Such, for example, has been the way that the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah, respecting the son to be born of a virgin (ch. vii. 14-16), has often been treated. The words of the prophecy are," Behold the virgin conceiveth and beareth a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. Butter [rather milk] and honey shall he eat, when he shall know (or that he may know) to refuse what is evil and choose what is good; for before this child shall know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land shall become desolate, by whose two kings thou art distressed. We may be said to have two inspired commentaries on this prediction, one in the Old, and another in the New Testament. The prophet Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah, evidently referring to the words before us, says, immediately after announcing the birth of the future ruler of Israel at Bethlehem, "Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who shall bear hath brought forth" (v. 3). The peculiar expression, "she who shall bear" points to the already designated mother of the divine king, but only in this prediction of Isaiah designated as the virgin; so that, in the language of Rosenmüller, "both predictions throw light on each other. Micah discloses the divine origin of the person predicted; Isaiah the wonderful manner of his birth.” The other allusion in inspired Scripture is by St Matthew, when, relating the miraculous circumstances of Christ's birth, he adds, "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child," &c. And the prophecy, as Bishop Lowth has well stated, "is is introduced in so solemn a manner; the sign is so marked, as a sign selected and given by God himself, after Ahaz had rejected the offer of any sign of his own choosing out of the whole compass of nature; the terms of the prophecy are so peculiar, and the name of the child so expressive, containing in them much more than the circumstances of the birth of a common child required, or even admitted; that we may easily suppose, that in minds prepared by the general expectation of a great deliverer to spring from the house of David, they raised hopes far beyond what the present occasion suggested; especially when it was found, that in the subsequent prophecy, delivered immediately afterward, this child, called Immanuel, is treated as

the Lord and Prince of Judah (ch. viii. 8-10). Who could this be, other than the heir of the throne of David? under which character a great and even a divine person had been promised."

These things leave little doubt as to the real bearing of the prophecy. But as originally delivered, it is connected with two peculiarities-the one that it is given as a sign to the house of David, then represented by the wicked Ahaz, and trembling for fear on account of the combined hostility of Syria and Israelthe other that it is succeeded by a word to the prophet concerning a son to be born to him by the prophetess, which should not be able to cry, My Father, before the king of Assyria had spoiled both the kingdoms of Syria and Israel (ch. viii. 1-4). And it has been thought, from these peculiarities, that it was really this son of the prophet that was meant by the Immanuel, as this alone could be a proper sign to Ahaz of the deliverance that was to be so speedily granted to him from the object of his dread. So Grotius, who holds that St Matthew only applied it mystically to Christ, and a whole host of interpreters since, of whom many can think of no better defence for the Evangelist than that, as the words of the prophet were more elevated and full than the immediate occasion demanded, they might be said to be fulfilled in what more nearly accorded with them. Apologies of this kind, it is easy to be seen, will not avail much in the present day to save the common discernment, to say nothing of the inspired authority of the Evangelist. But there is really no need for them. It is quite arbitrary to suppose that the child to be born of the prophetess (an ideal child, we should suppose, conceived and born in prophetic vision-since otherwise it must have been born in fornication) is to be identified with the virgin's son; the rather so, as an entirely different name is given to it (Maher-shalal-hashbaz)—an ideal, but descriptive name, and pointing simply to the spoliation that was to be effected on the hostile kingdoms. Immanuel has another, a higher import, and bespeaks what the Lord should be to the covenant-people, not what he should do to the enemies. Nor is the other circumstance, of the word being uttered as a sign to the house of David, any reason for turning it from its natural sense and application. A sign in the ordinary sense had been refused, under a pretence of pious trust in God, but really from a feeling of distrust and reliance on mere earthly

confidences. And now the Lord gives a sign in a peculiar sense much as Jesus met the craving of an adulterous generation for a sign from heaven, by giving the sign of the prophet Jonas-the reverse of what they either wished or expected-a sign, not from heaven, but from the lower parts of the earth. So here, by announcing the birth of Immanuel, the prophet gave a sign suited to the time of backsliding and apostacy in which he lived. For it told the house of David that, wearying God as they were doing by their sins, he would vindicate his cause in a way they little expected or desired; that he would provide for the occupancy of the throne over his land and people by raising up a child of divine, as well as human properties; but that, meanwhile, every thing should go to desolation and ruin-first, indeed, in the allied kingdoms of Israel and Syria (v. 16), but afterwards also in the kingdom of Judah (v. 17-25); so that the destined possessor of the throne, when he came, should find all in a prostrate condition, and grow up like one in an impoverished and stricken country, where only the natural products of milk and honey were to be found (comp. v. 16 with 22); like one that should be fed with the simple fare of a cottage shepherd. Thus understood, the whole is entirely natural and consistent; and the single sense of the prophecy proves to be identical, as well with the native force of the words, as with the interpretations of inspired men.

We have selected this as one of the most common and plausible specimens of the false style of interpretation to which we have referred. It is needless to adduce more, as the explanations given in the earlier part of the chapter have already met many of them by anticipation; and the supplementary treatise in the Appendix will supply what further is needed. If but honestly and earnestly dealt with, the Scripture has no reason to fear, in this or in other departments, the closest investigation; the more there is of rigid inquiry, displacing superficial considerations, the more will its inner truth and harmony appear.

CHAPTER FIFTH,

THE INTERPRETATION OF PARTICULAR TYPES-SPECIFIC PRINCIPLES AND

DIRECTIONS.

It was one of the objections we urged against the typological views of our older divines, that their system admitted of no fixed or definite rules being laid down for guiding us to the knowledge and interpretation of particular types. Every thing was left to the discretion or caprice of the individual who undertook to investigate them. The few directions that were sometimes given upon the subject were too vague and general to be of any material service. That the type must have borne, in its original design and institution, a pre-ordained reference to the Gospel antitype--that there is often more in the type than in the antitype, and more in the antitype than the type-that there must be a natural and appropriate application of the one to the other-that the wicked as such, and acts of sin as such, must be excluded from the category of types-that one thing is sometimes the type of different and even contrary things, though in different respectsand that there is sometimes an interchange between the type and the antitype of the names respectively belonging to each :-These rules of interpretation, which are the whole that Glassius and other hermeneutical writers furnish for our direction, could not go far, either to restrain the license of conjecture, or to mark out the particular course of thought and inquiry that should be pursued. They can scarcely be said to touch the main difficulties of the subject, and throw no light on its more distinguishing peculiarities. Nor, indeed, could any other result have been expected. The rules could not be precise or definite, when the system on which they were founded was altogether loose and indeterminate. And only with the laying of a more solid and stable foundation

could directions for the practical treatment of the subject come to possess any measure of satisfaction or explicitness.

Even on the supposition that some progress has now been made in laying such a foundation, we cannot hold out the prospect, that no room shall be left for dubiety, and that all may be reduced to a kind of dogmatical precision and certainty. It would be unreasonable to expect this, considering both the peculiar character and the manifold variety of the field embraced by the Typology of Scripture. That there may still be particular cases in which it will be questionable whether anything properly typical belonged to them, and others in which a diversity of view may be allowable in explaining what is typical, seems to us by no means improbable. And in the specific rules or principles of interpretation that follow, we do not aim at dispelling every possible doubt and ambiguity connected with the subject, but only at fixing its more prominent and characteristic outlines. We believe, that with ordinary care and discretion, they will be sufficient to guard against material error.

I. The first principle we lay down has respect merely to the amount of what is typical in Old Testament Scripture; it is, that nothing is to be regarded as typical of the good things under the Gospel, which was itself of a forbidden and sinful nature. Something approximating to this has been mentioned among the too general and obvious directions which philological writers have been accustomed to give upon the subject. It is, indeed, so much of that description, that though in itself a principle most necessary to be observed and acted on, yet we should have refrained from any express announcement or formal proof of it here, were it not still frequently set at nought in theological discussions, as well as popular discourses.

The ground of the principle, as we have given it, lies in the connection which the type has with the antitype, and consequently with God. The antitype standing in the things which belong to God's everlasting kingdom, is necessarily of God; and so, by a like necessity, the type, which was intended to foreshadow and prepare for it, must have been equally of him. Whether a symbol in religion, or a fact in providence, it must have borne upon it the divine sanction and approval; otherwise,