we are all here bound together in one generous communion of free thought and free speech; and by consistently acting out that principle in our conduct through life, let us prove to a distrustful world, how possible it is to reconcile a wise conservatism with healthy progress, and to combine the freest search after truth with the reverent humility of a pious heart.

V. The Spiritual Interpretation of Scripture.

BY JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A.*

A

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY which undertakes to train young men for the ministry of the Christian Church, is placed in a peculiar and somewhat embarrassing relation to the sphere of scientific inquiry on one hand, and the sphere of practical usefulness on the other. Between these two spheres it stands; and each has an almost equal claim on its reverent regard. Could we exclude all thought of the living world around us, and work out our critical results with the same recklessness of consequences that the mathematician experiences in disentangling the complexities of mere quantity, the task of those whose duty it is to explore and communicate theological truth would be greatly simplified, and their responsibilities proportionally lightened. But we cannot do this. The condition of the society in which we live, the connection of its existing beliefs with the practical morality of the mass of human beings, its susceptibility of influences which may be made to involve, just as they are exhibited and applied, all the difference, momentous as it may be, between a great principle or a fatal mistake, the dependence of the proper effect of even the highest truth on the moral culture and preparedness of the minds to which it is

* An Address delivered at the Opening of the Session, October 12, 1863, by the Rev. J. J. Tayler, B.A., Principal.

addressed-these are facts which it would be madness to overlook, which cannot be eliminated from the practical problem set before us, but must be taken into account as elements essential to its satisfactory solution. On the other hand, were we to discard all science but such as a former age has accepted and ratified, our business as philanthropists and social reformers would certainly be disencumbered of not a few difficulties, and, for a time at least, might proceed more smoothly and pleasantly; and it is remarkable that the men who have produced the strongest impression on the religious condition of their times-Paul, Luther, Wesleyeschewed all science, and, adopting without question the forms of theological thought which they found traditionally current in the world, availed themselves of the hold which these had already obtained on the surface of the human mind, to penetrate through them with a new spiritual power into its hidden depths. But scientific truth cannot be for ever kept in abeyance. However for a season the spiritual and scientific elements of our nature may beneficially subsist apart, each doing a work of its own,--a time will certainly arrive, with the fuller development of our entire humanity, when they must come into collision, and when their respective claims and mutual relationship will have to be determined by the comprehensive reason of mankind. Our Puritan forefathers were saved by the broad assumptions of the old Protestantism from many critical perplexities which harass the scholars of the present generation. They took the whole Bible from beginning to end as literally the Word of God. All that they had to do was to ascertain what it said, and to acquiesce.

It was a simple question of grammar and interpretation. If apparent contradictions to reason and the moral sense anywhere occurred, as such things could not for a moment be admitted in an infallible and divinelyinspired record, it was taken for granted that they would be cleared up hereafter; they were thought to arise from our own imperfect knowledge and narrow comprehension; or they were thrown back with a reverent awe into the unsearchable depths of spiritual mysteries. But evasions like these--for answers they were not-no longer satisfy the anxious questionings of devout and earnest minds. The Sufficiency of Scripture in the old-fashioned sense can no longer be determined by a single process of argumentation ab extra, handing over to us as the result an absolutely authoritative instrument, where we have only to read the instructions and to obey. There is a previous question, scarcely touched on in the old books on the Evidences-how this instrument was itself put together, and how its letter must often be construed to carry its spirit into effect. In the face of conclusions established beyond the reach of all rational controversy, by such men as Bunsen, Jowett, Stanley, Davidson, and Colenso (to mention only names familiar to an English audience), no one will now venture to assert, that because a thing is said in so many words in any part of Scripture, therefore it must be accepted as a declaration of positive fact or an utterance of absolute truth. Scripture has acquired a new aspect in the light cast on it by the rapid development of historical and philological science. It has ceased to be one book with an uniform character throughout, and taken the form of a multifarious

literature, radiating hues of thought, all fundamentally religious in their tone, but as various as the media through which they are refracted, and none of them to be identified with the pure white light of truth which is behind them and shines through them. This revolution of opinion respecting the Bible is an accomplished fact. It is impossible for any well-informed mind to go back again to the scriptural position maintained by our ancestors. The knowledge of the age forbids it. Scripture must henceforth hold a different, though, as I shall hope to shew, a not less important place in our plan of theological study; and it becomes, therefore, one of the gravest questions of the day, especially for those who fill the office of teachers in an Academy like this-how the Scriptures, which have been, still are, and will ever be, the main source of spiritual strength and comfort to our human world, are to be viewed and handled and enforced in the altered state of enlightened belief respecting them-to keep them in harmony with a progressive science, and secure to them not only an unenfeebled but a more exalted influence over the popular mind.

When a book, like the Bible, of very miscellaneous contents, contributed under the greatest diversities of social and mental condition, some thousands of years ago, in languages that are now extinct, has to be made a reliable vehicle to modern times of the spiritual influences which God has breathed into it, three separate inquiries must be instituted by every theologian who understands his duty in its whole extent. He must first recover, by a comparison of existing manuscripts, versions and citations, the nearest possible