only the duration of his life upon earth. (See Exod. xxi. 6.) The second is limited to the duration of Jerusalem and the temple. (See 1 Kings ix. 3.) The third class refers to the Levitical law, certain ordinances of which are called "statutes for ever." For the numerous proofs adduced, and the arguments of the writer thereon, I must refer to the work itself.* I only observe further, on this point, how injudicious it is hastily to reject an interpretation, because it may appear at first view to be opposed by some expression, without waiting to inquire whether there may not be sufficient reason to limit or qualify that expression. Unless we thus qualify scripture by scripture, we shall often be compelled to reject scripture itself. The Jews when it was intimated to them that the Son of Man must be "lifted up," answered, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever." (John xii. 34.) This was a seeming difficulty, but perfectly reconcileable if only all scripture were taken into the account. So we find that the world is to be dissolved, (2 Peter iii.) to which it may be objected, we have heard out of the law "that the earth abideth for ever." (Eccles. i. 4.) But this is no real contradiction; neither is the circumstance that Christ's kingdom is sometimes spoken of as "for ever;" and yet, in 1 Cor. xv. 24, as to be delivered up to the Father. All that is required, in regard to the word of God, is time and a patient consideration; when it will be found, in proportion as we become better acquainted with the words thereof, "that they are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge." (Prov. viii. 9.)

III. I shall in the third place throw together a few miscellaneous observations referring to principles of interpretation which are deducible from the word of God.

An

1. The first I may term the inferential or deductive. esteemed and venerable Christian writer, who however has candidly avowed his superficial acquaintance with prophetical subjects, has hazarded the following observation:-"Attempting to establish it [viz. the doctrine of the premillennial advent] on inferences and deductions, is building on the sand, and not on the rock of truth. Whatever is an object of faith is always plainly revealed in the inspired word of God." This is only one among the numerous lamentable evidences which exist of good men, and scriptural men in the main, being on some points so under the influence of prejudice, as to be led to de

* See the Letters of Trinitarius, (a writer already referred to,) Investigator, vol. i. p. 198, and also a paper on the word av in the same publication, vol. iii. p. 321.

t Sober Views of the Millennium, by the Rev. T. Jones, of Creaton, p. 26.

nounce or disparage principles which are decidedly sanctioned by the word of God. Such is the case in regard to inferences and deductions: they are employed by the spirit of God to establish some very important points of doctrine on certain occasions; and how shall we therefore presume to make light of them?*

We have recently had one instance before us in the case of St. Paul, arguing as to the extent and character of Christ's authority in his millennial kingdom, viz., "that when he (the Spirit) saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. What is this but an inference and deduction, drawn from the consideration, that he that delegates a power must still be greater than he to whom it is delegated?

Another instance is, where our Lord proves to the Sadducees the important doctrine of the resurrection, from the fact that God said to Moses in the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." This is an inference or deduction, to the effect, that as it would be contrary to the majesty and dignity of Jehovah to be the God of those whom death would effectually destroy, so they must be presumed as living unto God, and as eventually to be restored to life in the body. (Matt. xxii. 31, 32.) And this is an argument which the Sadducees were evidently rebukeable for not considering.

A third instance may be taken from the epistle to the Hebrews, relative to that rest which remaineth to the people of God. The argument by which the apostle urges it on those to whom he writes, is the circumstance, that in the Psalms the Lord (as has been noticed, page 121,) warns his people not to harden their heart, and reminds them of that generation with whom he was grieved in the wilderness for forty years, and "unto whom he sware in his wrath, that they should not enter into his rest. (Psalm xcv. 7-11.) From the fact that a practical use is made of this "after so long a time," the apostle infers, that it could have no reference to the Sabbath rest instituted at creation, nor to the rest of Canaan into which they were led by Joshua; but to some future rest which must still remain to God's people. (See Heb. chap. iii. and iv.)

One other may be noticed in Matthew v. 12. "Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so

* I must not be understood as yielding to Mr. Jones, that we have nothing but inferences and deductions to offer for the doctrine of the premillennial advent; neither am I proposing now fully to meet his objection in all its bearings. I apply myself at present only to the principles of inferences and deductions in the abstract.

persecuted they the prophets which were before you." This is given as a reason for rejoicing, in addition to the assurance that there is a reward for the persecuted in heaven. But there is no obvious comfort in the statement, unless we resort to the principle of inference and deduction. Then the consideration, that God should have permitted the wicked to persecute and trouble the righteous, leads to the necessary inference, that there must be a day in reserve of righteous retribution, when the Lord will recompense tribulation to them that trouble his people, and to them that are troubled he will recompense rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven,-evidently that "rest that remaineth." (Rom. ii. 5-10; 2 Thess. i. 6.) The persecutions, therefore, which the righteous endure for righteousness sake, are to be taken as "a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God;"-being "an evident token of perdition" to the ungodly, but to the saints a token "of salvation, and that of God." (2 Thess. i. 5; Phil. i. 28.)

It is remarkable, that all the four instances here adduced contain arguments which have a reference to the rest which remaineth to the people of God; the resurrection which is to introduce the saints to the enjoyment of it; the judgment of the wicked and recompense of the righteous therein, and the extent of the power delegated to "that man whom God hath ordained to judge the world." (Acts xvii. 31.)

These, however, are not the only class of topics in respect to which arguments are employed in the way of inference or induction: many others occur in the scriptures; I shall content myself with referring to two or three of a less obvious character, from which, nevertheless, very important conclusions are drawn. The superiority of the man over the woman, and the consequent propriety of the subjection of the latter, is insisted on by the apostle (1 Tim. ii. 11-14) from the circumstances "that Adam was first formed, then Eve; and that Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." The incongruity of polygamy, and especially of divorce, with the order and law of nature, is asserted by our Saviour on the ground that God in the first instance made man a male and a female, for which cause the man was to cleave to his wife, (Matt. xix. 3—8;) and that divorce, however it might have been winked at, on account of the hardness of the heart of the Jews, was a departure from the order constituted of God "at the beginning," and from which therefore the mind of God was to be inferred. So the duty of setting apart a seventh portion of our time for rest from labour and for the worship of God, is declared from the fact of the work of creation having been effected in six days, and God's having rested

on the seventh day and hallowed it.* And, once more, it is intimated to the people by Moses, that they ought to abstain from making graven images or other representations of the Deity, on this deductive and inferential ground, that when the Lord spake unto them in Horeb, they saw no similitude, but only heard a voice. (Deut. iv. 12-16.)

Now from these examples it is most evident, that the principle of arguing from inferences and deductions in regard to the doctrines of God is most legitimate, scriptural, and important.

2. Another principle to be noticed in regard to prophecy, is, that it does not require the terms of it to be precisely those of direct prediction. It may be truly said, that when verbs are in the future tense they signify no other than future; but the reverse does not hold good: there are other forms of the verb which have a future signification, though to an English ear the idiom may appear strange. We may take first for an example the whole of Psalm cxvii.-"O praise the Lord, all ye nations, (or Gentiles: praise him all ye people. For his merciful kindness is great toward us; and the truth of the Lord endureth forever: Praise ye the Lord." There is nothing in the first aspect of this psalm, which to an ordinary reader would appear prophetical; it seems to contain only an exhortation of the Psalmist to the nations, to render the praise due to God in consideration of his mercy and truth. Nevertheless, it is quoted by St. Paul, in Romans xv. 11, to convince the Jews that they ought not to be prejudiced against the calling of the Gentiles, seeing that it is here declared that they should praise him. Every instance, therefore, in which the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of his prophets, thus calls on any imperatively to any act, is a declaration and assurance that they shall do so; and as a first fruits from the Gentiles was given as a token and earnest in St. Paul's time, so may we be assured that the time shall arrive when all the Gentiles shall turn to the Lord, and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory and praise. When that time shall be, is declared in another similar prophecy, quoted by St. Paul, on the same occasion: "Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people.' Rom. xv. 10. For this is taken from the song of Moses, in Deut. xxxii. 43, and the connection is as follows: "Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for He will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land and to his people." (Compare Rev. xviii. 20, and xix. 5.)

* See this largely insisted on by the eminent Dr. John Owen, in his "Treatise on the Sabbath."

Another instance is Isaiah lxv. 1, 2. "I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me! Behold me! unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day, unto a rebellious people," &c. This is partly in the present and partly in the past tenses; as if some of the particulars of it, (I am sought,—I am found,) had reference to the period in which the prophecy was delivered, and the other particulars (I said, Behold me! &c.-I have spread out my hands, &c.) referred to events gone by; the whole being rather in the style of narrative than prophecy. But the whole is quoted also by the apostle, (Rom. x. 20, 21.) as referring to the reception of the Gentiles to be the Lord's people, and the casting off Israel, as witnessed in his days.

These will serve as a specimen whereby to judge of various passages, which may otherwise be lightly passed over; especially those which are couched in the form of prayer and imprecation. Psalm lxxx. will serve as a specimen of the former; Lamentations i. 22. affords an example of the latter; or Psalms cix. and lxix.-concerning the son of perdition, and the apostate Jews-so often a stumbling-block to the English reader; being viewed as a burst of the revengeful disposition of the Psalmist, instead of remembering that he spake as he was moved by the Spirit of God, and prophesied. (Compare Acts i. 20; also Matthew xxiii. 38; and Romans xi. 8-10.)

3. There is another important principle to be noticed in the structure of prophecy, and indeed in the structure of the historical parts of scripture equally, viz. that the facts related or dwelt upon are not always mentioned in their proper chronological order; but a deviation takes place without any notice or intimation thereof to the reader.

There are three modes of deviating from the regular order. The first is by prolepsis, when facts are related before some other events mentioned, which events they really follow in the order of time. The second is by what has been called episode, interrupting the regular course of the narrative. The third is in the way of appendix of particulars, after the narrative is completed. A specimen or two from the historical portions of scripture will best serve to convince the reader, and to prepare him to expect the like in prophecy.

In Genesis x. 5, 20, 31, the division of the earth "after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations,' 'is alluded to in the way of anticipation; and not till chap. xi. have we the regular account of that division.

In Genesis xxxviii. 1-5, Judah is described as taking Shuah to be his concubine, and has by her Er, Onan, and Shelah.