Yet let us not be mistaken. We speak merely of what was strictly required, and what might ordinarily be expected of the ancient worshipper, in connection with the institutions and services of his symbolical religion, taken simply by themselves. We do not say that there never was, much less that there could not be, any proper insight obtained by the children of the old covenant into the future mysteries of the Gospel. There were special gifts of grace then, as well as now, occasionally imparted to the more spiritual members of the covenant, which enabled them to rise to unusual degrees of knowledge; and it is a distinctive property of the spiritual mind generally to be dissatisfied with the imperfect, to seek and long for the perfect. Even now, when the comparatively perfect has come, what spiritual mind is not often conscious to itself of a feeling akin to melancholy, when it thinks of the yet abiding darkness and disorders of the present, or does not fondly cling to every hopeful indication of a brighter future? But even the best things of the old covenant bore on them the stamp of imperfection. The temple itself, which was the peculiar glory and ornament of Israel, still in a very partial and defective manner realised its own grand idea of a people dwelling with God, and God dwelling with them; and hence, because of that inherent imperfection (it was plainly declared), a higher and better mode of accomplishing the object should one day take its place (Jer. iii. 16, 17). So, too, the palpable disproportion already noticed in the rite of expiatory sacrifice between the rational life forfeited through sin, and the merely animal life substituted in its room, seemed to proclaim the necessity of a more adequate atonement for human guilt, and could not but dispose intelligent worshippers to give more earnest heed to the announcements of prophecy regarding the coming purposes of heaven. But yet, when we have admitted all this, it by no means follows that the people of God generally, under the old covenant, could attain to very definite views of the realities of the Gospel; nor does it furnish us with any reason for asserting that such views must ever of necessity have mingled with the service of an acceptable worshipper. For, his was the worship of a preparatory dispensation. It must, therefore, have been simpler and easier than what was ultimately to supplant it. And this, we again repeat, it could

only be by being viewed in its more obvious and formal aspect, as the worship of an existing religion, which provided for the time then present a fitting medium of access to God, and hallowed intercourse with heaven. The man who humbly availed himself of what was thus provided to meet his soul's necessities, stood in faith, and served God with acceptance-though still with such imperfections in the present, and such promises for the future, that the more always he reflected, he would become the more a child of desire and hope.1

We have spoken as yet only of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament; and of these quite generally, as one great whole. For it is carefully to be noted, that the Scriptural designations of rudiments and shadows, which we have shewn to be the same as typical, when properly understood, are applied to the entire mass of the ancient ordinances in their prospective reference to Gospel realities. And yet, while New Testament Scripture speaks thus of the whole, it deals very sparingly in particular examples; and if it furnishes, in its language and allusions, many valuable hints to direct inquiry, it still contains remarkably few detailed illustrations. It nowhere tells us, for example, what was either immediately symbolized, or prophetically shadowed forth, by the Holy Place in the tabernacle, or the shew-bread, or the golden candlestick, or the ark of the cove

1

If any one will take the trouble to look into the older writers, who formally examined the typical character of the ancient symbolical institutions, he will find them entirely silent in regard to the points chiefly dwelt upon in the above discussion. Lowman, for example, on the Rational of the Hebrew Worship, and Outram de Sac. Lib. i. c. 18, where he comes to consider the nature and force of a type, give no proper or satisfactory explanation of the questions, wherein precisely did the resemblance stand between the type and the antitype, or how should the one have prepared the way for the other. We are told frequently enough, that the "Hebrew ritual contained a plan, or sketch, or pattern, or shadow of Gospel things:" that "the type adumbrated the antitype by something of the same sort with that which is found in the antitype," or "by a symbol of it," or "by a slender and shadowy image of it," or "by something that may somehow be compared with it," &c. But we look in vain for anything more specific. Townley, in his Reasons of the Laws of Moses, still advances no farther in the Dissertation he devotes to the Typical Character of the Mosaic Institutions. Even Olshausen, in the treatise formerly noticed (Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn), when he comes to unfold what he calls his deeper exposition, confines himself to a brief illustration of the few general statements formerly mentioned. See p. 44.

nant, or, indeed, by anything connected with the tabernacle, excepting its more prominent offices and ministrations. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews, which enters with such comparative fulness into the connection between the Old and the New, and which is most express in ascribing a typical value to all that belonged to the tabernacle, can yet scarcely be said to give any detailed explanation of its furniture and services beyond the rite of expiatory sacrifice, and the action of the high priest in presenting it, more particularly on the great day of atonement. So that those who insist on an explicit warrant and direction from Scripture in regard to each particular type, will find their principle conducts them but a short way even through that department, which, they are obliged to admit, possesses throughout a typical character. A general admission of this sort can be of little use, if one is restrained on principle from touching most of the particulars; one might as well maintain that these did not in any degree partake of the typical element. So, indeed, Bishop Marsh has substantially done; for, "that such explanations," he says, referring to particular types," are in various instances given in the New Testament, no one can deny. And if it was deemed necessary to explain one type, where could be the expediency or moral fitness of withholding the explanation of others? Must not, therefore, the silence of the New Testament in the case of any supposed type, be an argument against the existence of that type ?" 1 Undoubtedly, we reply, if the Scriptures of the New Testament professed to illustrate the whole field of typical matter in God's ancient dispensations; but by no means, if, as is really the case, they only take it up in detached portions, by way of occasional example; and still less if the effect would be practically to exclude from the character of types many of the very institutions and services which are declared to have been all "shadows of good things to come, whereof the body is Christ." How we ought to proceed in applying the general views that have been unfolded to the interpretation of such parts of the Old Testament symbols as have not been explained in New Testament Scripture, will no doubt require careful consideration. But that we are both warranted and bound to give them a Christian interpretation, is manifest from the

Lectures, p. 392.

general character that is ascribed to them. And the fact that so much of what was given to Moses as "a testimony (or evidence) of those things which were to be spoken after" in Christ, remains without any particular explanation in Scripture, sufficiently justifies us in expecting that there may also be much typical, though unexplained matter, in the other, the historical department of the subject, which we now proceed to investigate.

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED, BUT WITH A VIEW MORE ESPECIALLY TO THE SOLUTION OF THE QUESTION, WHETHER OR HOW FAR THE HISTORICAL CHARACTERS AND TRANSACTIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT MAY BE REGARDED AS TYPICAL ?-HISTORICAL TYPES.

In the preceding chapter we have seen in what sense the religious institutions and services of the old covenant were typical. They were constructed and arranged so as to express symbolically the great truths and principles of a spiritual religion-truths and principles which were common alike to Old and New Testament times, but which, from the nature of things, could only find in the New their proper developement and full realisation. On the limited scale of the earthly and perishable-in the construction of a material tabernacle, and the suitable adjustment of bodily ministrations and sacrificial offerings, there was presented a palpable exhibition of those great truths respecting sin and salvation, the purification of the heart, and the dedication of the person and the life to God, which in the fulness of time were openly revealed. and manifested on the grand scale of a world's redemption, by the mediation and work of Jesus Christ. In that pre-arranged and harmonious, but still inherently defective and imperfect exhibition of the fundamental ideas and spiritual relations of the Gospel, stood the real nature of its typical character.

Nor, we may add, was there anything arbitrary in so employing the things of flesh and time to shadow forth, under a preparatory dispensation, the higher realities of God's everlasting kingdom. It has its ground and reason in the organic arrangements or appearances of the material world. For these are so framed as to be ever giving forth representations of divine truth, and are a kind of ceaseless regeneration, in which, through successive stages, new and higher forms of being are continually springing out of the