I venture to advance a step farther, and to aver that all men are, and ever have been, in reality, good and true interpreters of each other's language. Has any part of our race, in full possession of the human faculties, ever failed to understand what others said to them, and to understand it truly? or to make themselves understood by others, when they have in their communications kept within the circle of their own knowledge? Surely none. Interpretation, then, in its basis or fundamental principles, is a native art, if I may so speak. It is coeval with the power of uttering words. It is of course a universal art; it is common to all nations, barbarous as well as civilized.

One cannot commit a more palpable error in relation to this subject, than to suppose that the art of interpretation is one which is like the art of chemistry, or of botany, or of astronomy, or any of the like things, viz. that it is in itself wholly dependent on acquired skill for the discovery and developement of its principles. Acquired skill has, indeed, helped to an orderly exhibition and arrangement of its principles; but this is all. The materials were all in existence before skill attempted to develope them.

Possibly it may excite surprize in the minds of some, to be told that, after all, hermeneutics is no science that depends on learning and skill, but is one with which all the race of man is practically more or less acquainted. Yet this is true. But so far is it from diminishing the real value of the science, that it adds exceedingly to its weight and importance. That it is connate with us, shows that it is a part of our rational and communicative nature. That it is so, shows also that it is not, in its fundamental parts, a thing of uncertainty, of conjecture, of imagination, or of mere philosophical nicety. If it were a far-fetched science, dependent on high acquisitions and the skilful application of them, then it would be comparatively a useless science; for, in such a case, only a favored few of the human race would be competent to understand and acquire it; still fewer could be satisfactorily assured of its stable and certain nature.

An interpreter well skilled in his art, will glory in it, that it is an art which has its foundation in the laws of our intellectual and rational nature, and is coeval and connate with this nature. He finds the best assurance of its certainty in this. It is only a quack (if I may so speak) in this business, that will ever boast of any thing in it which is secret, obscure, or incomprehensible to common minds.

All which has ever led to any such conclusion, is, that very few men, and those only learned ones, become critics by profession. But the secret of this is merely, that professed critics are, almost always, professed interpreters of books in foreign languages, not in their own mother-tongue. Then again, if they are interpreters of their own vernacular language, it is of such exhibitions of it as present recondite and unusual words. Now in order to interpret a foreign language, or in order to explain the unusual words of one's own vernacular tongue, a good degree of learning becomes requisite. This is not, however, because the rules of interpretation, when applied

either to foreign languages, or to unusual words or phrases in one's own language, are different from the rules which all men every day apply to the common language employed by them in conversation. Learning is necessary to know the meaning of foreign words, or of strange vernacular words, on the same ground, and no other, as it was necessary for us to learn originally the meaning of the circle of words which we usually employ in speaking or writing. The same acquaintance with foreign words that we have with our every-day ones, would of course make them equally intelligible, and equally supersede any studied art of hermeneutics, in order to interpret them. When a man takes up a book, which contains a regular system of hermeneutics all arranged and exhibited to the eye, and filled with references to choice and rare volumes, he is ready to conclude that it contains something almost as remote from the common capacity and apprehension of men as Newton's Principia. But this is a great mistake. The form of the treatise in question, it is true, may be altogether a matter of art. The quotations and references may imply a very widely extended circle of reading and knowledge. But after all, the principles themselves are obvious and natural ones; at least if they are not so, they are worth but little or nothing. The illustration and confirmation of them may, indeed, be drawn from a multitude of sources widely scattered, and some of them very recondite, and a great display of learning may be made here; but still the same thing is true, in this case as in many other departments of learning and taste. Nature first teaches rules; art arranges, illustrates, and records them. This is the simple truth as to hermeneutics. Systems have digested and exhibited what the rational nature of man has taught,-of man who was made to speak and to interpret language.

I may illustrate and confirm this by a reference, for example, to epic or lyric poetry. Men did not first invent rules by the aid of learned art, and then construct epic and lyric poems by the aid of these rules. Nature prescribed these rules to a Homer, a Pindar, and to others. They followed nature; and therefore wrote with skill and power. That they have become models for all succeeding epic and lyric writers, can be accounted for only from the fact, that they followed the promptings of nature in their respective kinds of composition; and others cannot swerve essentially from their course without swerving from nature; and of course they will offend against what we may truly call the common sense of mankind.

per

It is the same in hermeneutics. Many a man has, indeed, laid down rules in this science, which were a departure from the principles taught us by our reasonable nature; and where he has had sonal influence, he has obtained disciples and imitators. But his popularity has been short-lived, or at least he has sooner or later been taken to task for departing from nature, and has been refuted, in the view of sober and unprejudiced men, in regard to such principles as violate the common rules of interpretation which men daily practise.

There are only two ways in which men come to the knowledge of words; the one is by custom, education, the daily habit of hearing and speaking them; the other is, by studying them in books, and learning them in the way that philology teaches. Now the first method supersedes the second. But as the second is the only way left for all such as wish to understand the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, so the thorough study of those books which are necessary to impart the knowledge in question, renders a good degree of learning a matter which of course is necessary. All this occupies time, and costs labor and effort. Few succeed, after all, to any great extent, in making the acquisition under consideration; and hence the general apprehension of its difficulty. Hence, too, the idea that the art of interpretation is the result of learned skill, rather than the dictate of

common sense.

I do not aver, indeed, that a man destitute of learned skill can well interpret the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. But this I would say, viz. that his learning applies more to the proper knowledge of Greek and Hebrew words in themselves considered, than it does to the principles by which he is to interpret them. In the estimation of inen in general, however, these two things are united together; and it is in this way that hermeneutics comes to be looked upon as one of the more recondite and difficult sciences.

I certainly do not wish to be understood as denying here, that the practice of the hermeneutical art in a successful manner does require learning and skill. Surely this must be true, when it is applied to the explanation of the original Greek and Hebrew Scriptures; because no one can well understand these languages, without some good degree of learned skill. But I say once more, that the learning necessary to understand the meaning of particular words in these languages, and that which is employed in the proper interpretation of them, are not one and the same thing. When the words are once understood, the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures are interpreted by just the same rules that every man uses, in order to interpret his neighbor's words. At least this is my position, and one which I expect to illustrate and confirm, by showing more fully still, that from the nature of the case it must be so, and moreover that it is altogether reasonable and proper.

I have urged at so much length, and repeated in various forms, the sentiments contained in the preceding paragraphs, because ĺ view them as of essential importance in respect to the subject before us. If God has implanted in our rational nature the fundamental principles of the hermeneutical art, then we may reasonably suppose that when he addresses a revelation to us, he intends and expects that we shall interpret it in accordance with the laws of that nature which he has given us. In showing that the science of interpretation is not a production of art and learned skill, but that it is merely de veloped and scientifically exhibited by such skill, I have shown that the business of interpreting the Bible need not necessarily be confined to a few, but may be practised, in a greater or less degree, (if we ex

cept the criticism of the original Scriptures,) by all men who will attentively study it. It is true, that all men cannot be critics upon the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures; for the greater part of them never can obtain the knowledge of the words necessary for this purpose. But still, there is scarcely any man of common understanding to whom a truly skilful critic may not state and explain the principles of interpretation, by which he is guided in the exegesis of any particular passage, in such a way that this man may pass his judgment on the principle and make it the subject of his approbation or disapprobation. This proves incontrovertibly that the principles of the science in question are in themselves the dictates of plain common sense and sound understanding; and if this be true, then they are principles which may be employed in the interpretation of the word of God; for if there be any book on earth that is addressed to the reason and common sense of mankind, the Bible is pre-eminently that book.

What is the Bible? A revelation from God. A REVELATION! If truly so, then it is designed to be understood; for if it be not intelligible, it is surely no revelation. It is a revelation through the medium of human language; language such as men employ; such as was framed by them, and is used for their purposes. It is a revelation by men (as instruments) and for men. It is made more humano, because that on any other ground it might as well not be made at all. If the Bible is not a book which is intelligible in the same way as other books are, then it is difficult indeed to see how it is a revelation. There are only two ways in which the Bible or any other book can be understood; the one is by miraculous illumination, in order that we may have a right view of contents which otherwise would not be intelligible; the other is, by the application of such hermeneutical principles as constitute a part of our rational and communicative

nature.

If you say, now, that the first of these ways is the true and only one; then it follows that a renewed miracle is necessary in every instance where the Bible is read and understood. But. first, this contradicts the experience of men; and secondly, I cannot see of what use the Scriptures are, provided a renewed revelation or illumination is necessary, on the part of heaven, in every instance where they are read and understood. It is not the method of God's wisdom and design, thus to employ useless machinery; nor does such an idea comport with the numberless declarations of the Scriptures themselves, that they are plain, explicit, intelligible, perfect-in a word, all that is requisite to guide the humble disciple, or to enlighten the ignorant.

I must then relinquish the idea of a miraculous interposition in every instance where the Bible is read and understood. I trust that few enlightened christians will be disposed to maintain this. And if this be not well grounded, then it follows that the Bible is addressed to our reason and understanding and moral feelings; and consequent

ly that we are to interpret it in such a way as we do any other book that is addressed to these faculties.

A denial of this throws us at once upon the ground of maintaining a miraculous interposition, in all cases where the Bible is understood. An admission of it brings us to the position that the Bible is to be interpreted in the same way as other books are.

Why not? When the original Scriptures were first spoken or written, (for very much of them, in the prophets for example, was spoken as well as written,) were they designed to be understood by the men who were addressed? Certainly you will not deny this. But who were these men? Were they inspired? Truly not; they were good and bad, wise and foolish, learned and ignorant; in a word, men of all classes both as to character and knowledge.

If now the prophets, in addressing such men, expected to be understood, intended to be so, (and clearly they did,) then they expected these men to understand them in a way like to that in which they understood any one else who addressed them, i. e. by means of applying the usual principles of interpretation to the language employed. Any thing which denies this, of course must cast us upon the ground of universal miraculous interposition.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

HALF-WAY EXPEDIENTS.

WE shall permit a man of plain common sense to speak a few words. Hear him give his views of some matters. Good sense and piety are not patented to the learned. The honest, and humble, and devout, though unlearned christian, has a right to speak as well as others.

EDITOR.

For the Millennial Harbinger.

MEN who believe in a judgment to come, in a state of rewards and punishments consequent thereon, and of the alarming consequences of a wicked and profligate life, cannot but feel the importance of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus; and, possessed as man is, with a social feeling for his fellowmen, having been justified himself by faith, he is desirous that others become like himself saved from their sins. It has been a feeling like this which has actuated every man of public notoriety. This is true of the Deists as well as Christians, whether we look at Hume, Volney, Paine, or the indefatigable Owen, one and all of them possessed more or less of the spirit of reform; but being so confident in their own resources, and, by the by, counteracting each other's influence, they have failed to better the moral condition of mankind; these, moreover, were not conscious that an awful eternity was awaiting their destiny, and yet they were actively employed in spreading their opinions.

Christians, who believe that all men will be rewarded according to the deeds done in the body, ought to be very assiduous to forward the gospel in its progress; because when all the schemes of men are passed away as a cloud, and their nakedness and inadequacy are fully seen, the gospel will arise and astonish the dark benighted world with its glory.