sonification. And when agents, objects, acts, conditions, and effects of one class or sphere are used for the purpose of exemplification, to represent analogous agents, objects, acts, conditions, or effects of another class and sphere, it is by the allegory or parable. And these are the only possible forms in which language, acts, or things can be used by a figure. And in all these forms which involve propositions, the figure lies wholly in the affirmative part of the propositions, not in the names of the agents or things of which the affirmations are made. Thus when things are compared, the things compared are those which are directly named, not a different set for which those names are used by a trope. The nominatives of the propositions affirming the resemblances are always used literally. In the metaphor, the hypocatastasis, and the hyperbole, the names of the agents or objects to which the figure is applied are always employed in their literal sense. In the apostrophe and personification, the persons or things addressed are always literally those that are named as the objects of address. In the metonymy and synecdoche, the object of the affirmation is always that which is denoted by the noun as it is used by the figure. If Assyria, for example, is used by metonymy for the inhabitants of Assyria, it is to the inhabitants, not to the country, that the affirma

tion made respecting Assyria relates; and if the hand is used by synecdoche for the person, it is to the person that the proposition respecting the hand relates. And in the allegory and parable there is always an express indication who or what it is that the figure is employed to exemplify and illustrate.

There are many writers, however, who assume, and frame interpretations of the most important portions of the sacred Scriptures, on the assumption that there is still another figure; and that has the extraordinary peculiarity, that the nominative, or subject of the affirmation, is used by a trope, as well as the affirmation itself. No formal definition, indeed, is given by them of this imagined figure; and no exposition of its laws; neither are any examples cited of it; nor any direct proofs given of its existence. It is tacitly assumed, however, by thousands of writers in the exposition of the histories and prophecies of the sacred word, and constructions placed on them that proceed on the supposition, that if there be any figure in the passages giving the sense they ascribe to them, it must be of such an anomalous kind. It is obvious, however, that no such figure can exist, inasmuch as if the name of that to which the affirmation in a proposition is applied, were not used in its literal sense, it would be impossible to know who or what it is to which the

proposition relates, and which it is the object of the figure to illustrate. Thus in respect to the annunciation to Mary, "Behold, thou shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus; he shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke i. 31-33);—if this prediction were used by such a figure as these writers assume, it would be wholly impossible to determine who the personage is to whom it refers; for if Jesus is used in a tropical sense for some other being, not for the son of Mary, how can it be known who he is? The supposition that language is used by such a figure, would thus necessarily destroy all certainty and probability of its meaning.

These expositors, accordingly, do not in fact adhere to their theory, that such passages are figurative, but tacitly assume that they are symbolical, and that the agents, acts, and events of which they treat, are employed much on the principle of prophetic symbols, as representatives of others of a different class. This is what is called the spiritualization of the Scriptures, or ascription to them of a mystical meaning wholly different from their philological sense. Thus the histories of the Israelites, and

the predictions of their restoration to their ancient land, their conversion, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, and the reign of Jehovah there over them, are held to be figurative in that form; that is, that their philological meaning is but a shell under which a spiritual or mystical sense, which is their true one, is veiled; or that those persons, places, acts, and events, are used by their imagined figure to foreshow simply that the Gentiles are to be converted to the Christian faith, and become partakers of salvation. On this theory, a large share of the predictions of the ancient prophets are interpreted by them. Thus Isaiah ii. 1-5, in which the elevation in the last days of mount Zion above the surrounding hills is foreshown, and the resort there of all nations for instruction in respect to God's will, his judging them, and their becoming universally peaceful and happy, is construed in that manner :

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and

shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

The prediction made through this language does not relate, it is held by these expositors, to the mountain on which the temple-Jehovah's housestood, and is to stand, to Jerusalem, to the temple, to the Gentiles going there, nor to the Israelites; but these places, peoples, and acts are mere veils of a wholly different set; and the genuine and only real meaning is, simply, that all nations are to be converted to Christianity, and become members of the Christian church. This fancy is, however, wholly mistaken. In the first place, there is no figure that can make the passage capable of such a construction. There is none but the metaphor, the hypocatastasis, and the allegory, that can be supposed to give it an analogous or representative sense. But neither the metaphor nor the hypocatastasis could make the subjects of which the affirmations are made, namely, the mountain of the Lord's house, all nations, many peoples, and Jehovah, any other than those that are expressly named in it; as it is the law of those figures, that