myself particularly to the service of others. But I have some gifts as a public speaker, and have been educated for this kind of work. I know pretty well what will take with the people, and I am prepared to give it to them. If you want a man who can draw a congregation, hold it, entertain it, and draw from it an ample revenue for all current expenses, I think I can suit you." The average church committee — though in matters of business living precisely on this plane themselves would be shocked. by such an avowal on the part of a minister, and I am glad of it. I recognize the soundness of the moral sense in this revulsion. But I would hold the people all of them; I care not what their occupation to the very standard of duty to which they hold me. I deny their right to enter any calling or occupation with any other purpose or in any other spirit than that which they require of me. I want every man to make his calling a ministry. I want him to feel that he is in it, not simply for what he can get out of it, but for what of genuine service he can render the world through it. And there is no calling in life that meets any real need of body or soul which does not afford opportunity for divinest service, and so for growth through this spirit of service into closest fellowship with God. Right here, dear reader, is all the difference between the religi ous and the secular spirit. The one works in conscious union with God in the service of the brother. The other works with no thought of union with the Divine, and no purpose of any service but that of self. And these two spirits, brought out in character and embodied in society, make all the difference between heaven and hell.

VI.

THEORIES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION.

G

BY PRESIDENT O. CONE, D.D.

ERMAR said in 1821, in the introduction to his work on Biblical Interpretation, which happily has exerted no great influence, that the investigation and criticism of the prevalent methods of interpretation is rendered extremely difficult by the fact that their principle and system are seldom definitely declared, more seldom appear in a pure form, and most rarely find a consistent application. This remark would not be amiss if applied to a great part of the work which passes for Biblical interpretation at the present day. The current expositions of Scripture, whether they proceed from the pulpit or the chair of Theology, are for the most part vitiated by the absence of a clear conception in their authors of a hermeneutical method, or by the failure to carry out a right method to its logical results, if one happens. at all to be applied. Theology, grammar, allegory, philology, typology, mysticism, and edification contribute, each a share, to intensify the confusion; or if a fruitful principle of interpretation is haply discerned and employed at the outset, its consistent application is too often defeated by a timid conservatism, which beats a retreat the moment the system

1 Die Panharmonische Interpretation der Heiligen Schrift, von Friedr. Heinr. Germar, Schleswig, 1821.

of theology to which it is committed, is seen to be in danger.

This paper cannot be a treatise on hermeneutics, nor a history of hermeneutical theories. Its object will be accomplished if a study and correct estimate of the principal erroneous methods of Biblical interpretation shall be made, and the right method so clearly set forth and so well defended as to secure the favorable judgment of the reader.

With regard to the definition of interpretation, or hermeneutics, it is not necessary here to discuss the authorities and to decide whether one ought to hold with Ernesti1 that it is the science of clearly comprehending and explaining the sense of an author, or with Schleiermacher 2 that it is limited to teaching what the interpreter has to observe in order to put himself in possession of the thought of the writer to be interpreted. The right understanding of what one reads is certainly first in order and importance; and for the object at present in view Immer's3 definition is sufficient, "The science of removing the differences between us and the writer." In order to remove this difference we must put ourselves in the writer's place and realize his situation, his mode of thought, his degree and quality of culture, the readers whom he addressed, and the object which he had in view. All this is evidently something more than understanding the writer's words in their ordinary meaning and grammatical connection. We must occupy his intellectual point of view, appreciate his spirit and

1 Institutio Interpretis, N. T. 1761.

2 Hermeneutik und Kritik, von Lücke, 1838.

8 Hermeneutik des N. T. 1873. (Eng. transl. Andover, 1877).

prejudices, have clearly before us the effect which he aimed to produce, and enter into his emotions, feeling his fervor or his coldness. To read his lines is not enough; we must read what is unwritten and lies between the lines. So the accomplished actor interprets the dramatist. He who will interpret a

satirist must become a satirist. He who will interpret Homer must become a Greek of the Heroic Age. He who will interpret the later Isaiah must become an impassioned Jew of the Exile, full of the zeal of the theocracy and the enthusiasm of the Restoration.

Too much emphasis cannot be put upon the necessity that the interpreter free himself from prepossessions both for and against the writer and his opinions. He should regard the writing as a fact apart, which he is to judge without interest in its relation to his preconceptions. A strong prepossession for, and a strong prejudice against, a writer are almost equally disturbing influences. The mind of the interpreter must be hospitable enough to welcome and duly appreciate a thought of the writer which is opposed to his own convictions and to what he wishes. to find. He must not so hold the writer in contempt as not to receive gladly a great truth from him, nor so honor him as to be led to do violence to a sound hermeneutics by an attempt to explain away his errors or irrational conclusions. If he may not assume the author whom he is to interpret to be an untrustworthy guide, neither may he assume him to be an infallible oracle; since whether he is the one, or the other, or neither, is a question to be answered by the results of interpretation, and not a presupposition which should be allowed to influence its

conclusions. For the same reason the interpreter may not allow a tradition concerning a book, or a writing, nor any claims of its author to inspiration or infallibility, to affect his procedure by betraying him into unworthy expedients to modify the literal sense of a passage in order to save the writer's assumed reputation. The author's reputation must be determined by the conclusions of a fair and correct interpretation, which alone can sift his claims. It is the task of hermeneutics, for example, to decide how the claim of the writers of the Old Testament to speak by the "Word of God" should be regarded. For it is only by that process of interpretation which is called "historical" that it can be determined whether or no the view which they held of God's relation to the world led them to ascribe the operations of their own minds to an immediate Divine agency. The interpreter will be able to solve this problem when he shall have removed the difference between himself and the author by correctly estimating the latter's point of view, putting himself in his place, realizing his theology and his theory of the world, and throwing off the subtle influence of his own prepossessions and opinions.

These considerations should not, however, prejudice the reader against what may be called the sympathetic factor in interpretation. It is consistent with the rigorous requirement of an independent and unbiased attitude of the interpreter toward the writer to be interpreted to affirm that the former should be in sympathy with the latter, according to the principle that only kindred minds can fully understand each other. Sympathy with his author on the part