but a few concrete terms, necessarily employ abstract ones; e. g. the Hebrew and its cognate dialects, in which abstracts are often used in the place of concretes. Such usage being once established by necessity, it often extended itself where necessity did not require it.

(2.) From a desire to render the subject spoken of prominent. When an abstract is put for a subject with its pronoun, or for the subject itself, it directs the mind to that very thing on account of which the predicate is asserted. No one will deny that this mode of expression is energetic.

(3.) The purpose of ornament is subserved, not only by the prominence of which I have just spoken, but by a certain elevation and grandeur of style, connected with this mode of speaking.

§ 26. Popular and learned use of words. Finally, to some words popular use attributes one meaning, the use of the learned another. Not that words naturally signify one thing in common life, and another in a treatise of science; but that they are used less skilfully in the one case, and with more skill and accuracy in the other. Interpreters who confound these usages, of course pervert the sense of words.

PART V.

RULES OF INTERPRETATION.

CHAPTER I.

Introductory Remarks.

§ 1. Design of this Part. Thus far we have been employed in considering the general nature of language, the various kinds of words in use, and also the meaning appropriate to each class. Having taken this general view of the nature and properties of words, we may now proceed to deduce, from the principles already established, various rules of interpretation, by which the efforts of the interpreter are to be directed. The consideration of these rules, with their various classes and ramifications, will constitute the FIFTH PART of the present work.

§ 2. What are rules of interpretation? They are directions or formulas, which explain and define the mode of rightly investigating and perspicuously representing the sense of words, in any particular author.

§ 3. Origin of these rules. They are deduced from the nature of language, as above explained; and deduced, not by logical subtleties, but by observation and experience.

§ 4. Object of rules. These rules serve not only to assist in finding the sense of words, but also in judging whether any particular sense put upon words be true or false. By them, too, one may not only be assisted to understand why a particular sense is erroneous, but also why the true one cannot be discovered.

§ 5. Rules of exegesis connected with the usus loquendi. We have seen above, that the sense of words depends on the usus loquendi. Proper rules, then, for finding the sense, or judging of it, ought to have special respect to the usus loquendi, and to show how it is applied to every particular case.

§ 6. Usus loquendi general and special. The usus loquendi, considered at large, has respect to a language generally; specially considered, it has respect to some particular writer. To the common usage of words almost every writer adds something that is peculiar to himself; whence arise the idioms of particular writers.

§7. Order in which the subject will be pursued. The natural method of treating the usus loquendi will be followed so that we shall first consider the method, in general, of finding the usus loquendi in the dead languages; and then the method of finding it in any particular author, but more especially in the writings of the New Testament.

CHAPTER II.

OF FINDING THE USUS LOQUENDI GENERALLY IN THE DEAD LANGUAGES.

[Compare Keil, §§ 25-34. Beck, pp. 131-136. Seiler, §§ 236254.]

§ 1. Usus loquendi is known by testimony. If the usus loquendi is mere matter of fact, it may be known, in the dead languages, by the testimony of those who lived when these languages were flourishing and in common use, and who well understood them. This testimony is direct or indirect. (Morus, p. 74. II.)

By the usus loquendi is meant, the sense which usage attaches to the words of any language. It is surprising that any attempts should ever have been made to find the sense of words in a dead language, by means different in their nature from those which we employ to find the sense of words in a living language. The meaning of a word must always be a simple matter of fact; and of course it is always to be established by appropriate and adequate testimony. Yet how very different a course has been pursued, I will not say by many Rabbinic Cabbalistic commentators merely, nor by monks and zealots for the Romish hierarchy, but, by many Protestants who have had great influence, and who deserve on many accounts the highest respect. Witness the exegetical principles of Cocceius and his followers; and read, if the statement just made be doubted, many of the articles in Parkhurst's Heb. Lexicon.

§ 2. How to obtain direct testimony. Direct testimony may be obtained, first, from the writers to whom the language investigated was vernacular; either from the same authors whom we interpret, or from their contemporaries. Next, from those who though fo reigners, had learned the language in question. (a) Thirdly, from scholiasts, glossographies, and versions

made while the language was spoken, and by those who were acquainted with it. But these must be severally treated of.

(a) Thus the writings of Marcus Antoninus a Roman Emperor, and of Philo and Josephus who were Jews, may be used to illustrate the meaning of Greek words, because, although foreigners, they well understood the Greek language.

§3. Testimony of cotemporary writers. The most important aid is afforded by writers of the first class; for their testimony is particularly weighty. This testimony may be drawn from three sources. (1.) From the definitions of words. (2.) From examples and the nature of the subject. (3.) From parallel passages. (Morus, p. 79. v.)

§ 4. (1.) Definitions. In regard to these, nothing more is necessary than to take good care that the definition be well understood; and to consider how much weight the character of the writer who defines it may properly give to it.

§ 5. (2.) Examples, and the nature of the subject. In regard to these, it may be said that a good understanding and considerable practice is necessary to enable one to judge well, and to make proper distinctions. (Morus, p. 81. vII.)

By examples is meant, that the writer who uses a particular word, although he does not directly define it, yet gives in some one or more passages an example of what it means, by exhibiting its qualities or shewing the operation of it. Thus Paul uses the words σToxεια тоν коσμov, at first, without an explanation. But we have an example of the meaning of it in Gal. iv. 9. Thus TOTIC is illustrated by examples in Heb. xi.; and so of many other words.

The nature of the subject, in innumerable places, helps to define which meaning of a word the writer attaches to it, in any