本

speak, of things mysteriously, and in a mode of delivery not understood by them. The Author of the book of Ecclesiasticus, who is reasonably supposed to have been contemporary with Antiochus Epiphanes, represents holy Scripture as fully fraught with typical and allegoric wisdom: "He that giveth his mind to the Law of the Most High, and is occupied in the meditation thereof, will seek out the wisdom of the Ancients, AND BE OCCUPIED IN PROPHECIES. He will keep the sayings of the renowned men; and where SUBTILE PARABLES are, he will be there also. He will seek out the SECRETS OF GRAVE SENTENCES, and be conversant in DARK PARABLES.' Hence it appears that the Jewish Prophecies were not so plain as our Adversary represents them; and that their obscurity arose from their having Typical or Allegorical intentions: which figures too related not to the present, but to a future Dispensation, as is farther seen from what Ezekiel says in another place-Son of man, behold they of the house of Israel say, THE VISION THAT HE SEETH IS FOR MANY DAYS TO COME, AND HE PROPHESIETH OF THE TIMES THAT ARE FAR OFF. So that these People to whom the Prophecies were so plain, and who understood them to respect their own times only, without any Typical or Allegoric meaning, complain of obscurities in them, and consider them as referring to very remote times. But I am ashamed of being longer serious with so idle a Caviller. The English Bible lies open to every FREE-THINKER of Great Britain; Where they may read it that will, and understand it that can.

As for such Writers as the Author of the Grounds and Reasons, Ta say the truth, one would never wish to see them otherwise employed: But when so great and so good a man as GROTIUS hath unwarily contributed to support the dotages of Infidelity, this is such a misadventure as one cannot but lament.

This excellent Person (for it is not to be disguised) hath made it his constant endeavour throughout his whole Comment on the Prophets, to find a double sense even in those direct Prophecies which relate to JESUS; and to turn the primary sense upon the affairs of the Jewish Dispensation; only permitting them to relate to JESUS in a secondary and by that affected strain of interpretation, hath done almost as much harm to Revelation as his other writings have done it service not from any strength there is in his Criticisms (for this, and his Comment on the Apocalypse, are the opprobrium of his great learning), but only from the name they carry with them.

:

The Principle which Grotius went upon, in commenting the Bible, was, that it should be interpreted on the same rules of Criticism that men use in the study of all other ancient Writings. Nothing could

Ἐν προφητείαις ἀσχοληθήσεται ἐν στροφαῖς παραβυλῶν συνεισελεύσεται – ἐν αἰνίγμασι παραβολῶν ἀναστραφήσεται. Chap. xxxix. 1 - 3. † Ezek. xii. 27.

:

be more reasonable than his Principle: but unluckily he deceived himself in the application of it. These rules teach us that the GENIUS, PURPOSE, and AUTHORITY of the Writer should be carefully studied. Under the head of his authority it is to be considered, whether he be a mere human or an inspired Writer. Thus far Grotius went right he examined that authority; and pronounced the Writers to be inspired, and the Prophecies divine: But when he came to apply these premisses, he utterly forgot his conclusion; and interpreted the Prophecies by rules very different from what the confession of their divine original required: for seeing them pronounced by Jewish Prophets, occupied in Jewish Affairs, he concluded their sole Object was Jewish; and consequently that the proper sense of the Prophecies referred to these only. But this was falling back from one of the grounds he went upon, That the Writers were inspired: for his interpretation was only reasonable on the supposition that these Writers prophesied in the very manner which the Pagans understood their Prophets sometimes to have done, by a natural sagacity : For, on the allowance of a real inspiration, it was GOD, and not the Writer, who was the proper Author of the Prophecy; and to understand his purpose, which the rules of interpretation require us to seek, we must examine the nature, reason, and end of that Religion which he gave to the Jews: For on these, common sense assures us, the meaning of the Prophecies must be intirely regulated. Now if, on enquiry, it should be found, that this which Grotius admitted for a divine Dispensation, was only preparatory of another more perfect, it would then appear not to be improbable that some of these Prophecies might relate, in their literal, primary, and immediate sense, to that more perfect Dispensation. And whether they did so or not was to be determined by the joint evidence of the context, and of the nature of God's whole Dispensation to mankind, so far forth as it is discoverable to us. But Grotius, instead of making the matter thus reasonably problematical, and to be determined by evidence, determined first, and laid it down as a kind of Principle, that the Prophecies related directly and properly to Jewish affairs: and into this system he withdrew all his explanations. This, as we say, was falsely applying a true rule of interpretation. He went on this reasonable ground, that the Prophecies should be interpreted like all other ancient Writings: and, on examining their authority, he found them to be truly divine. When he had gone thus far, he then preposterously went back again, and commented as if they were confessed to be merely human: The consequence was, that several of his criticisms, to speak of them only as the performance of a man of learning, are so forced, unnatural, and absurd, so opposed to the rational canon of interpretation, that I will venture to affirm they are, in all

respects, the worst that ever came from the hand of an acute and able Critic.

III.

Having now proved that the Principles which Mr. Collins went upon are in themselves false and extravagant, one has little reason to regard how he employed them. But as this extraordinary Writer was as great a Free-thinker in Logic as in Divinity, it may not be improper to shew the fashionable World what sort of man they have chosen for their Guide, to lead them from their Religion, when they would no longer bear with any to direct them in it.

His argument against what he calls typical, allegorical, but properly, secondary senses, stands thus: "Christianity pretends to ། derive itself from Judaism. JESUS appeals to the religious books of the Jews as prophesying of his Mission. None of these Prophecies can be understood of him but in a typical allegoric sense. Now that sense is absurd, and contrary to all scholastic rules of interpretation. Christianity, therefore, not being really predicted of in the Jewish Writings, is consequently false."-The contestable Proposition, on which the whole argument rests, is, That a typical or allegoric sense is absurd, and contrary to all scholastic rules of interpretation.

Would the Reader now believe that Mr. Collins has himself, in this very book, given a thorough confutation of his own capital Proposition? Yet so it is; and, contrary too to his usual way of reasoning, he has done it in a very clear and convincing manner; by shewing, that the typical and allegorical way of writing was universally practised by Antiquity." Allegory" (says he) "was much in use amongst the Pagans, being cultivated by many of the Philosophers themselves as well as Theologers. By SOME AS THE METHOD OF DELIVERING DOCTRINES; but by most as the method of explaining away what, according to the letter, appeared absurd in the ancient fables or histories of their Gods. Religion itself was deemed a mysterious thing amongst the Pagans, and not to be publicly and plainly declared. Wherefore it was never simply represented to the People, but was most obscurely delivered, and vail'd under Allegories, or Parables, or Hieroglyphics; and especially amongst the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and the Oriental Nations.-They allegorized many things of nature, and particularly the heavenly bodies-They allegorized all their ancient fables and stories, and pretended to discover in them the secrets of Natural Philosophy, Medicine, Politicks, and in a word all Arts and Sciences. The works of Homer in particular have furnished infinite materials for all sorts of allegorical Commentators to work upon. The ancient Greek Poets were reputed to involve divine, and natural, and historical notions of their Gods under mystical and parabolical expressions--The Pythagorean Philosophy was wholly delivered

in mystical language, the signification whereof was entirely unknown to the world abroad-The Stoic Philosophers are particularly famous for allegorizing the whole heathen Theology-We have several treatises of heathen Philosophers on the subject of allegorical interpretation."* If now this kind of allegorizing, which involved the Proposition in a double sense, was in use amongst the Pagan Oracles, Divines, Philosophers and Poets, is not the understanding ancient writings allegorically, or in a double sense, agreeable to all rational, scholastic rules of interpretation? Surely, as much so as the understanding mere metaphorical expressions in a tropical signification; whose propriety no one ever yet called in question. For the sense of Propositions is imposed as arbitrarily as the sense of words. And if men, in the communication of their thoughts, agree to give, on some occasions, a double sense to Propositions, as well as on others, a single, the interpreting the first in two meanings is as agreeable to all scholastic rules, as interpreting the other in one: And Propositions, with a double and single sense, are as easily distinguishable from each other, by the help of the context, as Words with a literal and figurative meaning. But this great Philosopher seems to have imagined, that the single sense of a Proposition was imposed by Nature; and that therefore, giving them a double meaning was the same offence against Reason as the deviating from the unity of pure Theism into Polytheism: and, consequently, that the universal lapse into ALLEGORY and IDOLATRY rendered neither the one nor other of them the less absurd.†

I say, he seems to think so. More one cannot say of such a Writer. Besides, he seems to think otherwise, where, in another place, as if aware that Use would rescue a double sense from his irrational and unscholastic censure, he endeavours to prove, that the Jews, during the prophetic period, did not use this allegoric way of expression. Now if we be right in this last conjecture about his meaning, he abuses the terms he employs, under a miserable quibble; and, by scholastic and unscholastic rules, only means interpreting in a single or a double sense.

The Reader perhaps will be curious to know how it happened, that this great Reasoner should, all at once, overthrow what he had been so long labouring to build. This fatal issue of his two books of the GROUNDS, &c. and SCHEME, &c. had these causes :

And, as

1. He had a pressing and immediate objection to remove. he had no great stock of argument, and but small forecast, any thing, at a plunge, would be received, which came to his relief.

The objection was this-"That the allegorical interpretations of the Apostles were not designed for absolute proofs of Christianity, but for arguments ad homines only to the Jews, who were accustomed to that "Grounds and Reasons," &c. pp. 83-86. + See note QQQ, at the end of this book.

way of reasoning."*-Thus, he himself tells us, some Divines are accustomed to talk. He gives them indeed a solid answer; but he dreams not of the consequence. He says, this allegoric reasoning was common to all mankind. Was it so? Then the grand Proposition on which his whole work supports itself is entirely overthrown. For if all mankind used it, the method must needs be rational and scholastic. But this he was not aware of. What kept him in the dark, was his never being able to distinguish between the USE and the ABUSE of this mode of information. These two things he perpetually confounds, The Pagan Oracles delivered themselves in allegories ;this was the use: Their later Divines turned all their Religion into allegory;—this was the abuse. The elder Pythagoreans gave their Precepts in allegory-this was the use: The later Stoics allegorized every thing ;—this was the abuse. Homer had some allegories ;—this was the use: His Commentators turned all to allegory;—and this again was the abuse. But though he has talked so much of these things, yet he knew no more of them than old JoHN BUNYAN; whose honester ignorance, joined to a good meaning, disposed him to admire that which the malignity of our Author's folly inclined him to decry : and each in the like ridiculous extreme.

2. But the other cause of this subversion of his own system was the delight he took to blacken the splendor of Religion. He supposed, we may be sure, it would prove an effectual discredit to Revelation, to have it seen, that there was this conformity between the Pagan and Jewish method of delivering Religion and Morality. His attempt hath been already exposed as it deserves.* But in this instance it labours under much additional folly. For the different reasons which induced the Propagators of Paganism, and the Author of Judaism, to employ the same method of information, are obvious to the meanest capacity, if advanced but so far in the knowledge of nature to know, that dif ferent ends are very commonly prosecuted by the same means, The Pagans allegorized in order to hide the weakness and absurdities of their national Religions; the Author of Judaism allegorized in order to prepare his followers for the reception of a more perfect Dispensation, founded on Judaism, which was preparatory of it; and, at the same time, to prevent their premature rejection of Judaism, under which they were still to be long exercised.

Thus we see how this formidable Enemy of our Faith has himself overturned his whole Argument by an unwary answer to an occasional objection. But this is but one, of a Work full of contradictions. I have no occasion to be particular, after removing his main Principles; yet, for the Reader's diversion, I shall give him a taste of them. In his 81st page, he says-And there has been for a long time, and is at • Page 79. † See vol. ii. book iv. sect. 1, at the end.