DISSERTATION VI.

ON

THE TYPICAL CHARACTER

OF THE

MOSAIC INSTITUTIONS.

THE adumbration of important moral truths by sensible symbols and representations, may be traced to the earliest periods, and to a divine original. In the garden of Eden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and on the expulsion of our first parents from the garden for their violation of the easy test of obedience assigned by their Creator, the Cherubims who guarded the entrance to prevent return, were certainly symbolical in their character. In Patriarchal times, the appearance of the Divine glory or Shechinah passing between the divided animals, when God entered into covenant with Abraham, was similar in its nature, though its object was different. When, therefore, Jehovah instituted a ceremonial amongst the Jews, introductory to a more spiritual and perfect dispensation, it might naturally be expected that its character would be typical and prospective, symbolizing the principal events and truths of that superior and more sublime economy; in other words, that it should be "a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ."

In accordance with these views, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, has exhibited many of the coincidences or agreements between the Mosaic Ceremonial, and its glorious antitype, the Gospel; and has fully substantiated the principle of tbe representative nature of the Levitical persons, institutions, and ceremonies.

The fanciful similitudes in which the unbridled imagination of some divines has indulged, in the comparisons which they have instituted between the legal and evangelical dispensations, have too frequently marked rather the ardent piety of their authors, than their exercise of sober and well-disciplined minds; and led some to discard altogether, without sufficient caution, the idea of the shadowy and representative design of many of the institutions of Moses. But we can never justly reason from the misapplication of a principle, to the inconsistency and absurdity of the principle itself. The want of sobriety in writers on typical subjects, and the extravagance of some of their illustrative positions, can never, therefore, destroy the importance or utility of a judicious exemplification of the various points of agreement of the symbolical with the anti-typical dispensation. Such a view of the whole of the representative system of Moses is highly desirable; we therefore hail the appearance of such works as the Sermons of Chevalier, on the Historical Persons of the Old Testament, and those of Dr. D. G. Wait, in which certain peculiarities of the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian Dispensations are discussed with great learning and ability; whilst the excellent work of Mather, "The Figures and Types of the Old Testament," (London, 1705, 4to.) must ever retain its value, until superseded by some other more modern and complete. Under these impressions, the following brief observations are presented to the reader, as supplementary to the remarks of our learned Jewish author, Maimonides.

The whole of the Mosaic system was admirably suited to the state of a people just escaped from cruel bondage, and whose minds had been debased and sensualized by laborious servitude and idolatrous example; but who were destined by the providence of God, to be the depositaries of the Sacred Oracles, and the progenitors of the great Messiah. By its wise constitution, it at once served as a guard against idolatry, and as a typical economy to impress the mind with moral sentiments through the medium of sensible symbols, and adumbrate the advent of the Redeemer, and the glories of his kingdom, by its prospective institutions. The treatise of Maimonides sufficiently exhibits its antiidolatrous character; but a few remarks in illustration of its moral and prophetic objects may not be deemed superfluous, as introductory to that treatise.

1. One of the first and most important moral considerations is, the necessity of purity or holiness, both in heart and conduct. For whether we regard the holiness and purity of the Divine Being as demanding an assimilation to his nature; or, the influence produced on our own happiness by the cultivation of purity in principle and practice, it will appear to be indispensably requisite in the true worshipper of God. "Ye shall be holy," saith the Lord, "for I am holy.”—“ Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."-" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." These moral truths were, therefore, eminently symbolized by the various and frequent ablutions, and separations for legal defilement and uncleanness, instituted by the Levitical ceremonial.

For the Ablutions of the Israelites were instituted, not only on account of their propriety in those warm countries, but for the sake also of their moral signification, being impressively emblematical of inward purity and holiness:

For, from the Body's purity, the mind

Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

Few, indeed, could have been so ignorant, even under that obscure dispensation, as to imagine that these Ceremonies of it were instituted for their own sake merely, or from any intrinsic value or efficacy they possessed to sanctify the worshippers. They must have had a moral couched under them; and were intended to be emblematical of that Purity which was requisite to render their approaches to the Deity acceptable, and of the obligations upon them to impress their hearts with a sense of the purity and holiness of the God they worshipped. At the same time these ritual services had also a direct tendency to promote these valuable ends, and were admirably calculated to guard the Israelites against the use of those superstitious, and, some of them, barbarous rites, that obtained by way of lustration, in the worship of their Heathen neighbours. In particular, they were fond of purgations by wind, fire, and water; to which the poet seems to allude, when he says:

Quin, et supremo cum lumine vita reliquit
Non tamen omne malum miseris, &c.

Ev'n when their bodies are to death resign'd,
Some old inherent spots are left behind;
A sullying tincture of corporeal stains,
Deep in the substance of the soul remains,
Thus are her splendours dimm'd, and crusted o'er
With those dark vices, that she knew before.
For this the souls a various penance pay,
To purge the taint of former crimes away:
Some in the sweeping breezes are refin'd,
And hung on high to whiten in the wind:

Some cleanse their stains beneath the gushing streams,
And some rise glorious from the scorching flames.

PITT'S VIRGIL, B. vi.

It was, therefore, the intention of the legal ablutions and separations, and other rites of a purifying character, to guard against idolatrous practices, and to eradicate idolatrous principles, and especially by the symbols of

bodily lustrations to enforce that inward holiness, without which the whole system would have been vain and unacceptable to God.* See Levit. xv.-Numbers xix.

2. Nearly allied to the inculcation of Purity, is that of the Mortification of inordinate and sensual appetites, figuratively expressed in the Mosaic economy, by repeated restrictions, under particular circumstances, of gratifications lawful in themselves; and by the injunctions of frequent legal purifications after sensual indulgences, as well as by the ordinance of the painful rite of Circumcision.-See Exod. xix. 14, 15.-1 Sam. xxi. 4, 5.-Levit. xviii. 19.Levit. xv. 16-18.

Circumcision, the first institution of which is recorded Gen. xvii. 10, 11, was the seal of the covenant made with Abraham, and designed to confirm his faith, and that of his posterity, in the promises made to him and them by the Divine Author of this typical rite. It served also as a mark of distinction from other nations; and having, like the other rites of Judaism, an important moral couched under it, reminded them of the promise of God, and encouraged them in his service, and at the same time intimated to them "the obligations they were under to mortify every irregular appetite, by representing the indulgence of these as incompatible with the character of a people devoted to God, or who would hope that their services would be acceptable to Him." Circumcision, then, was such a valuable mark in the flesh, as was very fit to be a sign to all the seed of Abraham, that they were to account themselves an

* See Shaw's Philosophy of Judaism, P. i. ch. i. p. 178, and Atkin's Attempt to illustrate the Jewish Law, pp. 211-237.-Lowman on the Hebrew Ritual, pp. 224-228. Those who wish to see the numerous ablutions and Purifications of the more modern Jews, as exemplifying the wisdom of Our Lord's censures on the Tradition of the Elders, will find themselves repaid by consulting Surenhusii MISCHNA, in Seder Tahoroth, or Order of Purifications; or Dr. Wotton's Analysis of it in his Miscellaneous Discourses, vol. i. pp. 160-176.