And we should find the same in regard to many other prophecies, which the class of interpreters now referred to have been wont to explain of inferior and earthly affairs, did it consist with our plan to examine them in detail. It has been done, indeed, in a masterly style by Hengstenberg, in his Christology of the Old Testamenta work of inestimable value. It is a book that cannot fail to exert a powerful influence in producing a sounder style of criticism on the prophecies, not only as opposed to the groundless notion of a double sense, but also, and still more, as opposed to the prevalent errors of a mistaken single sense. Even before it made its appearance, a reaction had begun to take place on the Continent, where this erroneous mode of interpretation had its ablest advocates; and both Rosenmuller, in his last edition of his Commentary, and De Wette, had felt themselves constrained, against all their early predilections, to look for the plain and literal fulfilment of prophecies in the events of Christ's work and kingdom, which they once interpreted of other and inferior events. Generally speaking, however, their theory of interpretation is open to the objection of not sufficiently taking into account the typical connexion between the circumstances from which the Messianic prophecies took their rise and their form, and the events which they predicted. They look, for the most part, too exclusively to the word of prophecy itself, and view it too much apart from those outward transactions, past or future, which formed in fact a parallel prophecy in action, and constituted the ground and pattern, as well as occasion, of the other. They run, in short, into the opposite extreme of those, who maintain the double sense, and treat the prophecies, which look so like descriptions of events in Jewish history, that their application to these has been considered by many as their primary and proper sense, as if they stood altogether apart from such events. We cannot enter into particulars; but must state, that the defect in question can scarcely be said to have an existence in the work of Hengstenberg-although we conceive that there is not quite so broad and definite a place frequently given to the transactions of Old Testament history, as in this point of view is due to them; and hence they are sometimes spoken of as mere images of gospel things, and sometimes as themselves imperfect fulfilments of gospel promises. This appears especially in some portions of the remarks made on the concluding portion of Isaiah, where such constant references occur to the deliverance from Babylon. That deliverance, with the issues growing out of it, like the earlier deliverance from Egypt, was a manifestation on the terrene and outward field of a present providence, of truths and principles, which were waiting to receive their higher and grander development in Christ's kingdom. Hence, the prophetic vision, while rising aloft into the higher territory and bringing into view what belonged to that, yet, seeing in the lower the type and pattern of what was to come, took from that its hue and aspect, still speaking, however, of the realities of the heavenly kingdom, and in these alone finding its intended fulfilment. But of this we have already spoken.

CHAPTER VI..

THE PLACE DUE TO THE SUBJECT OF TYPES AS A BRANCH OF THEOLOGICAL STUDY, AND THE BENEFITS IT IS FITTED TO YIELD, WHEN RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD AND APPLIED.

THE loose and incorrect views which have been so long current regarding the types, and which have latterly taken a course that tends at once to abridge their number and lower their importance, have well nigh succeeded in bringing the whole subject into discredit, and left it little more than a nominal place in our more recent theological systems. For any real value it possesses as a mode of divine revelation, or any substantial benefit to be derived from becoming acquainted with the information it conveys, we search in vain amid the writings of many of our most approved interpreters and systematic divines. The manner in which they for the most part discuss it, is rather negative than positive; they dwell more a great deal upon the abuses, to which it may be carried, than upon the advantages, to which it should be applied; and were it not for the purpose of exploding errors, delivering cautions, prescribing limits, and disowning unwarrantable conclusions, one is tempted to think, that the subject would not have been admitted to any special consideration at all.

If the discussion pursued through the preceding chapters has been prosecuted with any success, it must have tended to beget very different impression, and suggested various points of great importance, with which the typical character of ancient scripture is so intimately connected, that, apart from it, they cannot be seen in their proper light, or just magnitude. Were it only from the connexion in which the subject stands with prophecy, and the light it throws, when properly understood, on the structure of many portions of the prophetic record, it would well deserve to have its title vindicated to a high and important place in the theory of revelation. On the service which the typology of scripture is thus capable of rendering to its prophecies, we have already dwelt at sufficient length, nor shall we now revert to it; but there are other points not hitherto noticed, at least not distinctly brought out, in the preceding investigation, and some of them, at least, of vital moment, which it may be necessary to open up at some length, before we proceed to the second great division of our subject-the practical application of our views and principles to the typical matter of ancient scripture.

I. There is an analogy in the methods of instruction, which we may expect to find in the communication of God to his church at different times, and which it is important for us to mark. In one short period of its history, the New Testament church might be

said to hold a close resemblance to that of the Old Testament, as to its capacity for receiving divine truth, and the manner in which it might require this to be communicated to it. The period we refer to is the one which embraces the personal ministry of our Lord, during which events were preparing for the actual establishment of his spiritual kingdom, and his disciples were undergoing the discipline which was to fit them for taking a part in its transactions. When the kingdom was fully set up, with its clear manifestations of gospel truth, and its large dowry of the Spirit of grace, the church passed into a new condition; she became possessed of the understanding, the freedom and dignity of manhood, consequently released from the imperfection and restraints of childhood, to which she had hitherto been confined; and as our Lord, during the period of his personal ministry, had to form and elevate the minds of his immediate disciples, so as to fit them for passing out of the one condition into the other, we are naturally led to expect, that his mode of teaching would bear in its leading features some resemblance to what was adopted toward the Old Testament church as a whole, while it was undergoing a similar, though immensely more lengthened process of preparation for "the dispensation of the fulness of times."

Now the great peculiarity, as we have endeavoured to show, of God's method of teaching in regard to the Old Testament church, consisted in its being chiefly conveyed through symbol and action. The grand truths and principles of evangelical doctrine were, indeed, taught the members of the church; yet not, as now, in plain and direct statements, but by means of outward events and solemn rites; they were incessantly flowing in upon them from the history of providence, and the institutions of worship. For the practical guidance and direction of their conduct they were furnished with many lessons of instruction, the most literal and express; but for the enlightenment of their mind in the sublime mysteries of divine truth, and the leading characteristics of the divine government, the instruction they received was not literal and express, but veiled and figurative; it addressed itself to the eye, rather than to the ear; it came intermingled with things seen and felt; and while it made them of necessity familiar with the general forms of truth and principle, which pervade the economy of grace, it left them, by a like necessity, in great measure ignorant of the precise facts and operations, through which these were chiefly to be realized and developed.

How entirely analogous was the course pursued by our Lord toward his immediate disciples during the period of his personal ministry! We cannot say, indeed, that plain and direct teaching was totally excluded, but with very few exceptions it was chiefly employed in inculcating the lessons of moral truth and commanded duty, clearing away the false glosses with which a corrupt priesthood had allowed these to be perverted or impaired, and disclosing the extent of pure and spiritual attainment, which was to be sought from the members of his kingdom. But in regard to what may

be called the mysteries of the kingdom,-the all-important facts on which it was to be founded, the kind of operations in which it was to proceed, and the hidden life, which its members should be called to maintain, no direct instruction of any moment was imparted up to the last night of our Lord's earthly ministry. On one or two occasions, when he sought to convey plain information. concerning these, the disciples either entirely misunderstood his meaning, or showed themselves quite incapable of profiting by his instructions, (Matth. xvi. 21-23; Luke xviii. 34; John ii. 19-22; vi.) And in his last discourse with them he declared, that "he had yet many things to say unto them, but that they could not bear them," and these, therefore, were reserved for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, "who should lead them into all the truth." But shall we on this account conclude, that our Lord's disciples got no instruction of any kind, while he was with them, concerning the mysteries of the kingdom? Far from it. They were every day receiving instruction,-but that conveyed, as in the case of the Old Testament church, through action and symbol, or more correctly, through actions and allegory, which supplied the place of symbol, and was intended to work in a similar manner upon their minds. The doings of Jesus were in this respect so many means of information; the whole tenor of his life was an instruction; every action was a type in history; and hence he appealed, in his last discourse with his disciples to the works he had done in their presence, as "having revealed to them the Father." For in these they had seen all the principles on which God was to act in his dealings toward men, and on which he was to rear the constitution of his everlasting kingdom, most uniformly and gloriously displayed, his untainted righteousness, repelling every form and pollution of sin, coupled with the most yearning love and compassion to sinners,-his boundless beneficence toward the needy and distressed, yet his solemn regard to his own honour in the distribution of his gifts, dispensed, as they ever were, only to the thankful and lowly hand of faith, his ability to prevail over all the power of the enemy, and retrieve the most inveterate forms of corruption, while they, in whose behalf his grace wrought such mighty deeds, were still left beleaguered with temptation, and appointed in deepest humility to bear the contradiction of sinners. These, and such like lessons of heavenly instruction, were constantly pouring in upon the minds of the disciples from the events of every day's ministration on the part of their Divine Master; and thus they became familiarized to ideas and principles, which needed only to be applied to the higher interests of the soul and the loftier concerns of eternity, to fit them for entering with enlightened spirits into the scenes and labours of Christ's spiritual kingdom.

It was but another department of the same kind of teaching, being intended, in like manner, to reach the understanding through the visible representation of inferior, but similar and parallel things, which was adopted by our Lord, when he resorted to the parabolic

method of instruction. For his adversaries, this adoption of the parabolic style was employed in the way of judgment, as a solemn rebuke for their obstinacy and perverseness of heart; but for his own disciples it was taken as a cover for presenting to them more truth concerning the kingdom, or impressing on them a more full and distinct idea of its leading features, than otherwise they were capable of receiving. The parables were to the disciples in the stead of symbolic representations, conveying under the shell of an outward and familiar form the kernel of evangelical doctrine; histories, drawn from the ordinary field of providence, of the divine economy, as about to be unfolded in Messiah's reign, which the simplest could understand, and which, like the types of an earlier dispensation, needed only to be interpreted by the facts of gospel history, to render the minds, which had received them, well instructed in the nature of the kingdom, and fully reconciled to its spiritual and heavenly truths. In short, our Lord found his disciples like children, too carnal and contracted in their views, to receive the things of his coming dispensation in their unveiled and naked form, and therefore he subjected them to a course of educational training, in which, by means of the actions of his own life and the delineations of historical narrative, he made them acquainted with such views and principles as tended to prepare them for apprehending clearly in their own minds, and unfolding to others, the higher facts and operations of the work and kingdom of God.

Thus we see how precisely similar was the method of teaching and preparation adopted toward the first disciples of our Lord, during their short period of special training for a New Testament church and ministry, to what had been adopted toward the church of the Old Testament at large, during her long period of waiting expectation for the good things to come. The analogy arising, as it does, from a uniformity of plan pursued in circumstances so altered, and through periods so widely different, is such as clearly bespeaks the consistent working and presiding agency of Him, "who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. We may be little able to explain why in either period such a method was pursued; but compared together, they mutually support and throw light on each other. Pursued during the space of three years with the disciples, and that space occupying the whole term of Christ's personal ministry on earth, we may be the less surprised, that it should have been pursued during so many generations before his arrival. And seeing, on the other hand, that for so many generations the church was confined to such childhood training and instruction, accustomed only, through the facts of outward history, and the rites of symbolic worship, to apprehend the main ideas and principles of God's everlasting kingdom, while the precise events and operations in which these were to receive their necessary and proper development, were little, if at all known to her, shall it seem strange, and be taken as a just exception against the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, that these were only taught as in a mystery, not brought distinctly and prominently out, during the com