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as actors; and where the former are not present, to say that God appoints the latter to go through their performance, is to charge him with doing something in vain.". But there were no spectators to witness the descent of Jonah into the whale's belly, and his subsequent escape, and consequently, there could be nothing typical in the matter. But if we are entitled to argue thus in the case of Jonah, why should we not also do it in regard to the high-priest himself on the great day of atonement? Who witnessed his entrance with the blood of sprinkling into the most holy place? Not an eye-witness was permitted to be present, or a human being besides himself to stand within the sanctuary. And thus the chief of all symbolical transactions under the old covenant, was of ne cessity as secret and unobserved, as the portions in question of Jonah's history; and if there being only a description, and not an actual exhibition of what took place, is a fatal objection in the one case, it will be difficult to show how it can be less so in the other. "The record that a type was enacted, is no more the enacting of a type, than the history of a battle is a battle." Be it so, then the high priest coming forth and telling the people, that he had gone with blood into the most holy place, was no more the enacting of a type, than an individual giving an account of a battle would have been a battle. All such objections proceed, I apprehend, upon a partial and defective view of the subject, and can only be satisfactorily removed by a full and lengthened investigation into its grounds and principles. This is what has been attempted, at least, in the following pages, and to these we must now refer.

CHAPTER II.

THE EXACT NATURE, USE, AND DESIGN OF TYPES, CONSIDERED WITH AN ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO WHAT ARE COMMONLY CALLED RITUAL TYPES, OR THE SYMBOLICAL INSTITUTIONS OF MOSES.

THE proper method, it may be thought, of entering on the formal investigation of the typology of Scripture, would be by giving the definition of a type in terms at once sufficiently exact and comprehensive to describe its real nature, and express precisely what we understand by it. There might be some difficulty, however, in doing this, so as to bring fully out our conception of the subject, without either leaving room to doubt the correctness of our definition, or fatiguing the attention by lengthened explanations. There are two leading ideas involved in most, if not all of the definitions commonly adopted, which may be said to embody the general characteristics of the subject, and which comprise all that is necessary to be laid as a groundwork for pursuing its further investigation. Understanding the word type in the theological sense,-for,

as employed in Scripture, it is used with greater latitude, as may be seen by consulting in the original, the passages referred to below,*-it is admitted by common consent, first, that in the character, action, or institution, which is denominated the type, there must be a resemblance of some kind to what corresponds to it under the gospel; and, second, that the former must not be any character, action, or institution, occurring in Old Testament scripture, but such only as had their ordination from God, and were designed by him to foreshadow the gospel antitype. These two conditions enter as essential elements into the constitution of a type, and must meet together in every thing to which the name can with truth and justice be applied. For, as Bishop Marsh has justly remarked, "to constitute one thing the type of another, something more is wanted than mere resemblance. The former must not only resemble the latter, but must have been designed to resemble the latter. It must have been so designed in its original institution. It must have been designed as something preparatory to the latter. The type as well as the antitype must have been pre-ordained; and they must have been pre-ordained as constituent parts of the same general scheme of divine providence. It is this previous design, and this pre-ordained connexion, which constitute the relation of type and antitype.†

The existence, then, of such a relation, evidently pre-supposes and implies two important facts, viz. that the things of the gospel, which constitute the antitypes, are the great objects on which the mind of God was from the first directed for the good of his church; and that, to prepare the way for the introduction of these grand and ultimate objects, he placed the church under a course of training, which included among other things instruction by types, or designed and fitting resemblances of what was to come. Both of these facts are so plainly declared in the word of God, and so universally admitted, that there can be no need for doing more than simply referring to the scriptural proof of them. In respect to the former, the times of the gospel are called "the ends of the world," without which all its preceding parts were imperfect, and "the dispensation of the fulness of times," implying that under it alone were the great objects of faith and hope properly realized.‡ It is only with its commencement also, we are told, that the clear light began to shine upon the church, and that the long-concealed mystery of God was made manifest, the things which concerned the work of salvation having been hitherto wrapped in comparative darkness, and scarcely so much as entering into the imaginations of men in their proper greatness and magnitude.§ Hence the most important and precious ordinances before the coming of Christ, were only as shadows of the sublime and living realities presented in the gospel; || and the most eminent in spiritual light

*Heb. viii. 5, 1 Cor. x. 6, Phil. iii. 17, 1 Thess. i. 7, 1 Pet. v. 3, Rom. vi. 17. f Marsh's Lectures, p. 371. 1 Cor. x. 11, Heb. xv. 40, Eph. i. 10.

§ 1 John ii. 8, Rom. xvi. 25, 26, Col. i. 27, 1 Cor. ii. 7-10.

|| Col. ii. 17, Heb. viii. 5.

and privilege before, were inferior to the comparatively little and less distinguished members of the Messiah's kingdom.* The Messiah himself is the beginning and the end, the heart and centre, of the whole scheme of God for the salvation of man; the glorious object for whose coming every true child of God waited and longed, to whose person, work, and kingdom all the prophets gave witness, and on the ground of whose prevailing mediation, foreseen and calculated on, all forgiveness of sin and gifts of grace had from the first proceeded.† In Christ, therefore, and the things of his salvation, every principle and purpose of the divine mind respecting the people of God terminates and is made perfect; these may be said to be the highest, and, indeed, the only good for sinful men, because on them, from first to last, every thing is made to depend; and as all that concerns a fallen world dates from the fatal trans-. gression of Adam, so all that concerns a restored world has at once its rise and its consummation in the perfect work of Christ, the second Adam.

The other fact, which is pre-supposed and implied in the doctrine of types, viz. that God subjected the church to a course of preparatory training before he introduced the realities of his final dispensation, stands out with equal clearness and prominence in the page of inspiration. It is scarcely possible, indeed, to separate even in idea the one fact from the other; for without such a course of preparation being meanwhile in progress, the long delay which took place in the bringing in of redemption, and its paramount objects, would be utterly inexplicable. Accordingly, the church of the Old Testament is constantly represented as in a state of comparative childhood, supplied with such measures of instruction and such means of discipline as were suited to its imperfect condition; its law a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, and its prophetical scriptures ever opening out in gradual and growing developments the testimony of Heaven concerning him. Up till the coming of Christ the church was in a state of minority, passing through successive stages of advancement, and in them all undergoing preparation for the glorious light and liberties which were to distinguish its condition when arrived at the season of manhood.‡

In this course of preparation, continuing through so many ages, it is not necessary to suppose, that every thing in the method of instruction and training pursued must have been employed merely with a view to those who lived during its continuance. It must, indeed, have been wisely adapted in all its parts to their peculiar circumstances, and fitted to prepare the church as a whole for the dispensation of the fulness of times; but still, like the instruction and training of a well-taught youth, not more suited to promote

* Matth. xi. 11, where John the Baptist, after being declared greater than all who had gone before him, is yet stated to be less,-not indeed than the least, as it is improperly rendered in our version and generally understood, but, as Hengstenberg (Christol. p. iii.) has shown, than the lesser, the comparatively little (Mixgoro) in the kingdom of heaven-its less distinguished members.

Rev. i. 8, Luke ii. 25, Acts x. 43, iv. 12, Rom. iii. 25, 1 Pet. i. 20, Rev. xiii. 8. ‡ Gal. iii. 24, iv. 1-3, Heb. viii. 7—13, etc.

the cultivation and improvement of his powers during his minority, than fitted to secure their healthful and profitable exercise throughout the remainder of his earthly existence. As the full-grown man, when pursuing the tenor of his way through the perplexing snares and busy avocations of life, reaps every day the benefit of his early culture, so doubtless was it the intention of God, that the measures adopted with the ancient church should not only minister to the growing light and comfort of its own members, but also furnish materials of consolation, guidance and improvement to the church of the New Testament. If the earlier could not be

made perfect without the things belonging to the later church, so neither, on the other hand, can the later safely dispense with the advantages to be derived from an acquaintance with what was done for the immediate behoof of the earlier. The church, considered as God's nursery for training souls to a meetness for immortal life and blessedness, is substantially one through all periods of its existence, and the things which were appointed for its life and well-being in former ages, happened also for the learning of those on whom the ends of the world are come.

Now, in this course of preparation for the realities of Christ's kingdom, the types held an important, though not the only place. The church from the first enjoyed the advantage of direct instruction, communicated either personally by God, or by the instrumentality of his appointed messengers; and in so far as the spirit of prophecy mingled with these communications, as its great theme was the testimony of Jesus, so its leading object and design could not fail to be, the preparation of the church for the reception of his work, and the institution of his kingdom. But whatever was effected in this way, it did not, as we may judge from the course actually pursued, supersede the necessity of types; for these also entered as an essential and important part in the course of preparation. In this respect they possessed so much in common with the intimations of prophecy, that there was a real pre-ordained connexion between them and the things of Christ's kingdom; it was to these they pointed as the ultimate end and reason of their institution. But they differed, inasmuch as they spake of the things of the kingdom, not by words, but by outward palpable resemblances; they stood for the time being in the room of the facts and realities of the gospel, and by certain resemblances, which they bore to these, were designed and fitted to prepare the way for their introduction. And if we inquire concerning these resemblances, of what kind or nature they behooved to be, and actually were, a very little reflection must convince us, that they must somehow have exhibited the same great elements of truth with the things they represented, and that too in a form more level to the comprehension, more easily and distinctly cognizable by the minds of men.

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There must have been, first of all, the same great elements of truth, for the mind of God, and the circumstances of the fallen creature, are substantially the same at all times. What the spi

ritual necessities of men now are, they have been from the time that sin entered into the world. Hence the truth revealed by God to meet these necessities, however varying from time to time in the precise amount of its communications, and however differing as to the hue and form in which it might be presented, must have been, so far as disclosed, essentially one in every age. For otherwise, what strange and monstrous results would follow? If the principles on which God acted toward men, and regulated his intercourse with them, were materially different at one period from what they were at another, then either the wants and necessities of men's natural condition must not be now what they once were, or the character of God must be susceptible of change-he cannot be the immutable Jehovah. Besides, the very idea of a course of preparatory dispensations, were, on the supposition in question, manifestly excluded; for that could have no proper ground to rest on, unless there was a deep-rooted and fundamental agreement between what was temporary, and what was final and ultimate in the case. The primary and essential elements of truth, therefore, which are embodied in the facts of the gospel, and on which its economy of grace is based, cannot in the nature of things be of recent origin, as if they were altogether peculiar to the New Testament dispensation, and had only begun with its introduction to obtain a place in the government of God. On the contrary, their presence must have formed the groundwork, and their varied manifestation the progress of any preparatory dispensations that existed. And whatever resemblances the typical characters, actions, or institutions of those earlier dispensations might be designed to bear to the grand and ultimate objects of the gospel, their chief use and value must have consisted in the representation they afforded of the vital and fundamental truths, common alike to all dispensations.

If a clear and undoubted certainty attaches to this part of our statement, it does so with still more obvious and self-evident conclusiveness in regard to the other. For if the same great elements of truth must of necessity pervade both type and antitype, they must be found in the former more simply and palpably exhibited,presented in some shape, in which the human mind could more easily and distinctly recognise them, than in the latter. It were manifestly absurd to admit in a course of preparation for the realities of the gospel, certain resemblances of these, or rather objects having inwrought into them, and reflected from them the same great lines and elements of truth, unless the preparatory had been of more obvious meaning, and of more easy comprehension, than the ultimate and final. The passing away of the one into the other, must undoubtedly have involved a rise in the exhibition of the truth from a lower to a higher territory,-from a form of development more readily grasped, to a form which should put the faculties of the mind to a greater stretch. For thus only could it be wise or proper to set up preparatory dispensations at all, which had been better spared if the objects themselves lay more, or even

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