Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/21



HEN the Scriptures of the Old Testament are accepted, collectively, as an embodiment of First Truths in Theology and Morals, three suppositions concerning them are before us; one of which, or a part of each, we may believe ourselves at liberty to adopt. The three suppositions are these:—

1. We may grant that these writings—symbolic as they are in their phraseology and style, and, to a great extent, metrical in their structure, as well as poetical in tone—were well suited to the purposes of religious instruction among a people, such as we suppose the Israelitish tribes to have been at the time of their establishment in Palestine, and such as they continued to be until some time after the return of the remnant of the nation from Babylon.