speaker with tongues did understand himself. The words, therefore, must be understood to mean, ' my understanding produces no fruit,* i. e. it does not benefit others. This is in accordance ^\ath all that precedes, and with the uniforn use of the word, Eph. 5, 11. Tit. 3, 14. 2 Pet. 1, 8. Matt. 13, 22. Paul had, from the beginning, been urging his readers to have regard to the edification of the church, and he here says, that if he prayed in an unknown tongue, though he acted under the guidance of the Spirit, his prayer could not profit others.* This interpretation is confirmed by vs. 16. 17, as remarked above, where the same idea is expressed by saying, the un- learned could not say Amen to such a prayer. By his under- standing being unfruitful is therefore meant, that others did not understand what he said.
The great objection to the preceding interpretation is, that my spirit and my understanding must be explained in the same way. If the latter means my own understanding, the former must mean m,y own spirit. The Holy Ghost, it is said, never is, and cannot be called my spirit, for the very reason that it is distinct from the spirit of man. The interpretation given above, however, does not suppose that my spirit means the Holy Spirit as a person, but the Holy Spirit as a manifest- ation ; it is the way in which the Spirit manifests himself in me. In other words, it is my spiritual gift. The objection, if it have any force, bears as much against the conceded mean- ing of the phrase, " the spirits of the prophets," as it does against the explanation just given of the expression, " my
♦ Calvin says, Sensus planus est. Si ergo idiomate mihi ignoto preces concipiam, ac spiritus mihi verba suppeditet : ipse quidem spiritus qui lin- guam meam gubernat, orabit ; sed mens mea vel alibi vagabitur, vel saltern non erit orationis particeps. This implies, that the gift of tongues, at least when disjoined from the gift of interpretation, was the power to speak in a language which the speaker himself did not at the time understand. Accord- ingly just before he had asked, Si donum linguae ab intelligentia separetur, ita ut qui pronuntiat, sit ipse sibi barbarus, quid proficiet sic balbutiendo ? Yet Calvin himself regarded this as ridiculous. Quam ridiculum fuisset, linguam hominis Romani formari Dei Spiritu ad pronuntiandas voces Graecas, quae loquenti essent prorsus ignotae : qualiter psittaci, et picae, et corvi humanas voces fingere docentur ? It is very certain, however, that the gift of tongues was possessed by those who had not the gift of interpretation, and yet, even in those cases, it was edifying to the speaker. It therefore follows, that this view of the nature of the gift must be erroneous. Those speaking with tongues were not parrots or ravens. The expression in the text, my understanding is unfruitful, consequently cannot moan. " I do not myself understand what I say."