with the current method of interpretation. He felt that they who
1. THE SOCINIANS. They did not advance a single Hermeneutical principle, but in all their exposition proceeded on the assumption that the Bible must be interpreted in a rational way, or—perhaps better—in harmony with reason. As the Word of God it could not contain anything that was in contradistinction to reason, that is, according to them, nothing that could not be rationally apprehended. Thus the doctrines of the Trinity, of Providence, and of the two natures in Christ, went by the board. They constructed a theological system that consisted of a mixture of Rationalism and Supernaturalism. And while they gloried in their freedom from the Confessional yoke, their exegesis was, after all, dominated by their dogmatic system.
2. COCCEJUS. This Holland theologian was very much dissatisfied with the current method of interpretation. He felt that they who regarded the Bible as a collection of proof-texts, failed to do justice to Scripture as an organism, of which the different parts were typically related to one another. He demanded that the interpreter should study every passage in the light of its context, of the prevailing thought, and of the purpose of the author. His fundamental principle was that the words of Scripture signify all that they can be made to signify in the entire discourse; or, as he expresses it in one of his works: "the sense of the words in the Bible is so comprehensive that it contains more than one thought, yea, sometimes a multiplicity of thoughts, which an experienced interpreter of Scripture can deduce from it." Thus, as Farrar says, "he introduced a false plurality of meanings, by a fatal confusion between the actual sense and all possible applications." And this was aggravated by his excessive typology, which induced him not only to seek Christ everywhere in the Bible, but also to find the vicissitudes of the New Testament Church, in the course of its history, typified in the Old Testament, and even in the words and deeds of Christ Himself. But, however faulty his exegesis, he rendered good service by calling attention to the organic character of God's revelation.