Gibb's Manual Lexicon [pp. 269-277]

Gibbs's Manual Lexicon.
are sorry to see the negative errors, the defects, of the original, left in statu quo. We are sorry, not because the few
omnissions sensibly detract from the practical utility of this little volume, or render it pernicious; but because it sets the
author's sentiments on some important points in a questionable light, or rather darkness. We shall not go into a discussion of the principles involved, nor inquire how far Professor
Gibbs's views are variant from our own. We need scarcely
state it as our doctrine, that if Christianity is the religion of
both Testaments, there must be Hebrew words and phrases
which imply their identity in this respect; that if the testimony of Jesus'is indeed the spirit of prophecy, if Moses and
the Psalmists did indeed write of him, it is inconceivable that
every word in the Old Testament can be fully explained without a syllable of reference to him, or what he taught. This
we maintain upon "philological principle." Lexicographers
acknowledge themselves bound to resort to every method of
eliciting the true sense and the full sense of the language.
Hence the appeal to analogy, to contexts, to the usuts loquendi,
and to critical authority. Now in carrying out this principle,
we think it not unreasonable to allow the Saviour and inspired
apostles, at least as high a place, among interpreters of Scripture, as the Talmnudists and Rabbins. Maintaining, as we do,
upon divine authority, that Christ was not unknown to the
believing "elders," but that all who of old were justified,
were justified by faith, we cannot suppose that he is never
mentioned in the very record upon which their faith was founded, or only mentioned iv av;/tac:. We do not say that Professor Gibbs maintains this, but we do say that he has not
made the contrary apparent, and has let slip opportunities of
stating his dissent upon this point from Geseniuts. We have
as yet seen nothing in his Manual to which that very learned
infidel might not subscribe. The most conscientious Jew
might use it without scruple. Now this is what we stumble
at. It is not because Professor Gibbs thinks thus or thus,
that we are startled, but because he thinks precisely as Gesenius does, so far as we can discover what he thinks at. all. We
do not mean, of course, that he goes as far, but that he goes
no further. He has nothing to add, though he finds much to
reject. Now it is so very rare for two accomplished critics to
agree in all points of interpretation, even when in doctrine they
are only not unanimous, that we cannot but marvel at this
coincidence of judgment between a Trinitarian and a German
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