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ing of Scripture on any one of these mysterious subjects.

Human interpretations he has taught us altogether to discard, as impediments to the truth. He has shown, as he thinks, that neither in point of duty, nor even of prudence, is there any reason for our submitting our private judgments to the judgment of the Church; nor, when we have no judgment of our own, but are absolutely in doubt, for applying to the Church for a solution of it. And now he proceeds to infer that Scripture, when we have disengaged ourselves from these false interpreters, and thrown ourselves on its own context as our sole guide to its meaning, is in many respects so obscure and ambiguous as to admit of almost any variety of meanings with equal probability. In this opinion, indeed, Mr. Blanco White is not singular, as doctors of our Church have recently expressed it in the same or similar language. The ears of some of our readers will be familiar with a phrase of modern introduction" the facts of Scripture," which we find by certain writers distinguished from its "doctrines ;" though, from the loose manner in which they have expressed themselves, it might seem as if they had only imperfectly comprehended the terms which they had used. The drift of the distinction, however, has been plain enough. The "doctrines" which have been thus distinguished from "the facts," are next spoken of as "human theories” raised upon passages of Scripture, which might, with equal probability,

have been made the bases of "numberless other theories," i. e. systems of doctrine. And thus the received doctrines of the Church are exhibited by professing Churchmen, as one among an infinite variety of possible meanings of the texts from which they are supposed to be deduced. But, to proceed: Mr. Blanco White seems to be aware that this view of his, supported as it may be by some of the learned, will not meet with a ready reception among the people at large. Clothe it as he may in ingenious language, he is conscious that the common sense of mankind will find something revolting in it, that he shall be unable to convince persons who have studied the first verse of St. John, that what appeared to them its obvious and only meaning, was in reality only one among numberless others equally probable, and so on with other texts: so to remove this (as he considers it) foolish prejudice, he remarks as follows:

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Language being a collection of arbitrary signs and words, having no meaning but that which is given them by the mental habits of those who use them, any word, and still more, any sentence, if habitually repeated in connexion with certain notions, will appear to reject all other significations, as it were by a natural power. The identical texts which opposite parties of Christians so decidedly assert to convey, naturally and obviously, notions which destroy each other, are striking instances of the power of association over language. The controversialists stare in unfeigned surprise at what

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each conceives to be the glaring absurdity and perverseness of his opponent. The ill-subdued flames of equally genuine zeal make the blood boil in their veins when they observe that plain words are not used in their obvious sense; forgetting that in arbitrary signs, especially when they may be used figuratively, that sense alone can be obvious which use has rendered familiar."-Heresy and Orthodoxy, p. 47.

Thus he would persuade himself, and the Protestant world in general, that the confidence felt in our leading doctrines is nothing better than the result of habit, which has taught us to associate this particular meaning with certain texts equally adapted to the conveyance of other, and even opposite associations-that it is nothing but habit which makes us refuse to interpret the first verse of St. John as vaguely as we interpret Matt. xxvi. 26. concerning the Eucharist; and that to proceed, as most Protestants do, to accuse of equal blasphemy those who interpret the latter text literally, or the former figuratively, is an exhibition of prejudice in its most recondite form. He seems to imagine that the system of Protestant interpretation, however we may persuade ourselves to the contrary, is in reality as little dependent on private judgment as that of the Roman Catholics themselves; the only difference being, that the Roman Catholics profess, as a principle, their obligation to submit to tradition, while we unconsciously follow in the wake of certain doctors, whose views we have imbibed with

our mother's milk, and afterwards, from having so long taken them for granted, suppose to be selfevident. If he could but open our eyes to this fact, if he could but convince us how little real independence of thought our rejection of Romish infallibility has procured for us, and throw us really, as we vainly believe we have thrown ourselves, on the resources of private judgment, his object, he seems to think, would have been effected; Scripture would appear to every one as obscure and impenetrable as it does to himself; we should have no more dogmatism, no more "obvious meanings" of passages relating to the mysteries of religion; the utmost we should expect would be to arrive at some "probable meaning;" and we should be content with seeing, as "through a glass darkly." For the farther illustration of his views on this subject, Mr. Blanco White has printed, in his Appendix, an extract from some work of a Professor Norton, an American Unitarian, whose object, like his own, seems evidently to be the introduction of a general scepticism on the subject of Biblical interpretation. This person argues

"That a very large portion of sentences, considered in themselves, that is, if regard be had merely to the words of which they are composed, are capable of expressing not one meaning only, but two or more different meanings; or (to state the fact in other terms) that in very many cases the same sentence, like the same single word, may be used to express various and often very different senses.

Now, in a great part of what we find written concerning the interpretation of language, and in a large portion of the specimens of criticism which we meet with, especially upon the Scriptures, the fundamental truth, this fact which lies at the very bottom of the art of interpretation, has either been overlooked or not regarded in its relations or consequences. It may be illustrated by a single example. St. John thus addresses the Christians to whom he was writing, in his First Epist. ii. 20:— Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and know all things.' If we consider these words in themselves merely, we shall perceive how uncertain is their signification, and how many different meanings they may be used to express. The first clause, Ye have an anointing from the Holy One,' may signify

"1. Through the favour of God ye have become Christians, or believers in Christ; anointing being a ceremony of consecration, and Christians being considered as consecrated and set apart from the rest of mankind.

"2. Or it may mean, Ye have been truly sanctified in heart and life; a figure borrowed from outward consecration being used to denote inward holiness.

"3. Or, Ye have been endued with miraculous powers: consecrated as prophets and teachers in the Christian community.

"4. Or, Ye have been well instructed in the

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