository [ p . 5231 .
Until about the middle of the last century the Lutheran divines of Germany had held a kind of middle course in regard to typical and secondary interpretation , of which an idea may be derived from the wei ! J known work of Glassius . Since the days of ISemler , however , the ancient opinions on this subject , even in the modified degree in which they were stfll lield by Ernesti , have been gradually abandoned ; there are prot > abfy very few who
maintain the double sense by which Grotius explained the application of the prophecies in the New Testament , and while some still contend for an accommodation , others regard the Evangejists as applying Spripture according to the custom of their age , in which the true sense and connexion of the c / bscurer parts of it had already been lost . The writings of Sykes and Benson in our own country , on types and the double sense , cannot be unknown to the theological reader . The last Lecture of the volume , which should haye been first s treats of the principles by which spiritual interpretation should be guided , and
