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words expressive of the common implements of war at the present day? Let him be called on to translate gunpowder, gun, rifle, swivel, bomb, cannon, Congreve rocket, and many other instruments of destruction; can he do it? Or if we transfer the scene of contest to the waters of the ocean, we may then ask him to translate this (to us very intelligible) sentence: "The brig was hulled by a broad-side from a frigate, and blown up by a Congreve rocket from a man of war." What is the reason, now, that in not one of the cases in question, or in a multitude more of the like tenor, not a single portion of this sentence can be expressed in Hebrew or Greek, in a manner like that in which we express ourselves, or even at all, except by diffuse and inadequate circumlocution? The reason, I answer, is plain enough. All these and the like objects were never within the circle of Greek or Hebrew cognition, and of course they have no names in the respective languages. This exemplifies the position, that no store-house of words was furnished in ancient times for future use, and sufficiently illustrates our assertion, that the coining of words is limited by the need of them.

Let us pause here, for a moment, and reverse the case. The Hebrews and Greeks were cognizant of many objects natural and artificial, which are entirely out of the circle of our acquaintance, and for which we have no names. How then can we translate many things named in the Scriptures of both Testaments? We cannot do it with any exactness. We must either transfer the words of the original, and explain as we best may, or we must employ a diluted and feeble circumlocution.

(3) We have seen that no people form words to designate things out of the circle of their cognition. So long then as the invisible world is known to them neither by experience nor intuition, men do not form words intended specifically to designate the objects of that world. But before a revelation, the true spiritual nature of God, and of heavenly beings, was wholly unknown to men. An imaginary future, and imaginary gods, the heathen nations indeed thought and spoke much of. But all they said and thought, in regard to these, is deeply tinged with their supposed resemblance to material and earthly objects. Their gods are of course full of human passions and infirmities. Their heaven and hell are but copies of terrestrial scenes of happiness or of misery. They were unable to go beyond this, in their conceptions or their expressions. And it was by men of such a cast, that the Hebrew and Greek languages were moulded. Joshua tells us that the ancestors of Abraham "served other gods," 24: 2; and we know what was the state of the Greeks. When prophets and apostles, then, were called to deliver inspired messages, they were compelled to employ languages

formed and fashioned by heathen polytheists and idolaters, who had no true idea of a spiritual Godhead, or of heaven, or hell. They must needs take the language as they found it, or else make a new one. But a new one would be intelligible only to the inspired, and of course it could make no revelation at all to the mass of men. they do, what did they do, in such an exigency as this?

What could

They did what the necessity of the case constrained them to do. In a few cases they formed new designations, by compounding words which bore a sense in some respects similar to the one they wished to express. They gave to some words a more prolonged or a shorter form, to indicate some discrepancy from former usage. But in far the greatest number of cases, they assigned to the old words a sense in some respects new, leaving it to the context and the nature of the case to point out the meaning of them. Nothing is plainer, than that, so far as the invisible world is concerned, all the words, which designate objects there, have a meaning in some respects quite new attached to them. Take, for example, θεός, κύριος, άγγελος, διάβολος, οὐρανός, and the like, and a moment's reflection will show, that not one of all these words was ever employed by the heathen Greek, before the Christian era, in the N. Test. sense. But the sacred writers did not, and could not, stop to define in all these cases. The context and the pervading tenor of the sentiment of course define the meaning of nearly all such words.

rant.

But beyond the objects of the invisible world, the like usage was necessarily extended. Of some of the Christian graces and virtues, and of all the peculiar truths of Christianity, the heathen were ignoHow then can they be supposed to have formed words to express those things of which they had no cognizance? The Christian grace of humility, for example, which is expressed by the newly coined word ταπεινοφροσύνη, they regarded only as pusillanimity. Αρέτη was with them the name of bravery, courage, martial spirit, a word kindred to "Aons, Mars. In like manner, they assigned to nioris, dixαioovn, págs, and other like words, a sense quite discrepant from the evangelical one. There is not a page, nor scarcely a paragraph of the N. Test., which is not stamped with that character which a new revelation of necessity assigns to words. Scarcely ever has a greater error in philology been committed, than that of the Purists, who maintained that the Greek of the N. Test. is entirely classical. If it were so, then we should find only classical, i. e. heathen ideas in it; and then, moreover, such a style would afford demonstrative evidence to the critic, that these books were not written by Hebrews.

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We have now taken a view of the general nature of the case, which has respect to the invisible world. Leaving this general view, let us, (4) Make some more special investigation of the manner in which the Scriptures of both Testaments have disclosed to us the nature and developments of the Godhead.

In the expression of all our views of God, we borrow analogies drawn from ourselves; and abstracting from them all that savors of the finite and the imperfect, we arrive at the idea of the infinite and the perfect. So we do now, and so we are compelled to do, notwithstanding all our advantages of an improved philosophy. The ancients went all lengths in these analogies. To God is assigned by them all the members of the human body, eyes, mouth, ears, arms, hands, feet, breast, etc. To God are assigned all the passions and emotions of the human mind, sinful ones only excepted. God loves, hates, is jealous, is grieved, mocks, scorns, derides, is angry, avenges himself, and the like. He ascends, he descends, he sits enthroned, he puts on dazzling costume, he makes war, he employs the bow and arrows, the spear, the helmet, and the breastplate. In a word, all that man is or does, with the exception of what is degrading or sinful, is ascribed to God in the Scriptures. How comes it, then, that no enlightened mind ever commits mistakes in regard to the interpretation of all such passages? The answer is easy. God is a spirit. This is the essence of his nature. An innumerable multitude of texts in the Scriptures exhibit him in this light, and predicate of him what can belong only to an infinite and perfect spirit. At once we say, then, that all such representations as are borrowed from our material nature and outward actions, are to be tropically understood. They are mere costume, not person. They are nothing more than symbols drawn from well known and familiar things, to indicate what we have no language to express in a direct and literal manner. Those representations, indeed, which are borrowed from the operations and affections of our own minds, comprise somewhat more of real analogy; but most of them must, when we interpret them, be greatly modified and limited. God repents means that he changes the course of his providential action. When we repent of anything, we refrain from it, and alter our course of action. The change in the course pursued, is applicable to the divine dealings; but the state of mind, in God and in us, is far from being the same. Anger in God must be a very different thing from what it is in us; but disapprobation or aversion, which lie at the basis of anger, may truly be predicated of the Divine Being. When he is said to be angry, the phraseology expresses his strong disapprobation. In saying that God derides or laughs at the attempts of his enemies, there is a vivid designation of the utterly vain and futile na

ture of those attempts as viewed by him. And the like may be said of most of the mental operations and affections ascribed to the supreme Being. Even loving and hating must be understood in a sense that divests these affections of all imperfection and weakness. Our exegetical guide, in all such cases, is the nature and perfections of God. We cannot reasonably apply anything to him, which shall be so understood as to derogate from his spotless and all-perfect being.

In all the ontological descriptions of the Godhead, moreover, there must of course be much of modification applied to the interpretation of the language. What pure spirit is in itself, we do not know; much less, what an infinite and uncreated spirit is. When we say: God is omnipresent,' we do not mean, at least we should not mean, that he is everywhere diffused, like the original fiery vapor of some geologists, or like some subtile and etherial fluid. If we say: 'God is mighty,' we must not conceive that his might, like ours, implies compactness and vigor of muscle and sinew, and of corporeal frame in general. Even when we speak of the operations of the divine mind, we must be careful how we compare them with our own. God remembers does not imply that he makes mental effort to recal past occurrences or impressions. God knows seems, at first view, to be literally applicable. But it is not exactly so. We study, compare, reason, judge, and remember, in order to know. But through these processes the divine mind does not pass. We must abstract from the application to him all the efforts and methods of acquiring knowledge, and retain only the simple idea of perfect cognition.

It were easy to extend this examination to almost everything that we ascribe to God, in respect to his ontological nature, to his thinking, or his acting; and we should find, nearly without exception, that we must use and understand language in a modified sense. The modus in quo must be left out of the account. We, when speaking of ourselves, of necessity include this. But as God is a spirit, uncreated, perfect, eternal, without parts or passions, whatever is predicated of him should not partake of what belongs to us merely as human, mortal, progressive, and never perfect.

I have said that what we affirm of the Godhead must be modified in the interpretation of it. I prefer this mode of characterizing the interpretation, to that of saying that the language is always tropically used. The latter would imply too much. When we say, God knows, it is no trope. There is the assertion of cognition in the phrase. But to apply knowing to God in the same sense as we apply it to ourselves, with all the implications that it necessarily suggests to our minds when affirmed of ourselves, would be altogether an erroneous application. As has

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already been said, we must abstract from this, and from most other expressions that have respect to the divine actions and emotions, the modus in quo throughout. Otherwise, we overlook the nature of an infinite and perfect spirit.

Let us now return, after this long but I would hope not useless digression, to noòs tòv ɛóv. Clear it is, if the principles that have now been brought to view are well grounded, that a proper space-relation or proximity is out of the question. Oɛós and Дóyos are spiritual beings, and therefore such an idea is irrelevant. The allegation that the Logos cannot be God, because he is said to be with him, and therefore must be different from him with whom he is, seems often to be founded mainly on the conception of a space-relation; and so far as it is so, it is not well grounded. The with, in this case, is something diverse from local proximity.

What then is it? A positive and direct answer, except in a modified sense, we cannot make to this question. But we may say thus much, viz. that an intimate union or connection between the Logos and God is asserted; and, as the case is, a connection of an ontological nature; for it is evidently the design of the writer to say something concerning the nature of the Logos. The fact then of an intimate connection is averred by him. But the manner of this, is not the subject of affirmation. When we assert that God is omnipresent, we assert a plain, simple, credible truth or fact. But do we assert or know anything of the manner in which he is so? When we assert his self-existence, is the manner of it brought into view? Or, (to come nearer to objects with which we are conversant), when we assert the union of soul and body, which makes a human being, do we even pretend to know anything of the manner of this? It were easy to extend the same inquiry to ten thousand thousand things, that we assert and believe as facts or truths, where the modus in quo is utterly beyond our reach. Even the blade of grass beneath our feet puts at defiance all our powers of knowledge, in regard to many particulars respecting it.

The fact, then, of an intimate connection between God and the Logos, may be asserted, and be credible, without any explanation of the manner of that connection. Indeed, an explanation in human language may be, and probably is, utterly impossible. Of course, then, we are not able to allege that the unity of the divine being is infringed by such a connection. We must have something that is inconsistent with that unity positively disclosed, before we can come to such a conclusion. But this cannot be said of the allegation before us. There may be a diversity, in some respect or other, in a being, which does not destroy its unity. Some diversity, indeed, we are constrained to acknowledge, in the VOL. VII. No. 25.

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