to 2)2 Secu

SECTION IV.

Principles for investigating the Sense of the Books of the New Testament from the Knowledge of the Things treated of.

I.

Of the Interpretations of the Doctrines of Faith contained in the New Testament.

§ 260. The first and best aids for the explanation of the doctrines of the New Testament are:

1. The collection of canonical books of the Old Testament, the truth of which Jesus himself assumed, which he read for himself under Divine guidance, and to which he appealed in his dis

courses.

2. To a certain extent, also, the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament: these, indeed, adhere in the main to the system of Moses and the prophets; and wherever they deviate from this, they serve to make us acquainted with certain false notions of the Jews, against which the instructions of Jesus and the apostles are partly directed. For instance, 2 Maccabees vii. xiv.

3. From those passages, also, of the New Testament in which the religious errors of the Jews are

opposed, the peculiar doctrines of Jesus and his disciples may be ascertained.

4. The erroneous explanations of dogmatic passages in the Old Testament, which were current among the Jews at the time of Christ, may be also learned from the Chaldee Paraphrases of the Old Testament.

5. An acquaintance with the writings of Philo will throw the necessary light on many of the dogmatic positions in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

6. Although the Talmud is principally taken up with laws and their interpretation, the prayers, nevertheless, which are contained in it, are a very sound guide to the knowledge of the belief and expectations entertained by the Jews, even after the destruction of Jerusalem.

7. Finally, there will be found in the pseudepigraphal writings, which were written by Jewish Christians or by Jews, many elucidations of the dogmas held by the Jews of those times.

§ 261. In order to assist future interpreters in regarding from the proper point of view the doctrines of the New Testament, and ascertaining the true meaning of the instructions of Jesus and the apostles, some such general principles as the following should be previously borne in mind.

1. The general truths of religion, throughout the entire of the Holy Scriptures, are, objectively considered, the same in both the Old and New

Testaments. The object of religious worship is always the ETERNAL (Jehovah), the Creator and Governor of the universe, and the relation of mankind to the one eternal God remains the same throughout the Bible, although, as already stated (§ 146, seq.,) men, at various times, had divers subjective conceptions thereof.

2. Jesus did not pronounce the doctrines of Moses and the Prophets concerning God, and the relation which men bore to Him, to be false and abrogated; but gave a purer and more perfect revelation of them to mankind. Matt. v. 17.

3. He delivered new instructions concerning the eternal purpose, which God was to accomplish through him to the human race, and of which he alone had the fullest knowledge. Matt. xi. 27. John i. 18; v. 20.

4. It is, therefore, an error, which many commit, in supposing that Christ (Matt. v. 19,) intended to oppose his doctrine to that of Moses. He rather exhibited, in a clearer view, the instructions of Moses and the prophets, and confirmed them by his own authority, but, at the same time, opposed and refuted the false interpretations of the Law and of Scripture, given by the ancient teachers who lived before him, and in his time.

5. The many prejudices entertained by the Jews against the truth (§ 219), and the gross errors to which they were so prone, unfortunately gave rise to frequent misconceptions of the meaning of Jesus and his apostles, and to the understanding of his

words in a quite different sense from that which they were designed to convey. The fixed rule, therefore, laid down, § 27, must be carefully attended to in the interpretation of the New Testament, and especially of the doctrines contained therein "that is not always the true sense of the sayings of Jesus and of the writings of the apostles which the Jews, by reason of their prejudices, attached to them; but that which they should have attached to them, from a consideration of the scope of the speakers and writers." John iii. 5-16; vi. 60, et seq.; viii. 51-57.

6. Even the apostles themselves, and others among the first followers of Christ, were, previous to his death, not capable of comprehending aright all the doctrinal truths of his religion. It was, therefore, conformable to his wisdom to reserve many of them to that period when their eyes were opened through his death, resurrection, and ascension to the Father. John xvi. 13, compared with Acts i. 6, 7, and 1 Cor. ii. 9-14.

7. It is consequently a false position, which some have assumed,—that the doctrines of the New Testament are to be altogether drawn from the sayings of Jesus; for by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and the instrumentality of the Divine word, as well as by their own deeper reflections, and by bringing to their remembrance the instructions they had already received from Jesus, the apostles gradually acquired a more just and perfect knowledge of the truths of religion, especially in regard

to the person of Jesus, the design of his death, and his heavenly exaltation.

8. The sense of the sayings of Jesus and of the writings of the apostles, in those passages which contain religious truths, is to be interpreted conformably to the universally acknowledged principles of rational religion; but reason alone could not have discovered every doctrine which Jesus delivered as religious truth. The province of reason is to try those doctrines by her own principles, and to prove their agreement with that unerring standard.

9. It is the first duty of the interpreter to unfold the subjective conceptions which the apostles and evangelists had of the truth, and to exhibit them with their imperfections, according to the grammatico-historical interpretation, and in the next place to investigate and generally to express their objective truth. Paul, for instance, Rom. i. 18, ii. 5, speaks, as the prophets did, of God's wrath. What were the views held by him of the doctrine of the atonement, and what were the conceptions of other believers in his time on the subject? Were not most of them of the opinion that God is mutable? This was their subjective sense, but not the objective or real truth; consequently the doctrine itself, and the individual conceptions which the first teachers of the religion formed of it, are to be carefully distinguished. In Christ is laid the foundation of the remission of the punishment of sin, on certain conditions: this is the general objective truth; this is to be the interpreter's next