1 Corinthians 14:2

2. Unknown tongue The word unknown, though interpolated by the translator, expresses the truth. The “tongues” were unintelligible to the congregation unless interpreted. And herein they were far inferior to the pentecostal tongues, which spoke to every man in his native dialect. Perhaps we may say that the difference was, that the pentecostal Spirit brought all (save the mockers) into full spiritual communication with the speakers, so that they were all charismatic interpreters.

Dr. Poor, in Schaff’s Lange, takes the ground that the Corinthian charismatic language consisted not in speaking foreign languages, but in speaking a speech, “new and clean,” formed by the Spirit himself, inasmuch as the foreign tongues of that day were defiled with paganism. But we reply, by the ordinary view the pentecostal tongues were foreign and pagan. Yet may we not unite his view with our own? Let us suppose that the true new tongue was the Spirit language heard by St. Paul near the third heaven. This language can be received only by those like St. John, (Revelation 1:10,) more or less “in the Spirit.” Yet the converse of pure spirits is not through the medium of sound, but is the pure and perfect impartation of the thought itself. When man receives it into his spirit it tends to take the form of language sometimes of his own native language; sometimes, by diffusive sympathy, of foreign human dialects; sometimes of vocalities belonging to no known language, yet inherently expressive of the thought. In the latter case the man may lack the power of interpreting the thought into ordinary language, and yet the hearer, brought into sympathy, may perform the office of interpreter, as explained in our note on 1 Corinthians 14:5.

Unto God As his only real hearer.

In the Spirit In his own spirit.

Mysteries The mysteries of the gospel previously unknown to men.

A modern resemblance to the gift of tongues was that in the church of the celebrated Edward Irving. We give the following passage from a witness of the phenomena, which we take from Stanley, p. 252: “As an instance of the extraordinary change in the powers of the human voice when under inspiration, I may here mention the case of an individual whose natural voice was inharmonious, and who, besides, had no ear for keeping time. Yet even the voice of this person, when singing in the spirit, could pour forth a rich strain of melody of which each note was musical, and uttered with a sweetness and power of expression that was truly astonishing; and, what is still more singular, with a gradually increasing velocity into a rapidity, yet distinctness, of utterance which is inconceivable by those who have never witnessed the like: and yet, with all his apparently breathless haste, there was not in reality the slightest agitation of body or of mind. In other instances the voice is deep and powerfully impressive. I cannot describe it better than by saying that it approaches nearly to what might be considered a perfect state of the voice, passing far beyond the energies of its natural strength, and at times so loud as not only to fill the whole house, but to be heard at a considerable distance; and though often accompanied by an apparently great mental energy and muscular exertion of the whole body, yet in truth there was not the slightest disturbance of either; on the contrary, there was present a tranquillity and composure both of body and of mind the very opposite to any, even the least degree of, excitement.

“The consciousness of the presence of God in these manifestations is fraught with such a holy solemnity of thought and feeling as leave neither leisure nor inclination for curious observation. In a person alive to the presence of the Holy Ghost, and overwhelmed by his manifestations beside and around him, and deeply conscious that upon his heart, naked and exposed, rests the eye of God, one thought alone fills his soul, one wail of utterance is heard, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ Nor can the eye be diverted from the only sight that is precious to it, far more precious than life itself, ‘The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.’”

The following is from a subject of the influence:

“I read the fourth chapter of Malachi; as I read the power came upon me, and I was made to read with power. My voice was raised far beyond its natural pitch with a constrained repetition of parts, and with the same inward uplifting, which at the presence of the power I had always experienced. Whilst sitting at home it came upon me, but for a considerable time no impulse to utterance; presently a sentence in French was vividly set before my mind, and under the impulse to utterance was spoken. Then, in a little time, sentences in Latin were in a like manner uttered; and, with short intervals, sentences in many other languages. Judging from the sound and the different exercise of the enunciating organs, my wife, who was with me, thought some of them to be Italian or Spanish; the first she can read and translate, the second she knows but little of. Sometimes single words were given me, and sometimes sentences, though I could neither recognise the words nor sentences as any language I knew, except those which were French or Latin.… My persuasion concerning the unknown tongue, as it is called, (in which I myself was very little exercised,) is, that it is no language whatever, but a mere collection of words and sentences; and in the lengthened discourses is, most of it, a jargon of sounds; though I can conceive, when the power is very great, that it will assume much of the form of a connected oration.” P. 254.

Dr. Bushnell has, in his “Natural and Supernatural,” a suggestive chapter on gifts. He relates that in New England, at a place designated as H., at a religious meeting, “After one of the brethren had been speaking in a strain of discouraging self-accusation, another present shortly rose with a strange, beaming look, and, fixing his eye on the confessing brother, broke out in a discourse of sounds wholly unintelligible though apparently a true language, accompanying the utterances with strange and peculiarly impressive gestures, such as he never made at any other time; coming finally to a kind of pause, and commencing again as if at the same point, to go over in English, with exactly the same gestures, what had just been said. It appeared to be an interpretation, and the matter of it was a beautifully emphatic utterance of the great principle of self-renunciation, by which the desired victory over self is to be obtained. The circle were astounded by the demonstration, not knowing what to make of it. The instinct of prudence threw them in an observing, a general, silence; and it is a curious fact that the public in H. have never to this hour been startled by so much as a rumour of a gift of tongues, neither has the name of the speaker been associated with so much as a surmise of the real or supposed fact, by which he would be, perhaps, unenviably distinguished. It has been to him a great trial, it is said, to submit himself to this demonstration, which has recurred several times.” P. 479.