enough to give the sense in general, but the very words of the writer are to be rendered and expressed as they stand; for otherwise, readers might indeed know what the writer had generally before his mind; but they would be left in ignorance as to the words, the force or elegance of the diction, with which the writer had expressed what was in his thoughts.

I now come to those expressions which are allegorical, or illustrate a fact by a similitude. In the interpretation, then, of allegories and similitudes, we proceed so as to derive from them the general sentiment or proposition, which contains summarily and properly expressed, the truth or fact the writer designed to illustrate. For it is proper, in explaining an allegory, to fix the attention upon that which the writer had particularly in view in composing it. The object of all writers in introducing allegories into discourse, is not so much to direct the minds of their hearers to the similitude, as to the fact illustrated by the similitude, the general sentiment; or, what amounts to the same thing, it is not the signification of the words by themselves considered, but the import and sense of the whole passage, which they wish chiefly to be regarded. Thus, for instance, when Christ was asked why he allowed his disciples to fast but seldom or not at all, he answered, according to his usual custom, by allegories ;1 and employed the three following similitudes,-the guests are not usually sad when the bridegroom is present; a new piece of cloth is not put upon an old garment; new wine is not put into old bottles. To these Luke adds a fourth,2-No man having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new. In these similitudes, because they are similitudes, there must be contained, as I have just said, a general sentiment, which must be understood before the import of Christ's reply can be understood. The sentiment here, as it seems to me, is this, that in common life it is not usual for men to do what is unsuitable to the time, place, circumstances, etc. For if a man should begin to be sad at a feast, or should apply a new piece of cloth upon an old garment, would not his conduct be generally deemed unsuitable and absurd? Such things in common life are repugnant to the time, place, and circumstances. So whether one employs all these similitudes or only one of them, the same sentiment may, and indeed ought, always to be understood. When Christ then was asked, why he allowed his disciples to be less strict than others in this respect, he gives the following reason by similitudes: Because it is not usual for any one, in the affairs of common life, to do 1 Matt. 9: 14-18. 2 Luke 5: 39.

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readily what is unsuitable and inconsistent, neither should or ought he to do in regard to his disciples, nor compel them to do, what was suitable neither to the time nor to the circumstances. But it had been unsuitable to the time and circumstances, if, while he was yet present with them, as their guide and teacher, he had insisted upon their passing a life of sorrow and mortification, and induced them to multiply to no purpose rites of this sort; especially when he knew, that as soon as he was removed from the earth, these disciples would be subjected to a multitude of evils and those of the heaviest kind. He therefore who knew, that his friends were at some future period to enter upon a life full of calamities, and yet would not allow them, when they might, to live in comparative comfort and enjoyment, but should burthen them with troubles sooner than was necessary, would surely do what was repugnant to the circumstances, to the place and time, to the men, and finally to the love due towards others; or he would do the same thing as if one should put on a sad countenance at a feast, or sew a new piece of cloth upon an old garment, or pour new wine into old bottles; in a word, he would do what was discordant with the feelings, and judgment of men in common life. If it shall appear to any one that this method of explaining a similitude does not exhaust the whole meaning, because so many words must be neglected, in reducing them all to a single sentiment, let him follow the method of the ancient, and of not a few modern, commentators; let him examine all the parts of this similitude to the minutest particular, and explain them one by one; that the bridegroom is the spouse of the church; the wine, the gospel; the old and the new indicates the doctrine of the Pharisees and of Christ; and the rest in the same way. For my own part, I am wont, in explaining allegories, to follow the custom of common life, with which the voice of nature is in unison, and which may be easily estimated from the design and manner of using allegories, fables and similitudes. Would that, in the reading of ancient

1 See Jerome ad h. 1. Opp. IX. p. 27. ed. Erasm. Chrysostomi ad h. 1. Homil. p. 361. Gerhardi Harmon. Tom I. p. 729.

2 Comp. the dissertation De causis quibus allegoriarum interpretatio nititur, Vol. I. p. 370.-The excursus of W. Abr. Teller to Turretin De interpretatione S. S. p. 105. J. C. G. Ernesti de Usu Vita communis ad Interpretationem N. T. Lips. 1779. Lowth on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, Lectures 6th and 7th, with the notes of Michaelis.

authors, the language, opinions, and customs of common life had more frequently been made a rule of interpretation!

If it be true, that all the rules of rhetoric have been derived from nature, and from the observation of nature in common life; still, how shall we ever determine, that what we have learned, is not the opinions of others upon language and style, mere quoooqovuεva, instead of that human art itself, which is in unison with common life, unless we have ascertained the agreement of what we have learned with common life and daily experience? If it be true, that whatever book we read, is, as it were, the discourse of some individual addressed to ourselves; can we persuade ourselves that we come to the true sense of the book, if, in reading, we pursue a course directly contrary to what we are accustomed to do in hearing? if we take words in a sense in which no one is accustomed to take them in common life? if we look for mountains in every syllable, when no one ever expects any such thing in the language of common life? if we deny a writer that equity, which is the first law of conversation, viz. to press nothing too far, to judge of a speaker by the same liberal rule which we allow ourselves in speaking; if we suppose that he has written for the purpose of affording us an opportunity of digressing, of indulging the flights of our imagination, and while he is talking of the earth, of wandering away to heaven? Pray let us consider how many errors, how many opinions and difficulties, to take a single example, have been introduced into the ancient poets by such as have undertaken to interpret poems, while they spurned nature, of which common life forms a part. What wisdom has been forcibly obtruded upon Homer, where he breathes nothing but nature and common life! Consider what torture has been practised upon the sacred writers, by such as have well nigh forgotten, that although they wrote under the influence of inspiration, yet they were men, employed human language, and wrote in such a manner, as that by the aid of language their readers could understand them; that is, in such a manner as the genius of the language permitted. It may happen, indeed, that in this way, we shall be thought to possess but a small share of learning, because we do not everywhere declare that what others know, we know too; but, on the other hand, how great will be our satisfaction, if all that is around us, all that is embraced in common life, proclaims that we are in the right, that the truth is as we say and think. It may happen also, that we may seem to be wanting in modesty in our mode of treating

the sacred volume, too liberal, too much given to xavoloyia. But how great will be our consolation, if the reasons of our interpretations are founded upon common precepts, which in interpretation have the force of evidence; and not upon such as are at variance with the whole nature and custom of language; like those which Turretin judiciously refutes. Let it not be understood from this that I would condemn logical subtilty to neglect. By no means for neither can the true doctrine be understood without this, nor can he who has collected ever so many facts, lay claim to the title of learned, unless he knows how to arrange, define, and defend them. And who would desire to be without the advantages of such a logic, by which one is enabled to learn with so much more of certainty, ease, rapidity, clearness, and system? But after we have thus learned, the whole of our acquisitions must be examined by the standard of common life, in order that it may appear what we have learned for ourselves, what for others, what for the school, and what for life.

ART. III. ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE EGYPTIAN OR INDIAN ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.

By Professor Tholuck, of Halle. Translated from the German by the Editor.*

The reproach has often been brought against the defenders of the scriptural faith, that in their apologetical works they have

From Tholuck's "Literarischer Anzeiger" for May 1832, No. 27 sq.- The present article is selected as an appropriate and interesting supplement to that on the "Import of the name Jehovah," by Mr Ballantine, in the preceding Number of this work. Besides its intrinsic merits, it presents us with a curious example of the facility with which a convenient polemical error may glide into general currency, without any other foundation than hasty inference, hardy assertion, and the authority of distinguished names.-EDITOR.

paid less regard to the weight than to the number of their arguments; and that therefore in the production of historical testimony they too often fail in a proper degree of critical skill. This reproach cannot, indeed, be entirely put aside, either in regard to the earlier or more recent apologists; we are thinking here of Stolberg, whose historical testimonies are only too often sublestae fidei. But that the adversaries have the same reproach to bring against their own party, is a fact not less firmly established. We will not say a word here of Voltaire's well known airy citations, of which we shall adduce below a remarkable example; but even the critical rationalism of Germany cannot acquit itself wholly of the charge of similar want of critical acumen. Among various other proofs of this assertion, the following, which has respect to the origin of the name JEHOVAH, may also hold a place.

That the name which God ascribes to himself in the books of Moses, that holy name which the Jew did not dare pronounce, and which the early christian church in general referred to an immediate communication from God himself,-that this name was known in Egypt long before the time of Moses, and was adopted by this lawgiver, with most of his other institutions, from that country, is regarded in our day as a fact so unquestioned and unquestionable, as to have passed already into general currency in the "Conversations-Lexicon ;" and seems to many, probably, for this very reason, so much the less susceptible of doubt.

The person who brought this opinion into such general circulation, is alas! one of our classic writers-it is Schiller,-who, in his essay on the Mission of Moses, has narrated in a manner not less superficial than insolent, the history of the lawgiver of Israel, the history of him to whom the Redeemer of the world appeals, as a witness for himself. In this essay, the Egyptian origin of the name Jehovah is spoken of as a fact no longer requiring any proof; it is directly presupposed.-That treatises like this, under the sanction of a name which for Germany is so

1 Art. JEHOVAH. The "Conversations-Lexicon" exhibits here, as elsewhere, the wise reserve of "not meaning to determine" how much was borrowed by Moses from Egypt; but the name Jehovah, at least, was certainly known there. [The article here referred to is incorporated into the Encyclopaedia Americana.]-ED.

2 Die Sendung Mosis, first printed in Thalia, 10ten Heft.