ART. XV. On the Mode of Interpreting the SIR, Prophecies. TO THE EDITOR OF CENSURA LITERARIA. With very great respect for the learning and talents. of your venerable Correspondent S. to whom I think all your readers are under much obligation, I must differ from him with regard to some of the positions stated in his letter inserted in your last Number. That there is a medium to be observed between the wholly literal and wholly allegorical or mystical interpretation of the prophecies cannot be denied. But the difficulty still remains to know where to draw the line. Good and eminent men, Jews as well as Christians, ancients as well as moderns, have erred on both sides. In our own days we have seen the virtuous and learned Bishop Horne allegorizing almost the whole of the scriptures; and Rosemuller (as I judge from what S. says of him) reducing them again to their literal meaning. Yet surely there is a line to be drawn, safe at least, though neither inclusive nor exclusive of a great part of the Bible, which is from the information of the New Testament. Whatever Rosemuller or any other commentator may say, while I believe in the general inspiration of the apostles I must also believe that those prophecies which they expressly quote, and to the completion of which in their own sight they bear witness, were in the proper sense prophecies and to be fulfilled at a future time, however literally they might appear to be accomplished in their first and most obvious sense and references of this kind in the New Testament DD 3 Testament are too numerous and well known to make it necessary to quote them. That these were also the sentiments of Bishop Lowth, who in the opinion of S. maintains the literal in opposition to the mystic sense of prophecy, appears from his own words, in a part of the very note which he quoted in your last; " yet obvious and plain," says the Bishop, "as I think this literal sense is, we have nevertheless the irrefragable authority of John the Baptist, and of our blessed Saviour himself, as recorded by all the evangelists, for explaining this exordium (of the xlth ch. of Isaiah) of the prophecy of the opening of the gospel by the preaching of John, and of the introducing of the kingdom of Messiah."-" And this we shall find to be the case in many subsequent parts also of this prophecy, where passages manifestly relating to the deliverance of the Jewish nation, effected by Cyrus, are with good reason and upon undoubted authority to be understood of the redemption wrought for mankind by Christ." "If the literal sense of the prophecy cannot be questioned, much less surely can the spiritual; which I think is allowed on all hands, even by Grotius himself."* I cannot therefore see how Lowth "completed what Martin begun and Grotius corrected." For in reality Lowth was not a commentator but a translator. It was to the structure and imagery of the language to which he particularly applied his attention, both in his Isaiah, and in his "Prælectiones de sacra Poesi." + Even by Grotius; it may then be observed here, obiter, that the Bishop evidently means to infer that Grotius attached himself too strictly to the literal interpretation of prophecy. + It is not meant that no other subjects are embraced in this elegant work, but that the explanation of the prophecies makes no part of it. And again," The† reasons and authori founded; to rectify or In neither of them does he enlarge on the scope and design of the prophecy explained, though he sometimes refers to it in a short and cursory manner. But let him speak for himself. "Whatever senses are supposed to be included in the prophet's words, spiritual, mystical, allegorical, analogical, or the like, they must all depend upon the literal sense." * design of the notes is to give the ties on which the translation is to explain the words of the text; to illustrate the ideas, the images, and the allusions of the prophet, by referring to objects, notions and customs, which peculiarly belong to his age and his country; and to point out the beauties of particular passages. I sometimes indeed endeavour to open the design of the prophecy, to shew the connection between its parts, and to point out the event which it foretels. But in general I must entreat the reader to be satisfied with my endeavours faithfully to express the literal sense, which is all that I undertake. If he would go deeper into the mystical sense, into theological, historical, and chronological disquisitions, there are many learned expositors to whom he may have recourse, who have written full commentaries on this prophet; to which title the present work has no pretensions." The literal sense therefore in which the Bishop is supposed to follow or agree with Grotius, is in reality only the literal manner in which he has thought proper to translate his original. It refers merely to the version, not to the explanation of the prophecy. With respect to the 40th chapter, Lowth certainlysupposes that the prophecy Preliminary Dissertation, p. lii. Ib. p. lxxiii. has has a double meaning, the one nearer and the other more remote; but I am at a loss to discover where S. has found (as he asserts p. 298) that Lowth differs from Origen concerning the meaning of the 53d chapter. I can find nothing like it either in his notes or in his Prælections. In the latter (Prælect. xix) he uses this strong expression about it, "illustre illud Vaticinium de Messiæ humilitate & pænis piacularibus." In the former he introduces this prophecy by saying, "here Babylon is at once dropped.-The prophet's views are almost wholly engrossed by the superior part of his subject. He introduces the Messiah as appearing at first in the lowest state of humiliation; and obviates the offence which would be occasioned by it, by declaring the important and necessary cause of it, and foreshewing the glory which should follow it." The only place in which the Bishop mentions Origen is to introduce a note by Dr. Kennicot on the eighth verse, to prove a various reading of the Hebrew from the lxx; nor does he in any of his notes even hint at any application of this prophecy to any other person, primarily or remotely, but to Christ alone. P. M. ART. ART. XVI. The Ruminator. Containing a series of moral, sentimental, and critical Essays. N°. LV. On the Beneficence of Providence in bestowing a Sensibility to the Charms of Nature; and on the permanent Power of delighting possessed by Poetry, which describes them. It is probably for the most beneficent purposes that we are endued with a keen sensibility for the charms of Nature. Even now, when winter howls round us, and a damp and black gloom hovers over the lawn, and the brown leafless woods that skirt it, I look abroad from my retirement, and feel my anxieties gilded by a solemn kind of pleasure. Addison has a paper on this subject written with all that philosophical truth, that beauty of imagery, moral pathos, nice discrimination, and felicity of language, which render his essays inimitable. From the very earliest period of my life, almost every thing which has been of sufficient interest to make a lasting impression on my memory, has intermixed itself with some look of the sky, or the fields, or the woods; or some other image of Nature. I remember, though I have not power to describe, a hundred aspects of the sun and the moon over the scenes of my nativity, as connected with some childish exploit, from the age of six, nay of four, years. And surely, as sensations of this kind are among the most pure and virtuous of our existence, we may be allowed to look back upon them with satisfaction and delight! The |