Notes Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush [pp. 271-301]

Bus/s on Genesis.
in the common ruin! And this is but consistent. It seems,
indeed, as though men were intent on substituting their own
miraculous theories, for the simple statements of inspired
truth, patching together any device, however incongruous,
to evade the obvious force of words, and that too when there
appears no shade of inducement whatever. Accordingly, we
find the author's conclusion thus stated: "The truth is, the
literal mode of interpretation is not demanded by the terms
of the text. Salt is a symbol of perpetuity, and' a pillar of
salt' conveys the idea of a lasting monument, a perpetual
memorial of the sad consequences of disobedience." The
fearful catastrophe, which, even in the Evangelist's day, a
single intimation could call up vividly to the mind, is reduced to this cold, shadowy nonentity: "Remember Lot's
wife!" that she looked back, and became a "perpetual memorial." How, we are left to conjecture. For aught we are
informed by such an interpretation,she might have been buried
as far from view as ever Moses was. Give us the embalming
operation in preference to this exhausting, annihilating process.
If the former were legitimate in explanation of this event,
then from the same natural causes, many an impious Sodomite
must have been incrusted by this streaming lava, and have
stood as truly "a pillar of salt" as she. If the latter be the
purport of the Mosaic language, then Cain was a "pillar of
salt." Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea were so many
" pillars of salt;" either of them far more worthy of the designation than the wife of Lot; for inspiration informs us of
the direct interposition by which they met their doom, while
of her, we are obscurely told that she became a "perpetual
memorial" of the sad consequences of disobedience.
We contend for principles, important as they are true, in
the interpretation of miracles. When we are plainly told
that our Saviour at Cana of Galilee, "turned water into
wine,"' we ask not to be shown how, by the admixture of
certain ingredients, this could be tolerably done-We understand the statement as it is. And so in the miraculous
events under consideration. Our God is competent to the
work without the avail of physical resources. And why
prevaricate when the letter of the record is so explicit? German critics do it, but first adopt as a principle of their hermeneutics, the revolting position, that a miracle is an
impossibility. Professor Bush would never lend them
intentional countenance; but in his admiration of their
learned ingenuity, he has copied the manner of explaining
goo0
[A IL