he affords his faithful Servants under Perfecutions and the Rewards prepar'd for them, and the final Deftruction of the Enemies of God and Religion; these things are visible in the Revelation, and it cannot be deny'd, but these are of excellent ufe, to yield us Comfort in the worst of Troubles, and to excite Faith and Hope, and Patience, and all Christian Graces in the Minds of Men. The Revelation of St. John may be look'd upon as an History of the Church without any Chronology annext to it; but will any Man fay, that the exacteft and trueft Hiftory, that can be penn'd, of the inoft important Affairs, and fuch as concern all Mankind, is of little value or confequence to the Conduct and Management of our Lives, unless we were likewise acquainted with the particular time, and the Names of the Places and Perfons described in it? It is as much as our Salvation is worth, to be inform'd of a Future Judgment, though we are not told when it fhall be; and that Book which fets Rewards and Punishments, Heaven and Hell before us, is of the greatest Advantage for the Edification and Salvation of Men, though the several Circumstances and Particularities described, are unknown to us.

8. Tho' the Arguments from Types are, above all, apt to be look'd upon as uncertain, and to depend rather upon the Conjectures and Fancies of Men, than upon any clear Evidence? Yet we fhall find the contrary, if we do but a little confider the Nature of them. A Type is a Likeness, a Form, or Mould, (as the word fignifies) and where the Antitype reprefented by it, and prefigur'd, anfwers exactly to it, there is no more question to be made, but that the one belongs to the other, than there is reafon to doubt, when we fee an Impreffion made upon Wax, what kind of Seal it was by which it was made; Or, when we fee a good Picture of one we know, to enquire who fat for it. A Type is much of the fame Nature in Actions or Things and Perfons, as an Allegory is in Words:

but

but Allegories are oftentimes fo plain, that no Man can well mistake what is meant by them. And thus it is as to Types in many cafes: Indeed, where there is but one Type or one Refemblance, it is not so easily difcern'd; but where many concur, he must be very wilful that does not acknowledge the Agreement. When an Author, as it often happens, defcribes the Perfons of his own Time under feign'd Names, a Reader who knows nothing of it, may perhaps overlook one or two Characters, fuppofing them to be by chance; but when he perceives that they all exactly agree to fo many feveral Perfons whom he knows, he no longer doubts of the Author's Defign; efpecially, when he obferves the fame Perfons described in divers Places, and different ways, according to their Condition and Circumftances of Life, and their Qualifications of Body and Mind. And when many Types concur in the fame Perfon, with a great number of Particularities, any two of which perhaps never concurr'd in any one Man before; as in the Perfon of our Saviour these things concurr'd, that he was compell'd to carry his Crofs, as Ifaac had carry'd the Wood; that he was lifted up, and faftned to it, as the Brazen Serpent had been lifted up in the Wilderness; that as the Bones of the Pafchal Lamb were not broken, fo not a Bone of him was broken when the Bones of those were, who were crucify'd with him; and that he was crucify'd at the very time when the Pafchal Lamb was to be facrific'd: when fo many different Circumstances concur, which have no Dependence one upon another, nor upon the Will of Him, in whom they concur, but proceed from the Will (and as in this cafe) from the Malice of others; if these things meet by chance, it must be a very extraordinary and unaccountable Chance indeed, and much fuch another as that was, which fome would perfuade us made the World; it must be such a Chance as never happen'd before, nor will ever happen again. But muft not

thefe

thefe Men rather speak and think by chance, who can argue at this rate?

Sometimes the Characters are fo lively, that the Types are as evident as express Words could have made them; as when in the Defcription of the Kingdom of Christ, he is ftyled David, because, as he was prefigur'd by David, fo he was to defcend from him, Jer. xxx. 9. Ezek. xxxiv. 23. xxxvii. 24, 25. Hof. iii. 5. feveral Defcriptions which were Metaphorical in reference to the Perfons immediately concern'd in them, were literally fulfill'd in our Saviour: Thus the Gall and Vinegar, the Cafting of Lots upon the Garments, and the Piercing of the Hands and Feet are Metaphorical Expreffions, of great Contempt and Cruelty used towards the Perfons to whom they were at first apply'd; but in their ultimate End and Defign, they were true to their very Letter. And where there is thus a two-fold Signification of any place of Scripture, the one improper and Metaphorical, the other proper and Literal; the Perfon defcrib'd in Metaphorical Terms is as clearly a Type of him, from whofe real Condition and Circumstances the Metaphor is taken, as a Metaphor is a Representation of the plain Senfe contain❜d under it.

The Legal Difpenfation was all Typical, and fo the Jews ever understood it to be; which made the ' Apostles difpute with them from the Types of their Law, as they furely would never have done, if it had not on all fides been agreed, that it was a proper way of Argument. Their Prophecies were given out in Actions as well as in Words; and as the Mind either of God or Man may be exprefs'd as fully by Actions, as by the plainest Words; fo certainly we must acknowledge this to be the cafe, when Types fo evidently denote the Perfon, and fo properly belong to him, as to declare and bespeak him to be the Man, in fuch a manner that we should conclude, that any Perfon of our own Times must needs be meant by any Author,

Author, who should thus defcribe him in a Book, the Design whereof was known to be, to make fuch Descriptions. It is not indeed every Refemblance which we may conclude from, but where many Types concur in the fame Perfon, where the concurrence depends wholly upon the Will of his Adverfaries, or not in the leaft upon his own Will; when these Types were alledged from a Difpenfation, which was all a long held to be Typical; in this cafe they may be urged, and as fafely relyed upon as any other Argu

ment.

III. In the last place, I am to fhew that the obfcurity of the Scriptures is not fuch as to be any prejudice to their Authority, nor to the End and Defign of them. And the reason of this is implied by St. Peter, when he fays, that there are but fome things hard to be underfood in the Scriptures, and the rest are plain and obvious. All things neceflary to Salvation are fufficiently clear in the Scripture; and tho' there be other things in them which are obfcure, yet we fee that Reasons may be given (and perhaps many more, and better, than I am able to produce) why they are and ought to be fo. God fupplies us in Neceffaries with a bountiful and open Hand; and what is not neceffary, he furely may difcover more fparingly, and more obfcurely to us. It is fo in the things of this Life Our Senfes feldom or never fail us in things necessary to our Life and Health, tho' in other things we find our felves misled by them; every Country and Place affords the Neceffaries of Life; and that which is most rare, is always leaft neceffary; it may be useful, but yet we may very well be without it. Now to complain that all places of Scripture are not intelligible by all, is, as if we fhould blame Providence for not making all Men rich, and all Countries like the Land of Canaan; it is a fign we are refolved to find fault, and never to be fatisfied with what we have, unless we be humoured in every thing. But we

2

fhould

fhould do well firft to confider, how we can expect this at God's Hands, or how well we have deferved it of Him. The Secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his Covenant, Pfal. xxv. 14, For the froward is an abomination to the Lord, but his Secret is with the Righteous, Prov. iii. 32. There are Secrets and Mysteries in Religion, which cannot be fuppofed to be known to any but thofe, who are throughly acquainted with the plainer Doctrines, both in the study and the practice of them; and therefore if no fuch Reasons as have been now offered could be given for the obfcurity of the Scriptures in fome places, it would be unreasonable, however, for fuch Men as make this an Objection, to urge it; they have no right to object, whatever others may have; because they have never used the means to know whether the Scriptures are fo obfcure, as they pretend, or not. But they will never be able to prove, that if things necessary both in Faith and Practice be clearly fet down, there may not be other things delivered which are hard to be understood, and which those may wreft to their own Destruction, who are unlearned and unftable; that is, who have neither Learning and Skill enough to judge of fuch Matters, nor yet Conftancy and Stedfaftnefs enough in the Faith, to adhere to what they do understand, and not to perplex themselves, and fuffer themselves to be perverted by judging rafhly of things above their Capacity.

The unlearned and unftable only are faid to wreft the Scriptures to their own Destruction: And tho' it is not in the power and capacity of every Man to be Wife and Learned, yet it is in every one's power not to be unftable, but conftant and stedfaft to what he understands, and never to depart from it for any By-ends or Refpects. Let us learn what is eafie to be known, and practise what we know, before we complain that the Scriptures are obfcure. Let us study and practise the Scriptures more, and this Objection will not ap

pear