PROLEGOMENA. CXIX. 



judgment. The same argument applies more 

 particularly to the reading of the Bible, which is 

 so full of emblems and figures of diction, and 

 those, too, of an antient and Asiatic character, 

 that it is next to impossible for an unlettered 

 man to read and understand them rightly by 

 himself. For though much is emblematical, 

 much also on the contrary is literal, and it is of 

 great importance to distinguish between them. 

 The author of Oedipus Judaicus taunts his 

 readers with believing literally that the whole 

 human race were damned because a woman ate 

 an apple, and laughs at the faith of him who 

 believes that a man lived three days in the belly 

 of a fish ; and he has gone on into the absurdity 

 of Dupuis and Volnay, in making out the whole 

 of the scriptures to be an astronomical metaphor. 

 The inference I draw from all this is, the necessity 

 of an established authority to expound the 

 scriptures, and to distinguish the figurative from 

 the real meaning. And this we have in our 

 church in perfection ; and it enables Catholics, 

 not only to read the scriptures, as we con- 

 tinually do in our service, as well as privately, 

 but to understand them much better than 

 protestants can do, to whom the bible is given 

 without note or comment, and consequently un- 

 intelligible to the bulk of mankind. And this is 

 the reason why the catholic missionaries make so 



