APPENDIX A.

TYPICAL FORMS IN NATURE.-P. 94.

Ir is scarcely possible, within the compass of a few pages, to exhibit the prevalence of Typical Forms in Nature, so as to make it tell in the manner it is capable of doing on our general argument. For as it rests upon a multiplicity of facts, bearing a certain relation to each other, and these facts such as have been but recently, and some of them as yet only partially ascertained—the subject must inevitably suffer, when presented in a great measure apart from these, in a brief and imperfect outline. But such an outline is all that can be given here. Those who desire to enter more fully into the investigation may have recourse to the works of Professor Owen, especially to his Treatises on Limbs, and on the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton; to Mr Hugh Miller's Footprints of the Creator; and the ingenious and interesting article on Typical Forms in the 30th Number of the North British Review, understood to be the production of the author of the Method of the Divine Government. The writer of this article pursues the subject even into the vegetable field of nature, and endeavours to shew that in plants which have leaves that strike the eye, the leaf and plant are typically analogous: the leaf is a typical plant or branch, and the tree or branch a typical leaf. In this field, however, the facts are neither so fully established, nor do they appear so perfectly uniform, as in the higher region of animal forms, or comparative anatomy. Here it is found, by a wide and satisfactory induction, that the human is what may be called the pattern form of animal existences-the archetype of the vertebrate division of animated nature. In the structure of all other animal forms there are observable striking resemblances to that of man, and resemblances of a kind that seem plainly designed to assimilate the lower, as near as circumstances would admit, to the higher. It is found, that in all vertebrate animals, from fishes to man, the vertebrate skeleton is composed of a series of parts of essentially the same order, though modified in a great variety of ways to suit the particular functions which each organ has to perform in the different aniinals respectively. Thus, to give only a single instance, every segment, and almost every bone present in the human hand and arm, exist also in the fin of the whale, though they do not seem required for the support and movement of that undivided and inflexible paddle; and one can think of no specific rea2 c

VOL. I.

son for such a peculiarity of structure, excepting the intention of having it brought into the nearest possible conformity to the archetype. Most strikingly does the similarity to the human type, coupled with its relative superiority to the others, appear in regard to the brain, which is the most peculiar and distinguishing part of the animal frame. Nature," says Mr Miller, “in constructing this curious organ in man, first lays down a grooved cord, as the carpenter lays down the keel of his vessel; and on this narrow base the perfect brain, as month after month passes by, is gradually built up, like the vessel from the keel. First it grows up into a brain closely resembling that of a fish; a few additions more convert it into a brain undistinguishable from that of a reptile; a few additions more impart to it the perfect appearance of the brain of a bird; it then developes into a brain exceedingly like that of a mammiferous quadruped; and finally, expanding atop, and spreading out its deeply corrugated lobes, till they project widely over the base, it assumes its unique character as a human brain. Radically such at the first, it passes through all the inferior forms, from that of the fish upwards, as if each man were in himself, not the microcosm of the old fanciful philosopher, but something greatly more wonderful-a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every creature that lives. Hence the remark, that man is the sum total of all animals- the animal equivalent,' says Oken, 'to the whole animal kingdom.' —(Footprints, p. 291.)

This, however, is not the whole. For, as geology has now learned to read with sufficient accuracy the stony records of the past to be able to tell of successive creations of vertebrate animals, from fish, the first and lowest, up to man, the last and highest; so here also we have a kind of typical history--the animal productions of nature during those earlier geological periods bore, as the imperfect, a prospective reference to man, as the complete and ultimate form of animal existence. They were the types, and be is the antitype in the mundane system. In the words of Professor Owen, "all the parts and organs of man had been sketched out in anticipation, so to speak, in the inferior animals; and the recognition of an ideal exemplar in the vertebrated animals proves, that the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed before man appeared. For the divine mind, which planned the archetype, also foreknew all its modifications. The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we are as yet ignorant. But if, without derogation of the divine power we may conceive the existence of such ministers, and personify them by the term NATURE, we learn from the past history of our globe that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form."

In this view of the matter, what a striking analogy does the history of God's operations in nature furnish to his plan in providence, as brought out in the history of redemption! Here, in like manner, there is a grand archetypal idea in the person and kingdom of Christ, towards which for ages

the divine plan was continually working. Partial exhibitions of it appear from time to time in certain personages, events, and institutions that rise prominently into view as the course of providence proceeds, but all marred with obvious faults and imperfections in respect to the great object contemplated; until, at length, the idea in its entire length and breadth is seen embodied in Him to whom all the prophets gave witness-the God-man foreordained before the foundation of the world. "The Creator "-to adopt again the language of Mr Miller, who, in an article in the Witness newspaper of 2d August 1851, has very felicitously described the analogy in this respect between the natural aud the moral departments of God's plan—“ The Creator, in the first ages of his workings, appears to have been associated with what he wrought simply as the producer or author of all things. But even in those ages, as scene after scene, and one dynasty of the inferior animals succeeded another, there were strange typical indications which preAdamite students of prophecy among the spiritual existences of the universe might possibly have aspired to read-symbolical indications to the effect that the Creator was in the future to be more intimately connected with his material works than in the past, through a glorious creature made in his own image and likeness. And to this semblance and portraiture of the Deity—the first Adam—all the merely natural symbols seem to refer. But in the eternal decrees it had been for ever determined that the union of the Creator with creation was not to be a mere union by proxy or semblance. And no sooner had the first Adam appeared and fallen, than a new school of prophecy began, in which type and symbol were mingled with what had now its first existence on earth-verbal enunciations; and all pointed to the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.' In him creation and the Creator meet in

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reality and not in semblance. On the very apex of the finished pyramid of being sits the adorable Monarch of all :-as the Son of Mary—of Davidof the first Adam, the created of God; as God and the Son of God, the eternal Creator of the universe. And these the two Adams-form the main theme of all prophecy, natural and revealed. And that type and symbol should have been employed with reference not only to the second, but— as held by men like Agassiz and Owen-to the first Adam also, exemplifies, we are disposed to think, the unity of the style of Deity, and serves to shew that it was He who created the worlds that dictated the Scriptures."

The subject might even be prosecuted farther still, for it is as well fitted to stimulate the aspirations of hope toward the future, as to strengthen the foundations of faith in the past. If the archetypal idea in animated nature has been wrought at, through long periods and successive stages of being, till it found its proper realization in man; now that the nature of man is linked in personal union with the Godhead, for the purpose of repairing what is evil, and raising manhood to a higher than its original condition, who can conceive to what peerless glory and perfection it may yet attain? The divine power is no longer to be displayed in creating what is new, but in a work of "regeneration" upon the old, to the intent that the earthly and human in us may be brought to the nearest possible conformity to the spiritual and divine in Christ. The frame and condition of redeemed men, therefore, though relatively perfect as compared with the past, is yet but in

embryo when viewed with respect to the more elevated future. All has still to assume the form and impress of a more glorious type, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard; of which the whole we can now say is—" We know not what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.'

APPENDIX B.

THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW.-P. 102.

1. THE HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PORTIONS.

BESIDES numberless allusions of various kinds in the New Testament to the Old, there are somewhat more than two hundred and fifty express citations in the writings of the one from those of the other. These citations are of unequal length; they consist often of a single clause, but sometimes also extend to several verses. They are taken indiscriminately from the different parts of Old Testament Scripture; though, with very few exceptions, they belong to the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the writings of the prophets.

Not a few of these citations from the Old Testament are citations of the simplest kind; they appear merely as passages quoted in their plain sense from the previously existing canon of Scripture. Such, for example, are the passages out of the books of Moses, with which our Lord, after the simple notification, "It is written," thrice met the assaults of the tempter in the wilderness; and such also are those with which Stephen, in his historical speech before the Jewish council, sought, through appropriate references to the past, to enlighten the minds and alarm the consciences of his judges. In examples of this description, there is nothing that can be said to wear even the semblance of a difficulty, unless it may be regarded as such, that occasionally a slight difference appears in the passages as quoted, from what they are as they stand in the original Scripture. But the difference is never more than a verbal one; the sense of the original is always given with substantial correctness by the inspired writers in the New Testament; and so far as the great principles of interpretation are concerned, there is no need for lingering about the discussion of a matter so comparatively minute.

But there still remains a considerable variety of Old Testament passages, so cited in the New, as plainly to involve certain principles of interpretation; because they are cited as grounds of inference for some authoritative conclusion, or as proofs of doctrine respecting something connected with the person, the work, or the kingdom of Christ. And on the supposition of the authors of the New Testament being inspired teachers, the character

of these citations is of the gravest importance-first, as providing in the hermeneutical principles they involve, a test to some extent of the inspiration of the writers; and then as furnishing in those principles, an infallible direction for the general interpretation of ancient Scripture. For, there can be no doubt that the manner in which our Lord and his apostles understood and applied the Scriptures of the Old Testament, was as much intended to throw light generally on the principles of interpretation, as to administer instruction on the specific points, for the sake of which they were more immediately appealed to. What, then, is the kind of use made of the passages in question, and the spirit in which they are explained? Is it natural and proper ? Is there nothing strained, nothing paradoxical, nothing arbitrary and capricious in the matter? Does it altogether commend itself to our understandings and consciences? Undoubtedly it does so in the great majority of cases. And yet it is not to be denied that there are certain peculiarities connected with the treatment of the Old Testament in the New, which are very apt to stagger inquirers in their first attention to the subject. Nay, there are real difficulties attaching to some parts of it, which have long exercised the ingenuity of the ablest interpreters, and of which no satisfactory solution can be given, without a clear and comprehensive insight being first obtained into the connection subsisting between the preparatory and the ultimate things in God's kingdom.

In a small publication, which materially contributed to the solution of some of these difficulties, issued so far back as 1824, Olshausen remarks concerning the use made of the Old Testament in the New :—

"This has been for all more recent expositors a stone of stumbling, over which not a few of them have actually fallen. It has appeared to them difficult and even impossible to discover a proper unity and connection in the constructions put upon the passages by the New Testament writers, or to refer them to rules and principles. Without being able to refer them to these, they could not properly justify and approve of them; neither could they, on the other hand, altogether disapprove and reject them, without abandoning every thing. So that in explaining the passages of the Old Testament which pointed to the New, and again explaining the passages of the New Testament which expressly referred to and applied the Old, expositors for the most part found themselves involved in the greatest difficulties, and, on the one side or the other, resorted to the most violent expedients. But the explanation of the Old Testament in the New is the very point from which alone all exposition that listens to the voice of divine wisdom must set out. For we have here presented to us the sense of Holy Scripture as understood by inspired men themselves, and are furnished with the true key of knowledge.'

It is more especially, however, in the application made by New Testament writers of the prophecies of the Old Testament that the difficulties in question present themselves. Nor are they by any means of one kind; they are marked by a considerable diversity, and the passages will require to be taken in due order and connection, if we are to arrive at a well-grounded and

Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn, pp. 7, 8.