Book Description

Excerpt from Lectures in Divinity, Vol. 2 Several parts of the history cannot be understood in a literal sense. Thus, it is not to be supposed that the tree of which man was forbidden to eat, had the power which the name seems to imply, and which the serpent suggests, of mak ing those who ate the fruit of it wise, knowing good and evil, neither rs it to be supposed that the serpent at that time pos sessed these powers of speech and reason which the narration seems to ascribe to him, or that the plain meaning of these words, the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, expresses the whole punishment of the tempter. Several writers, indeed, who are disposed to turn the Scriptures into ridicule, have stated what they call the absurdity or the frivolousness of the literal sense, as a reason for rejecting both the narration and the books in which it is contained. But it has been well answered, that the narration bears upon the face of it the marks Of that symbolical style which prevailed amongst all nations in early times from the poverty of language, and which, even after it has ceased to be necessary, continues to be used, both because it is ancient and because it is expressive. In this sym bolical style, the Objects of sense are employed to represent the conceptions of the mind actions or things material to represent things spiritual and under words which are true when inter preted literally, there is couched some more exalted meaning. To the learned it cannot appear surprising, that the book which claims to be the most ancient Should adopt a style which occurs in other early productions; that a transaction which assumes a date next to that of the creation, and the memory of which had probably been preserved amongst the first men by symbols, should be recorded by the historian of a future age in a Ian guage which referred to these symbols and that circumstances might pieieiit him from attempting to remove the veil which this symbolical language threw ov er the transaction. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.