329,) we point,--where else _should_ we point?--unhesitatingly to _her_ unwavering witness from the beginning. * * * * * VII. The Essay which brings up the rear in this very guilty volume is from the pen of the "REV. BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A., [Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, and] Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford,"--"a gentleman whose high personal character and general respectability seem to give a weight to his words, which assuredly they do not carry of themselves[144]." His performance is entitled "ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:" being, in reality, nothing else but a laborious _denial of its Inspiration_. Mr. Jowett's quarrel is with the whole body of Commentators on the Bible,--ancient and modern; with the whole Church Catholic. He cannot endure the claim of that Book, (like its Divine object and Author,) to "a Name which is above every other Name." That Plato and Sophocles should be capable of but one method of Interpretation, and _that_ the literal,--while the Bible lays claim to a yet profounder meaning,--so distresses the Regius Professor of Greek, that he has appropriated to himself almost a quarter of the present volume, in order that he may cast laborious and systematic ridicule on the very supposition. Some parts of his method I propose presently to submit to _exactly the same "free handling" which he has himself applied to THE WORD OF GOD_. In the meantime, since it is my intention not only to demonstrate the worthlessness of the structure which Mr. Jowett has with so much perverse industry here built up, by an examination of some parts of it in detail, but also to pull down as much of the fabric as I am able within a small compass,--(the construction of something which it is hoped will prove more durable, being to be found in my IIIrd and IVth, Vth and VIth Sermons,)--I proceed at once to inspect the foundation-stone of his edifice; and briefly to demonstrate its absolute insecurity. $1.$ Mr. Jowett's fundamental principle is expressed in the following brief precept: "_Interpret the Scripture like any other book._" (p. 377.) To this favourite tune, (although he plays many intricate variations on it,) he invariably reverts in the end[145]. On this preliminary postulate therefore, which, at first sight, to a candid mind, seems fair enough, I proceed to remark as follows:--