Literal Interpretation by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 18, 1878

Literal Interpretation.

By John Norton Loughborough

The following was written by William Tyndale, the great English reformer, in 1530. He, though dead, should be allowed to speak :—

“Thou shalt understand, therefore, that the Scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou cleave thou canst never err, or go out of the way. And if thou leave the literal sense, thou canst not but go out of the way. Nevertheless, the Scripture useth proverbs, similitudes, riddles, or allegories, as all other speeches do ; but that which the proverb, simile, riddle, or allegory signifyeth is ever the literal sense which thou must seek out diligently.

“Origen, and the doctors of his time, drew all the Scriptures unto allegories, whose ensample they that come after followed so long, till they at last forgot the order and process of the text, supposing that the Scripture served but to feign allegories upon, insomuch that twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, as children make descant upon plain songs. . . .

Yea, thou shalt find enough that will preach Christ, and prove whatsoever point of faith that thou wilt, as well out of a fable of Ovid, as any other poet, as out of St. John’s gospel or Paul’s epistles. Yea they are come unto such blindness, that they not only say the literal sense profiteth not, but also that it is hurtful and noisome and killeth the soul.”—Works of Tyndale and Fryth, Vol. I, pp. 339, 343, 344.

J. N. L.