Page images
PDF
EPUB

It is however absurd enough for the comparison is not only unwarranted, but is an, actual inversion of the truth. The things spiritual, and the things carnal, to which reference is here made, should have changed their position; the luminaries should have been transposed. For spiritual dominion, whether exercised by the Pope, or by those who resemble him, is not a power, that rules the day, but a power, that rules the night.

Let us now consider that kind of allegorical interpretation, which consists in the application of things, recorded in the Old Testament, to similar things recorded in the New Testament. That kind may be properly called typical interpretation; for it is an application of types to their antitypes. It is warranted by the authority of the Sacred Writers themselves. But they have warranted the use of it only to a certain extent; and, if we transgress the limits, which they have prescribed, we shall be in perpetual danger of taking things for what they were not designed to be. To constitute one thing the type of another, as the term is generally understood in reference to Scripture, 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. Where these qualities fail, where the previous design and the pre-ordained connexion are wanting, the relation between any two things, however similar in themselves, is not the relation of type to antitype. The existence therefore of that previous design and pre-ordained connexion must be clearly established, before we can have authority for pronouncing one thing the type of another. But we cannot establish the existence of that previous design and pre-ordain-ed connexion, by arguing only from the resemblance of the things compared. For the qualities and circumstances, attendant on one thing, may have a close resemblance with the qualities and circumstances attendant on another thing, and yet the things themselves may be devoid of all connexion. How then, it may be asked, shall we obtain the proof required? By what means shall we determine, in any given instance, that what is alleged as a type was really designed for a type? Now the only possible source of information on this subject is Scripture itself. The only possible means of knowing, that two distant, though similar, historic facts, were so connected in the general scheme of divine Providence, that the one was designed to pre-figure the other, is the authority

of that Work, in which the scheme of divine Providence is unfolded. Destitute of that authority, we may confound a resemblance, subsequently observed, with a resemblance pre-ordained: we may mistake a comparison, founded on a mere accidental parity of circumstances, for a camparison, founded on a necessary and inherent connexion. There is no other rule, therefore, by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no other possible means, by which we can know, that a previous design, and a pre-ordained connexion existed. Whatever persons, or things therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by Christ, or by his Apostles, to have been designed as prefigurations of persons or things relating to the New Testament, such persons or things, so recorded in the former, are types of the persons or things, with which they are compared in the latter. But if we assert, that a person, or thing, was designed to pre-figure another person or thing, where no such pre-figuration has been declared by divine authority, we make an assertion, for which we neither have, nor can have, the slightest foundation. And even when comparisons are instituted in the New Testament between antecedent and subsequent persons or things, we must be careful to distinguish the examples, where a comparison is instituted merely for the sake of illustration, from the examples, where such a connexion is declar

ed, as exists in the relation of a type to its antitype.

The consequences of neglecting the precautions here proposed are sufficiently apparent in the history of typical interpretation. Volumes have been filled with types and antitypes, which exist only in the fancy of the writers. Men of lively imagination are continually at work for the discovery of resemblances, while judgment and erudition are not always at hand, to suggest the differences. Things really discordant are thus supposed to be consonant: and they are united on the ground of similarity, when their difference should have led to a separation. But, when once they are brought together, however fanciful their resemblance, it is but a small additional effort of the imagination, to perceive in the one a symbol of the other. And the things, when thus symbolized, find an easy transition into types and antitypes. Suppose however, that the resemblance between the things themselves would bear the strictest inquiry, yet if the inference be drawn without a proof of previous design and pre-ordained connexion, we may still multiply our types and antitypes without end. Even the self-same type may be provided with various antitypes, according to the different views of the interpreters. For the discovery of types and antitypes is often determined by the religious party, to which the interpreter belongs, or by the peculiar sentiments, which the interpreter enter

tains. Thus Cardinal Bellarmine, in his treatise De Laicis, discovered, that the secession of the Protestants under Luther was typified by the secession of the Ten Tribes under Jeroboam; while the Lutherans with equal reason retorted, that Jeroboam was a type of the Pope, and that the secession of Israel from Judah typified, not the secession of the Protestants under Luther, but the secession of the Church of Rome from primitive Christianity. But to whichever of the two events the secession under Jeroboam may be supposed the most similar, (if similarity exists there at all beyond the mere act of secession) we have no authority for pronouncing it a type of either. We have no proof of previous design, and of pre-ordained connexion between the subjects of comparison: we have no proof, that the secession of the Israelites under Jeroboam was designed to pre-figure any other secession whatever. This single example is sufficient to show what abuse may be made of typical interpretation : and though examples might be easily multiplied, by quotations from various authors, the precautions already given will serve to secure us from error, without further inquiry into the errors of others.

The subject of allegorical and typical interpretation having been thus concluded, our next inquiry must be directed to the interpretation of prophecy. For the interpretation of prophecy is so far

« PreviousContinue »