The Typology of Scripture

The Typology of Scripture

By Patrick Fairbairn
Published by Smith & English, 1854

VOLUME I

p. 100-137

CHAPTER FOURTH.

PROPHETICAL TYPES, OR THE COMBINATION OF TYPE WITH PROPHECY-ALLEGED DOUBLE SENSE OF PROPHECY.

A TYPE necessarily possesses something of a prophetical character, and differs in degree rather than in land from what is usually designated prophecy. The one images or prefigures, while the other foretels, coming realities. In the one case representative acts or symbols, in the other verbal delineations, serve the purpose of indicating beforehand what God was designed to accomplish for his people in the approaching future. The difference is not such as to affect the essential nature of the two subjects, as alike connecting together the Old and the New in God's dispensations. In distinctness and precision, however, simple prophecy has greatly the advantage over informations conveyed by type. For prophecy, however it may differ in its general characteristics from history, as it naturally possesses something of the directness, so it may also attain to something of the exactness of historical description. But types having a significance or moral import of their own, apart from anything prospective, must, in their prophetical aspect, be somewhat less transparent, and possess more of a complicated character. Still the relation between type and antitype, when pursued through all its ramifications, may produce as deep a conviction of design and pre-ordained connection, as can be derived from simple prophecy and its fulfilment, though, from the nature of things, the evidence in the latter case must always be more obvious and palpable than in the former.

But the possession of the same common character is not the only link of connection between type and prophecy. Not only do they agree in having both a prospective reference to the future, but they are often also combined into one prospective exhibition of the future. Prophecy, though it sometimes is of a quite simple, and direct nature, is far from being always so and can scarcely ever be said to delineate the future with the precision and exactness that history employs in recording the past. In many portions of it there is a certain degree of complexity, if not dubiety, and that mainly arising from the circumstances and transactions of the past being in some way interwoven with its anticipations of things to come. Here, however, we approach the confines of a controversy on which some of the greatest minds have expended their talents and learning, and with such doubtful success on either side, that the question is still perpetually brought up anew for discussion, whether there is or is not a double sense in prophecy? That some portion of debateable ground will always remain connected with the subject appears to us more than probable. But, at the same time, we are fully persuaded that the portion admits of being greatly narrowed in extent, and even reduced to such small dimensions, as not materially to affect the settlement of the main question, if only the typical element in prophecy is allowed its due place and weight. This we shall endeavour, first of all, to exhibit in the several aspects in which it actually presents itself; and shall then subjoin a few remarks on the views of those who espouse either side of the question, as it is usually stated.

From the general resemblance between type and prophecy, we are prepared to expect that they may sometimes run into each other; and especially, that the typical in action may in various ways form the ground-work and the materials, by means of which the prophetic in word gave forth its intimations of the coming future. And this, it is quite conceivable, may have been done under any of the following modifications. 1. A typical action might, in some portion of the prophetic word, be historically mentioned, and hence the mention being that of a prophetical circumstance or event, would come to possess a prophetical character. 2. Or something typical in the past or the present might be represented in a distinct prophetical announcement, as going to appear again in the future; thus combining together the typical in act, and the prophetical in word. 3. Or, the typical, not expressly and formally, but in its essential relations and principles, might be embodied in an accompanying prediction, which foretold things corresponding in nature, but far higher and greater in importance. 4. Or, finally, the typical might itself be still future, and in a prophetic word might be partly described, partly pre-supposed, as a typical ground for the delineation of other things still more distant, to which, when it occurred, it was to stand in the relation of type to antitype. We could manifestly have no difficulty in conceiving such combinations of type with prophecy, without any violence done to their distinctive properties, or any invasion made on their respective provinces--nothing, indeed, happening but what might have been expected from their mutual relations, and their fitness for being employed in concert to the production of common ends. And we shall now shew how each of the suppositions has found its verification in the prophetic Scriptures. [1]

I. The first supposition is that of a typical action being historically mentioned in the prophetic word, and the mention, being that of a prophetical circumstance or event, thence coming to possess a prophetical character. There are two classes of Scriptures which may be said to verify this supposition; one of which is of a somewhat general and comprehensive nature, so that the fulfilment is not necessarily confined to any single person or period, though it could not fail, in an especial manner, to appear in the personal history of Christ. To this class belonged such recorded experiences as the following--"The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (Ps. Ixix. 9, comp. with John ii. 17); "He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me" (Ps. xli. 9, comp. with John xiii. 18); "They hated me without a cause" (Ps. Ixix. 4. comp. with John xv. 25); "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner" (Ps. cxviii. 22, comp. with Matth. xxi. 42, 1 Pet. ii. 6, 7.) These passages are all distinctly referred to Christ in the Gospels, and the things that befel him are expressly said, or plainly indicated to have happened, that such scriptures might be fulfilled. Yet as originally penned they assume the form of historical statements, rather than of prophetical announcements--recorded experiences on the part of those who indited them, and experiences of a kind, that in one form or another, could scarcely fail to be often recurring in the history of God's church and people. As such it might have seemed enough to say, that they contained general truths which were exemplified also in Jesus, when travailing in the work of man's redemption. But the convictions of Jesus himself and the inspired writers of the New Testament go beyond this; they perceive a closer connection--a prophetical element in the passages, which must find its due fulfilment in the personal experience of Christ. And this the passages contained, simply from their being in their immediate and historical reference, descriptive of what belonged to characters--David and Israel--that bore typical relations to Christ; so that their being descriptive in the one respect necessarily implied their being prophetic in the other. What had formerly taken place in the experience of the type, must substantially renew itself again in the experience of the great antitype--whatever other and inferior renewals it may find besides.

To the same class also may be referred the passage in Ps. lxxviii. 2, "I will open my mouth in a parable (lit. similitude); I will utter dark sayings (lit. riddles) of old," which in Matth. xiii. 35 is spoken of as a prediction that found, and required to find, its fulfilment in our Lord's using the parabolic mode of discourse. As an utterance in the seventy-eighth Psalm the word simply records a fact, but a fact essentially connected with the discharge of the prophetical office, and, therefore, substantially indicating what must be met with in Him, in whom all prophetical endowments were to have their highest manifestation. Every prophet may be said to speak in similitudes or parables in the sense here indicated, which is comprehensive of all discourses upon divine things, delivered in figurative terms or an elevated style, and requiring more than common discernment to understand it aright. The parables of our Lord formed one species of it, but not by any means the only one. It was the common prophetico- poetical diction, which was characterized, not only by the use of measured sentences, but also by the predominant employment of external forms and natural similitudes. But, marking as it did, the possession of a prophetical gift, the record of its employment by Christ's prophetical types and forerunners was a virtual prediction, that it should be ultimately used in some appropriate form by himself.

The other class of passages which comes within the terms of the first supposition, is of a more specific and formal character. It coincides with the class already considered, in so far as it consists of words originally descriptive of some transaction or circumstance in the past, but afterwards regarded as prophetically indicative of something similar under the Gospel. Such is the word in Hos. xi. 1, "I called my son out of Egypt,' which, as uttered by the prophet, was unquestionably meant to refer historically to the fact of the Lord's goodness in delivering Israel from that land of bondage and oppression. But the Evangelist Matthew expressly points to it as a prophecy, and tells us, that the infant Jesus was for a time sent into Egypt, and again brought out of it, that the word might be fulfilled. This arose from the typical connection between Christ and Israel. The Scripture fulfilled was prophetical, simply because the circumstance it recorded was typical. But in so considering it, the Evangelist puts no new strain upon its terms, nor introduces any sort of double sense into its import. He merely points to the prophetical element involved in the transaction it relates, and thereby discovers to us a bond of connection between the Old and the New in God's dispensations, necessary to be kept in view for a correct apprehension of both.

The same explanation in substance may be given of another example of the same class--the word in Exod. xii. 46, "A bone of him shall not be broken," which in John xix. 36 is represented as finding its fulfilment in the remarkable preservation of our Lord's body on the cross from the common fate of malefactors. The Scripture in itself was a historical testimony regarding the treatment the Israelites were to give to the paschal lamb, which, instead of being broken into fragments, was to be preserved entire, and eaten as one whole. It could only be esteemed a prophecy from being the record of a typical or prophetical action. But, when viewed in that light, the Scripture itself stands precisely as it did, without any recondite depth or subtile ambiguity being thrown into its meaning. For the prophecy in it is found, not by extracting from its words some new and hidden sense, but merely by noting the typical import of the circumstances, of which the words in their natural and obvious sense are descriptive.

How either Israel or the paschal lamb should have been in such a sense typical of Christ, that what is recorded of the one could be justly regarded as a prophecy of what was to take place in the other, will be matter for future inquiry, and, in connection with some other prophecies, will be partly explained in the appendix already referred to in this chapter. It is the principle, on which the explanation must proceed, to which alone for the present we desire to draw attention, and which, in the cases now under consideration, simply recognises the prophetical element involved in the recorded circumstance or transaction of the past. Neither is the Old Testament Scripture, taken by itself, prophetical, nor does the New Testament Scripture invest it with a force and meaning foreign to its original purport and design. The Old merely records the typical fact, which properly constitutes the whole there is of prediction in the matter, while the New reads forth its import as such, by announcing the co-relative events or circumstances in which the fulfilment should be discovered. And nothing more is needed for perfectly harmonising the two together, than that we should so far identify the typical transaction recorded with the record that embodies it, as to perceive, that when the Gospel speaks of a Scripture fulfilled, it speaks of that Scripture in connection with the prophetical character of the subject it relates to.

There is nothing, surely, strange or anomalous in this. It is but the employment of a metonymy of a very common kind, according to which what embodies or contains any thing is viewed as in a manner one with the thing itself--as when the earth is made to stand for the inhabitants of the earth, a house for its inmates, a cup for its contents, a word descriptive of events past or to come, as if it actually produced them. [2] Of course, the validity of such a mode of explanation depends entirely upon the reality of the connection between the alleged type and antitype--between the earlier circumstance or object described, and the later one to which the description is prophetically applied. On any other ground such references as those in Matthew to Hosea, and in John to Exodus, can only be viewed as fanciful or strained accommodations. But the matter assumes another aspect if the one was originally ordained in anticipation of the other, and so ordained, that the earlier should not have been brought into existence if the later had not been before in contemplation. Seen from this point of view, which we hold to be the one taken by the inspired writers, the past appears to run into the future, and to have existed mainly for it. And the record or delineation of the past is naturally and justly, not by a mere fiction of the imagination, seen to possess the essential character of a prediction. Embodying a prophetical circumstance or action, it is itself named by one of the commonest figures of speech, a prophecy.

II. Our second supposition was that of something typical in the past or present being represented in a distinct prophetical announcement as going to appear again in the future--the prophetical in word being thus combined with the typical in act into a prospective delineation of things to come. This supposition also includes several varieties, and in one form or another has its exemplifications in many parts of the prophetic word. For it is in a manner the native tendency of the mind, when either of itself forecasting, or under the guidance of a divine impulse anticipating and disclosing the future, to see this future imaged in the past, to make use of the known in giving shape and form to the unknown; so that the things which have been, are then usually contemplated as in some respect types of what shall be, even though in the reality there may be considerable differences of a formal kind between them.

How much it is the native tendency of the mind to work in this manner, when itself endeavouring to descry the events of the future, is evident from the examples, transmitted to us by the most cultivated minds, of human divination. Thus the Pythoness in Virgil, when disclosing to Aeneas what he and his posterity might expect in Latium, speaks of it merely as a repetition of the scenes and experiences of former times. "You shall not want Simois, Xanthus, or the Grecian camp. Another Achilles, also of divine offspring, is already provided for Latium." [3] In like manner Juno, in the vaticination put into her mouth by Horace, respecting the possible destinies of Kome, declares, that in the circumstances supposed, "the fortune of Troy again reviving, should again also be visited with terrible disaster, and that even if a wall of brass were thrice raised around it, it should be thrice destroyed by the Greeks." [4] In such examples of pretended divination, no one, of course, imagines it to have been meant that the historical persons and circumstances mentioned were to be actually reproduced in the approaching or contemplated future. All we are to understand is, that others of a like kind--holding similar relations to the parties interested, and occupying much the same position--were announced beforehand to appear; and so, would render the future a sort of repetition of the past; or the past a kind of typical foreshadowing of the future.

As an example of divine predictions precisely similar in form, we may point to Hos. viii. 13, where the prophet, speaking of the Lord's purpose to visit the sins of Israel with chastisement, says, "They shall return to Egypt." The old state of bondage and oppression should come back upon them; or the things going to befal them of evil should be after the type of what their forefathers had experienced under the yoke of Pharaoh. Yet that the new should not be by any means the exact repetition of the old, as it might have been conjectured from the altered circumstances of the time, so it is expressly intimated by the prophet himself a few verses afterwards, when he says, "Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria" (chap ix. 3); and again in ch. xi. 5, "He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king." He shall return to Egypt and still not return; in other words, the Egypt-state shall come back on him, though the precise locality and external circumstances shall differ. In like manner Ezekiel in ch. iv. foretels, in his own peculiar and mystical way, the return of the Egypt-state; and in ch. xx. speaks of the Lord as going to bring the people again into the wilderness; but calls it "the wilderness of the peoples," to indicate that the dealing should be the same only in character with what Israel of old had been subjected to in the wilderness, not a bald and formal repetition of the story.

Indeed, God's providence knows nothing in the sacred any more than in the profane territory of the world's history, of a literal reproduction of the past. And when prophecy threw its delineations of the future into the form of the past, and spake of the things yet to be as a recurrence of those that had already been, it simply meant that the one should be after the type of the other, or should in spirit and character resemble it. By type, however, in such examples as those just referred to, is not to be understood type in the more special or theological sense in which the term is commonly used in the present discussions, as if there was anything in the past that of itself gave prophetic intimation of the coming future. It is to be understood only in the general sense of a pattern-form, in accordance with which the events in prospect were to bear the image of the past. The prophetical element, therefore, did not properly reside in the historical transaction referred to in the prophecy, but in the prophetic word itself, which derived its peculiar form from the past, and through that a certain degree of light to illustrate its import. There were, however, other cases in which the typical in circumstance or action--the typical in the proper sense---was similarly combined with a prophecy in word; and in them we have a twofold prophetic element--one more concealed in the type, and another more express and definite in the word, but the two made to coalesce in one prediction.

Of this Mnd is the prophecy in Zech. vi. 12,13, where the prophet takes occasion, from the building of the literal temple in Jerusalem under the presidency of Joshua, to foretel a similar, but higher and more glorious work in the future: "Behold the man, whose name is the Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord; even he shall build the temple of the Lord," &c. The building of the temple was itself typical of the incarnation of God in the person of Christ, and of the raising up in him of a spiritual house that should be "an habitation of God through the Spirit." (John ii. 19; Matth. xvi. 18; Eph. ii. 20, 22.) But the prophecy thus involved in the action is expressly uttered in the prediction, which at once explained the type, and sent forward the expectations of believers toward the contemplated result. Similar, also, is the prediction of Ezekiel, in chap, xxxiv. 23, in which the good promised in the future to a truly penitent and believing people, is connected with a return of the person and times of David: "And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd." And the closing prediction of Malachi, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." David's kingdom and reign in Israel were from the first intended to foreshadow those of Christ; and the work also of Elias, as preparatory to the Lord's final reckoning with the apostate commonwealth of Israel, bore a typical respect to the work of preparation that was to go before the Lord's personal appearance in the last crisis of the Jewish state. Such might have been probably conjectured or dimly apprehended from the things themselves; but it became comparatively clear, when it was announced in explicit predictions, that a new David and a new Elias were to appear. The prophetical element was there before in the type; but the prophetical word brought it distinctly and prominently out; yet so as in no respect to materially change or complicate the meaning. The specific designation of "David my servant," and "Elijah the prophet," are in each case alike intended to indicate, not the literal reproduction of the past, but the full realization of all that the past typically foretokened of good. It virtually told the people of God, that in their anticipations of the coming reality, they might not fear to heighten to the uttermost the idea which those honoured names were fitted to suggest; their anticipations would be amply borne out by the event, in which still higher prophecy than Elijah's, and unspeakably nobler service than David's, was to be found in reserve for the church. [5]

III. We pass on to our third supposition, which may seem to be nearly identical with the last, yet belongs to a stage further in advance. It is that the typical, not expressly and formally, but in its essential relations and principles, might be embodied in an accompanying prediction, which foretold things corresponding in nature, but of higher moment and wider import. So far this supposed case coincides with the last, that in that also the things predicted might be, and, if referring to gospel times, actually were higher and greater than those of the type. But it differs, in that this superiority did not there, as it does here, appear in the terms of the prediction, which simply announced the recurrence of the type. And it differs still farther, in that there the type was expressly and formally introduced into the prophecy, while here it is tacitly assumed, and only its essential relations and principles are applied to the delineation of some things analogous and related, but conspicuously loftier and greater. In this case, then, the typical transactions furnishing the materials for the prophetical delineation, must necessarily form the back-ground, and the explanatory prediction the foreground of the picture. The words of the prophet must describe not the typical past, but the corresponding and grander future,---describe it, however, under the form of the past, and in connection with the same fundamental views of the divine character and government. So that there must here also be but one sense, though a twofold prediction-- one more vague and indefinite, standing in the type or prophetic action, the other more precise and definite, furnished by the prophetic word, and directly pointing to the greater things to come.

The supposition now made is actually verified in a considerable number of prophetical Scriptures. Connected with them, and giving rise to them, there were certain circumstances and events so ordered by God as to be in a greater or less degree typical of others under the Gospel. And there was a prophecy connecting the two together, by taking up the truths and relations embodied in the type, and expanding them so as to embrace the higher and still future things of God's kingdom,--thus at once indicating the typical design of the past, and announcing in appropriate terms the coming events of the future.

Let us point, in the first instance, to an illustrative example, in which the typical element, indeed, was comparatively vague and general, but which has the advantage of being the first, if we mistake not, of this species of prophecy, and in some measure gave the tone to those that followed. The example we refer to is the song of Hannah (1 Sam. ii. 1-10) indited by that pious woman under the inspiration of God, on the occasion of the birth of Samuel. The history leaves no room to doubt that this was its immediate occasion; yet, if viewed in reference to that occasion alone, how comparatively trifling is the theme! How strained and magniloquent the expressions! Hannah speaks of her "mouth being enlarged over her enemies," of "the bows of the mighty men being broken," of the "barren bearing seven," of the "full hiring themselves out for bread," and other things of a like nature--all how far exceeding, how completely caricaturing the occasion, if it has respect merely to the fact of a woman, hitherto reputed barren, becoming at length the joyful mother of a child! Were the song a mere inflation in the style of common eastern poetry, we might not be greatly startled at such grotesque exaggerations; but being a portion of that word, which is all given by inspiration of God, and is as silver tried in a furnace, we must disband from our mind any idea of extravagance or conceit. Indeed, from the whole strain and character of the song, it is evident, that though occasioned by the birth of Samuel, it was so far from having exclusive reference to that event, that the things concerning it formed one only of a numerous and important class pervading the providence of God, and closely connected with his highest purposes. In a spiritual respect it was a time of mournful barrenness and desolation in Israel; "the word of the Lord was precious, there was no open vision;" and iniquity was so rampant as even to be lifting up its insolent front, and practising its foul abominations in the very precincts of the Sanctuary. How natural, then, for Hannah, when she had got that child of desire and hope, which she had devoted from his birth as a Nazarite to the Lord's service, and feeling her soul moved by a prophetic impulse, to regard herself as specially raised up to be "a sign and a wonder" to Israel, and to do so particularly in respect to that principle in the divine government, which had so strikingly developed itself in her experience, but which was destined to receive its grandest manifestation in the work and kingdom, which were to be more peculiarly the Lord's! Hence, instead of looking simply to her individual ease, and marking the operation of the Lord's hand in what merely concerned her personal history, she wings her flight aloft, and surveys the wide field of God's providential dealings; noting especially, as she proceeds, the workings of that pure and gracious sovereignty which delights to exalt an humble piety, while it brings down the proud and rebellious. And as every exercise of this principle is but part of a grand series, which culminates in the dispensation of Christ, her song runs out at the close into a sublime and glowing delineation of the final results to be achieved by it in connection with his righteous administration. " The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them; the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed." [6]

This song of Hannah, then, plainly consists of two parts, in the one of which only--the concluding portion--it is properly prophetical. The preceding stanzas are taken up with unfolding, from past and current events, the grand spiritual idea; the closing ones carry it forward in beautiful and striking application to the affairs of Messiah's kingdom. In the earlier part it presents to us the germ of sacred principle unfolded in the type; in the latter, it exhibits this rising to its ripened growth and perfection in the final exaltation and triumph of the king of Zion. The two differ in respect to the line of things immediately contemplated--the facts of history in the one case, in the other the anticipations of prophecy; but they agree in being alike pervaded by one and the same great principle, which, after floating down the stream of earthly providences, is represented as ultimately settling and developing itself with resistless energy in the affairs of Messiah's kingdom. And as if to remove every shadow of doubt as to this being the purport and design of Hannah's song, when we open the record of that better era, which she only saw glistening as a distant star in the horizon, we find the Virgin Mary, in her song of praise at the announcement of Messiah's birth, re-echoing the sentiments, and sometimes even repeating the very words of the mother of Samuel---"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever." Why should the Spirit, breathing at such a time on the soul of Mary, have turned her thoughts so nearly into the channel that had been struck out ages before by the pious Hannah? Or why should the circumstances connected with the birth of Hannah's Nazarite offspring have proved the occasion of strains, which so distinctly pointed to the manifestation of the King of Glory, and so closely harmonized with those actually sung in celebration of the event? Doubtless to mark the connection really subsisting between the two. It is the Spirit's own intimation of his ulterior design in transactions long since past, and testimonies delivered centuries before--namely, to herald the coming of Messiah, and make the church familiar with the form and character of his spiritual dispensation. [7]

Hannah's song was the first specimen of that combination of prophecy with type, which is now under consideration; but it was soon followed by others, in which both the prophecy was more extended, and the typical element in the transactions that gave rise to it, was more marked and specific. The examples we refer to are to be found in the Messianic psalms, which also resemble the song of Hannah in being of a lyrical character, and thence admitting of a freer play of feeling on the part of the individual writer than could fitly be introduced into simple prophecy. But this again principally arose from the close connection typically between the present and the future, whereby the feelings originated by the one naturally incorporated themselves with the delineation of the other. And as it was the institution of the temporal kingdom in the person and house of David which here formed the ground and the occasion of the prophetic delineation, there was no part of the typical arrangements under the ancient dispensation which more fully admitted, or, to prevent misapprehension, more obviously required the accompaniment of a series of lyrical prophecies, such as that contained in the Messianic psalms.

For, the institution of a temporal kingdom in the hands of an Israelitish family involved a very material change in the external framework of the theocracy; and a change that of itself was fitted to rivet the minds of the people more to the earthly and visible, and take them off from the invisible and divine. The constitution under which they were placed before the appointment of a king--though it did not absolutely preclude such an appointment--yet seemed as if it would rather suffer than be improved by so broad and palpable an introduction of the merely human element. It was till then a theocracy in the strictest sense; a commonwealth, that had no recognized head but God, and placed every thing essentially connected with life and wellbeing under his immediate presidence and direction. The land of the covenant was emphatically God's land [8] --the people that dwelt in it were his peculiar property and heritage [9]--the laws which, they were bound to obey were his statutes and judgments [10] --and the persons appointed to interpret and administer them were his representatives, and on this account even sometimes bore his name. [11] It was the peculiar and distinguishing glory of Israel as a nation, that they stood in this near relationship to God, and that which more especially called forth the rapturous eulogy of Moses, [12] "Happy art thou, 0 Israel, who is like unto thee! The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms," It was a glory, however, which the people themselves were too carnal for the most part to estimate aright, and of which they never appeared more insensible, than when they sought to be like the Gentiles, by having a king appointed over them. For, what was it but in effect to seek, that they might lose their peculiar distinction among the nations? that God might retire to a greater distance from them, and might no longer be their immediate guardian and sovereign?

Nor was this the only evil likely to arise out of the proposed change. Every thing under the old covenant bore reference to the future and more perfect dispensation of the Gospel; and the ultimate reason of any important feature or material change in respect to the former, can never be understood without taking into account the bearing it might have on the future state and issues of things under the Gospel. But how could any change in the constitution of ancient Israel, and especially such a change as the people contemplated, when they desired a king after the manner of the Gentiles, be adopted without altering matters in this respect to the worse? The dispensation of the Gospel was to be, in a peculiar sense, the " kingdom of heaven, or of God," having for its high end and aim the establishment of a near, and blessed intercourse between God and men. It realizes its consummation, when the vision seen by John, and described after the precise pattern of the constitution set up in the wilderness, comes into fulfilment--when "the tabernacle of God is with men, and he dwells with them," Of this consummation it was a striking and impressive image that was presented in the original structure of the Israelitish commonwealth, wherein God himself sustained the office of king, and had his peculiar residence and appropriate manifestations of glory in the midst of his people. And when they, in their carnal affection for a worldly institute, clamoured for an earthly sovereign, they not only discovered a lamentable indifference towards what constituted their highest honour, but betrayed also a want of discernment and faith in regard to God's prospective and ultimate design in connection with their provisional economy. They gave conclusive proof that "they did not see to the end of that which was to be abolished," and preferred a request, which, if granted according to their expectation, would in a most important respect have defeated the object of their theocratic constitution.

We need not, therefore, be surprised that God should have expressed his dissatisfaction with the proposal made by the people for the appointment of a king to them, and should have regarded it as a substantial rejection of himself, that he should not reign over them. (1 Sam. viii. 7). But why then did he afterwards accede to it? And why did he make choice of the things connected with it, as an historical occasion and a typical ground for shadowing forth the nature and glories of Messiah's Idngdom? The divine procedure in this, though apparently capricious, was in reality marked by the highest wisdom, and affords one of the finest examples to be found in Old Testament history of that overruling providence, by which God often averted the evil which men's devices tended to produce, and rendered them subservient to the greatest good.

The appointment of a king, as the earthly head of the commonwealth, we have said, was not absolutely precluded by the theocratic constitution. It was from the first contemplated by Moses as a thing which the people would probably desire, and in which they were not to be gainsayed, but were only to be directed into the proper method of accomplishing it (Dent. xvii. 14-20). It was even possible--if the matter was rightly gone about, and the divine sanction obtained respecting it--to turn it to profitable account, in familiarising the minds of men with what was destined to form the central idea of the Messiah's kingdom--the personal indwelling of the divine in the human nature----and so, to acquire for it the character of an important step in the preparatory arrangements for the kingdom. This is what was actually done. After the people had been solemnly admonished of their guilt in requesting the appointment of a king on their worldly principles, they were allowed to raise one of their number to the throne--not, however, as absolute and independent sovereign, but only as the deputy of Jehovah; that he might simply rule in the name, and in subordination to the will, of God. [13] For this reason his throne was called "the throne of the Lord;" [14] on which, as the queen of Sheba expressed it to Solomon, he was "set to be king for the Lord his God;" [15] and the kingly government itself was afterwards designated "the kingdom of the Lord." [16] For the same reason, no doubt, it was that Samuel "wrote in a book the manner of the kingdom, and laid it up before the Lord;" [17] that the protest concerning its derived and vicegerent nature might be perpetuated. And to render the divine purpose in this respect manifest to all who had eyes to see and ears to hear, the Lord allowed the choice first to fall on one who--as the representative of the people's carnal wisdom and prowess--was little disposed to rule in humble subordination to the will and authority of Heaven, and was therefore supplanted by another who should act as God's representative, and bear distinctively the name of his servant. [18]

It was, therefore, in this second person, David, that the kingly administration in Israel properly began; he was the root and founder of the kingdom--as a kingdom, in which the divine and human stood first in an official, as they were ultimately to stand in a personal union. And to make the preparatory and the final in this respect properly harmonise and adapt themselves to each other, the Lord, in the first instance, ordered matters connected with the institution of the kingly government, so as to render the beginning an image of the end--typical throughout of Messiah's work and kingdom. And then, lest the typical bearing of things should be lost sight of in consequence of their present interest or importance, he gave in connection with them the word of prophecy., which, proceeding on the ground of their typical import, pointed the expectations of the Church to corresponding, but far higher and greater things still to come. In this way, what must otherwise have tended to veil the purpose of God, and obstruct the main design of his preparatory dispensation, was turned into one of the most effective means of revealing and promoting it. The earthly head, that now under God stood over the members of the commonwealth, instead of overshadowing his authority, only presented this more distinctly to their view, and served as a stepping-stone to faith, in enabling it to rise nearer to the apprehension of that personal indwelling of Godhead--the real Immanuel---which was to constitute the foundation and the glory of the Gospel dispensation. Not only was the work of God's preparatory arrangements not arrested, and the prospective anticipation of the future not marred, but occasion was taken to unfold this future in its more essential features with an air of individuality and distinctness, with a variety of detail and vividness of colouring not to be met with in any other portions of prophetic Scripture.

We refer for illustration to a single example of this combination of prophecy with type (others will be noticed, and in a somewhat different connection, in the Appendix)--the second Psalm. The production as to form is a kind of inaugural hymn, intended to celebrate the appointment and final triumph of Jehovah's king. The heathen nations are represented as foolishly opposing it (v. 1, 2); they agree among themselves, if the appointment should be made, practically to disown and resist it (v. 3); the Almighty however, perseveres in his purpose, scorning the rebellious opposition of such impotent adversaries (v. 4); the eternal decree goes forth, that the anointed king is enthroned on Zion; that being Jehovah's son, he is made the heir of all things, even to the uttermost bounds of the habitable globe (v. 5-9). And in consideration of what has thus been decreed and ratified in Heaven, the Psalm concludes with a word of friendly counsel and admonition to earthly potentates and rulers, exhorting them to submit in time to the sway of this glorious king, and forewarning them of the inevitable ruin of resistance. That in all this we can trace the lines of Messiah's history, is obvious at a glance. Even the older Jewish doctors, as we learn by the quotation from Solomon Jarehi, given by Venema, agreed that "it should be expounded of King Messiah;" but he adds, "in accordance with the literal sense, and that it may be used against the heretics (i. e. Christians), it is proper to explain it as relating to David himself." Strange, that this idea, the offspring of Eabbinical artifice, seeking to withdraw an argument from the cause of Christianity, should have so generally commended itself to Christian interpreters! But if by literal sense is to be understood the plain and natural import of the words employed, what ground is there for such an interpretation? David was not opposed in his appointment to the throne of Israel by heathen nations or rulers, who knew and cared comparatively little about it; nor was his being anointed king coincident with his being set on the holy hill of Zion; nor, after being established in the kingdom, did he ever dream of pressing any claims of dominion on the kings and rulers of the earth: his wars were uniformly wars of defence, and not of conquest. So palpable, indeed, is the discordance between the lines of David's history, and the lofty terms of the psalm, that the opinion which ascribes it in the literal sense to David, may now be regarded as comparatively antiquated; and some even of those who formerly espoused it (such as Rosen-muller), have at length owned, that "it cannot well be understood as applying either to David or to Solomon, much less to any of the later Hebrew kings, and that the judgment of the more ancient Hebrews is to be followed, who considered it as a celebration of the mighty king that they expected under the name of the Messiah."

But has the Psalm, then, no connection with the life and kingdom of David? Unquestionably it has; and a connection so close, that what took place in him was at once the beginning and the image of what, amid higher relations, and on a more extended scale, was to be accomplished by the subject of the Psalm. While the terms in which the king and the kingdom there celebrated are spoken of, stretch far above the line of things that belonged to David, they yet bear throughout the mark and impress of these. In both alike we see a sovereign choice and fixed appointment, on the part of God, to the office of king among men--an opposition, of the most violent and heathenish nature to withstand and nullify the appointment--the gradual and successive overthrow of all the obstacles raised against the purpose of Heaven, and the extension of the sphere of empire (still partly future in the case of Messiah) till it reached the limits of the divine grant. The lines of history in the two cases are entirely parallel; there is all the correspondence we expect between type and antitype; but the prophecy which marks the connection between them, while it was occasioned by the purpose of God respecting David, and derived from his history the particular mould in which it was cast, was applicable only to Him, who, to the properties of a human nature and an earthly throne, was to add those also of the heavenly and divine.

We shall not here go further into detail respecting this class of prophecies, which belong chiefly to the Psalms; but we must remark, that as it was their object to explain the typical character of David's calling and kingdom, and to connect this with the higher things to come, we may reasonably expect there will be some portions in the Messianic psalms, which are alike applicable to type and antitype; and also entire psalms, in which there may be room for doubting to which of the two they may most fitly be referred. In some the distinctive, the superhuman and divine properties of the Messiah's person and kingdom are so broadly and characteristically delineated, (as in Ps. ii. xxii. xlv. Ixxii, ex), that it is impossible by any fair interpretation of the language to understand the description of another than Christ. But there are others, in which the merely human elements are so strongly depicted (such as Ps. xl. Ixix. cix.), that not a few of the traits might doubtless be found in the bearer also of the earthly kingdom; while still the excessive darkness of the picture, as a whole, on the one side, and the magnitude of the results and interests connected with it, on the other, shut us up to the conclusion that Christ, in his work of humiliation and his kingdom of blessing and glory, is the real subject of the prophecy. Viewed as an entire and prospective delineation, the theme is still one, and the sense not manifold but simple. There are again others, however, of which Ps. xli. may be taken as a specimen, in which the delineation throughout is as applicable to the bearer of the earthly, as to that of the heavenly kingdom; so that if regarded as a prophecy at all, it can only be in the way explained under onr first supposition, as an historical description of things that happened under typical relations, which imparted to them a prophetical element.

Such varieties are no more than what might have been expected in the class of sacred lyrics now under consideration; and the rather so, as they were composed for the devotional use of the church at a time when she required as well to be refreshed and strengthened by the faith of the typical past, as to be cheered and animated by the hope of the still grander antitypical future. It was necessary that she should be taught so to look for the one as not to lose sight of the other; but rather, in what had already occurred, to find the root and promise of what was to be hereafter. The word of Nathan to David (2 Sam. vii. 4-16), which properly began the series, and laid the foundation for further develope- ments, presented the matter in this light. David is there associated with his filial successor, as alike connected with the institution of the kingdom in its primary and inferior aspect; and the high honour was conceded to his house of furnishing the royal dynasty that was destined to preside for ever in God's name over the affairs of men. But this for ever, emphatically used in the promise, evidently pointed to a time when the relations of the kingdom in its then provisional and circumscribed form, should give way to others immensely greater and higher. It pointed to a commingling of the divine and human, the heavenly and the earthly, in another manner than could possibly be realised in the case either of David himself, or of any ordinary descendant from his loins. And it became one of the leading objects of David's prophetical calling, and of those who were his immediate successors in the prophetical function, to unfold, after the manner already described, something of that ulterior purpose of heaven, which, though included, was still but obscurely indicated in the fundamental prophecy of Nathan. [19]

IV. But we have still to notice another possible combination of type with prophecy. It is possible., we said., that the typical transactions might themselves be still future; and might, in a prophetic word, be partly described, partly presupposed, as a ground for the delineation of other things still more distant, in respect to which they were to hold a typical relation. The difference between this and the last supposition is quite immaterial in so far as any principle is involved. It makes no essential change in the nature of the relation, that the typical transactions forming the groundwork of the prophetical delineation should have been contemplated as future, and not as past or present. It is true that the prophet was God's messenger, in an especial sense, to the men of his own age, and as such usually delivered messages, which were called forth by what had actually occurred, and bore its peculiar impress. But he was not necessarily tied to that. As from the present he could anticipate the still undeveloped future, so there was nothing to hinder--if the circumstances of the Church might require it--that he should also at times realise as present a nearer future, and from that anticipate another more remote. In doing so he would naturally transport himself into the position of those who were to witness that nearer future, which would then be contemplated as holding much the same relation typically to the higher things in prospect, as in the case last considered: that is, the matter-of-fact prophecy involved in the typical transactions viewed as already present, would furnish to the prophet's eye the form and aspect under which he would exhibit the corresponding events yet to be expected.

The only addition which the view now suggested makes to the one generally held, is, that we suppose the prophet, while he spake as from the midst of circumstances future, though not distant, recognised in these something of a typical nature; and on the basis of that as the type unfolded the greater and more distant antitype. There is plainly nothing incredible or even improbable in such a supposition, especially if the nearer future already lay within the vision of the Church. The circumstances, however, giving rise to prophecies of this description could not be expected to be of very frequent occurrence. They could only be expected in those more peculiar emergencies when it became needful for the Church's warning or consolation to overshoot, as it were, the things more immediately in prospect, and fix the eye on others more remote in point of time, though in nature most closely connected with them.

Now, at one remarkable period of her history, the Old Testament Church was certainly in such circumstances--the period preceding and during the Babylonish exile. From the time that this calamity had become inevitable, the prophets, as already noticed, had spoken of it as a second Egypt--a new bondage to the power of the world, from which the Church required to be delivered by a new manifestation of redemptive grace. But a second redemption after the manner of the first would obviously no longer suffice to restore the heart of faith to assured confidence, or fill it with satisfying expectations of coming good. The redemption from Egypt, with all its marvellous accompaniments and happy results, had still failed to provide an effectual security against sweeping desolation. And if the redemption from Babylon might have brought, in the fullest sense, a restoration to the land of Canaan, and the re-establishment of the temple-service; yet if this were ah1 the spirit of prophecy could descry of corning good, there must still have been room for fear to enter; there could scarcely fail even to be sad forebodings of new desolations likely to rise and undo the work of the new redemption. At such a period, therefore, the prophet had a double part to perform, when charged with the commission to comfort the people of God. He had, in the first instance, to declare the fixed purpose of God to visit Babylon for her sins, and thereby afford a door of escape for the captive children of the covenant, that as a people saved anew they might return to their ancient heritages. But he had to do more than this. He had to take his station, as it were, on the floor of that nearer redemption, and from thence direct the eye of hope to another and higher, of which it was but the imperfect shadow--a redemption which should lay the foundation of the Church's wellbeing so broad and deep, that the former troubles could no longer return, and heights of prosperity and blessing should be reached entirely unknown in the past. Thus alone could a ground of consolation be provided for the people of God, really adequate to the emergencies of that dismal time, when all that was of God seemed ready to perish, under the combined force of internal corruption and outward violence.

It was precisely in this way that the Prophet Isaiah sought to comfort the church of God by inditing the latter portion of his writings (ch. xl.-lxvi), in which we have the most important example of the class of prophecies now under consideration. The central object in the whole of this magnificent chain of prophecy, is the appearance, work, and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ-- his spirit and character, his sufferings and triumphs, the completeness of his redemption, the safety and blessedness of his people, the certain overthrow of his enemies, and the final glory of his kingdom. The manner in which this prophetic discourse is entered on, might alone satisfy us that such is in reality its main theme. For, the voice which there meets us, of one crying in the wilderness, is that to which, according to all the evangelists, John the Baptist appealed, as announcing beforehand his office and mission to the church of God. And if the forerunner is found at the threshold, who should chiefly occupy the interior of the building but He, whom John was specially sent to make known to Israel? The substance of the message also, as there briefly indicated, entirely corresponds; for, it speaks not, as is often loosely represented, of the people's return to Jerusalem, but of the Lord's return to the people; it announces a coming revelation of his glory, which all flesh should see; and proclaims to the cities of Judah the tidings, Behold your G-od! We are not to be understood as meaning, that the Lord might not in a sense be said to come to his people, when in their behalf he brought down the pride of Babylon, and laid open for them a way of return to their native land. A reference to this more secret and preparatory revelation of himself may certainly be understood, both here and in several kindred representations that follow; yet not as their direct and immediate object, but rather as something pre-supposed, similar in kind, though, immensely inferior in degree to the proper reality. There are passages, indeed, so general in the truths and principles they enunciate, that they cannot with propriety be limited to one period of the church's history any more than to another. And again, there are others, especially the portion reaching from ch. xliv. 24 to xlviii. 22, as also ch. li., lii.? which refer more immediately to the events connected with the deliverance from Babylon, as things in themselves perfectly certain, and fitted to awaken confidence in regard to the greater things that were yet destined to be accomplished. He who could speak of Babylon as already prostrate in the dust, though no shade had yet come over the lustre of her glory---who, at the very moment she was the scourge and terror of the nations, could picture to himself the time when she should be seen as a spoiled and forlorn captive--who could behold the once weeping exiles of Judea, escaped from her grasp, and sent back with honour to revive the glories of Jerusalem, while the proud destroyer was left to sink and moulder into irrecoverable ruin-- He, who could foresee all this as in a manner present, and commit to his Church the prophetic announcement generations before it had been fulfilled, might well claim from his people an implicit faith, when giving intimation of a work still to be done, the greatness of which should surpass all thought, as its blessings should extend to all lands (ch. xlv. 17, 22, xlix. 18-26). Thus, the deliverance accomplished from the yoke of Babylon formed a fitting prelude and stepping-stone to the main subject of the prophecy--the revelation of God in the person and work of his Son. The certainty of the one--a certainty soon to be realized--was a pledge of the ultimate certainty of the other; and the character also of the former, as a singular and unexpected manifestation of the Lord's power to deliver his people and lay their enemies in the dust, was a prefiguration of what was to be accomplished once for all in the salvation to be wrought out by Jesus Christ. [20]

There are few portions of Old Testament prophecy, which at together resemble the one we have been considering. Perhaps that which approaches nearest to it, in the mode of combining type with prophecy, is the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, which is not a direct and simple delineation of the judgments that were destined to alight upon Idumea, but rather an ideal representation of the judgments preparing to alight on the enemies generally of God's people, founded upon the approaching desolations of Edom, which it contemplates as the type of the destruction that awaits all the adversaries. Still more similar, however, is our Lord's prophecy regarding the destruction of Jerusalem and his own final advent to judge the world in the twenty-fourth chapter of St Matthew's Gospel; in which, undoubtedly, the nearer future is regarded as the type of the higher and more remote. It would almost seem as if the two events were, to a certain extent, thrown together in the prophetic delineation; for the efforts that have been made to separate the portions strictly applicable to each, have never wholly succeeded and more, perhaps, than any other part of prophetic Scripture is there the appearance here of something like a double sense. What reasons may have existed for this we can still but imperfectly apprehend. One principal reason, we may certainly conclude, was, that it did not accord with our Lord's design, as it would not have consisted with his people's good, to have exhibited very precise and definite prognostics of his second coming. The exact period behoved to be shrouded almost to the very last in mystery, and it seemed to divine wisdom the fittest course to order the circumstances connected with the final act of judgment on the typical people and territory, so as to serve, at the same time, for signs and tokens of the last great act of judgment on the world at large. As the acts themselves corresponded, so there should also be a correspondence in the manner of their accomplishment; and to contemplate the one as imaged in the other, without being able in all respects to draw the line very accurately between them, was the whole that could safely be permitted to believers.

The result, then, of the preceding investigation is, that there is in Scripture a fourfold combination of type with prophecy. In the first of these the prophetic import lies in the type, and in the word only as descriptive of the type. In the others there was not a double sense, but a double prophecy--a typical prophecy in action, coupled with a verbal prophecy in word; not uniformly combined, however, but variously modified; in one class a distinct typical action having associated with it an express prophetical announcement; in another, the typical lying only as the background on which the spirit of prophecy raised the prediction of a corresponding but much grander future; and in still another, the typical belonging to a nearer future, which was realised as present, and taken as the occasion and groundwork of a prophecy respecting a future greater, and also more distant. It is in this last department alone that there is anything like a mixing up of two subjects together, and a consequent difficulty in determining when precisely the language refers to the nearer, and when to the more remote transactions. Even then, however, only in rare cases; and with this slight exception, there is nothing that carries the appearance of confusion or ambiguity. Each part holds its appropriate place, and the connection subsisting between them, in its various shapes and forms, is such as might have been expected in a system so complex and many-sided as that to which they belonged.

II. We proceed now to offer some remarks on the views generally held on the subject of the prophecies which have passed under our consideration. They fall into two opposite sections. Overlooking the real connection in such cases between type and prophecy, and often misapprehending the proper import of the language, the opinion contended for, on the one side, has been, that the predictions contain a double sense--the one primary and the other secondary, or the one literal and the other mystical; while, on the contrary side, it has been maintained that the predictions have but one meaning, and when applied in New Testament Scripture, in a way not accordant with that meaning, it is held to be a simple accommodation of the words. A brief examination of the two opposing views will be sufficient for our purpose.

1. And, first, in regard to the view which advocates the theory of the double sense. Here it has been laid down as a settled canon of interpretation, that "the same prophecies frequently refer to different events, the one near and the other remote--the one temporal the other spiritual, and, perhaps, eternal; that the expressions are partly applicable to one and partly to another; and that what has not been fulfilled in the first, we must apply to the second." If so, the conclusion seems inevitable, that there must be a painful degree of uncertainty and confusion resting on. such portions of prophetic Scripture. And the ambiguity thus necessarily pervading them, must, one would think, have rendered them of comparatively little value, whether originally as a ground of hope to the Old Testament church, or now as an evidence of faith to the New.

Great ingenuity was certainly shewn by Warburton in labouring to establish the grounds of this double sense, without materially impairing in any respect the validity of the prophecy. The view advocated by him, however, lies open to two serious objections, which have been powerfully urged against it, especially by Bishop Marsh, and which have demonstrated its arbitrariness. 1. In the first place, while it proceeds upon the supposition, that the double sense of prophecy is quite analogous to the double sense of allegory, there is in reality an essential difference between them. "When we interpret a prophecy, to which a double meaning is ascribed, the one relating to the Jewish, the other to the Christian dispensation, we are in either case concerned with an interpretation of words. For the same words which, according to one interpretation, are applied to one event, are, according to another interpretation, applied to another event. But in. the interpretation of an allegory, we are concerned only in the first instance with an interpretation of words; the second sense, which is usually called the allegorical, being an interpretation of things. The interpretation of the words gives nothing more than the plain and simple narratives themselves (the allegory generally assuming the form of a narrative); whereas the moral of the allegory is learnt by an application of the things signified by those words to other things which resemble them, and which the former were intended to suggest. There is a fundamental difference, therefore, between the interpretation of an allegory, and the interpretation of a prophecy with a double sense." [21] 2. The view of Warburton is, besides, liable to the objection, that it not only affixes a necessary darkness and obscurity to the prophecies having the double sense, but also precludes the existence of any other prophecies more plain, direct, and explicit--until at least the dispensation, under which the prophecies were given, and for which the double sense specially adapted them, was approaching its termination. He contends that the veiled meaning of the prophecies was necessary, in order at once to awaken some general expectations among the Jews of better things to come, and, at the same time, to prevent these from being so distinctly understood as to weaken their regard to existing institutions. It is fatal to this view of the matter, that in reality many of the most direct and perspicacious prophecies concerning the Messiah were contemporaneous with those, which are alleged to possess the double meaning and the veiled reference to the Messiah. If, therefore, the divine method were such as to admit only of the one class, it must have been defeated by the other. And it must also have been, not so properly a ground of blame as a matter of necessity, arising from the very circumstances of their position, that the Jews " could not stedfastly look to the end of that which was to be abolished" (2 Cor. iii. 13). The reverse, however, was actually the case; for the more clearly they perceived the meaning of the prophecies, and the end of their symbolical institutions, the more heartily did they enter into the design of God, and the more nearly attain the condition which it became them to occupy.

These objections, however, apply chiefly to that vindication of the double sense which came from the hand of Warburton, and was interwoven with his peculiar theory. The opinion has since been advocated in a manner that guards it against both objections, and is put, perhaps, in its most approved form by Davison. " What," he asks, " is the double sense? Not the convenient latitude of two unconnected senses, wide of each other, and giving room to a fallacious ambiguity, but the combination of two related, analogous, and harmonizing, though disparate subjects, each clear and definite in itself; implying a twofold truth in the prescience, and creating an aggravated difficulty, and thereby an accumulated proof in the completion. For a case in point: to justify the predictions concerning the kingdom of David in their double force, it must be shewn of them, that they hold in each of their relations, and in each were fulfilled. So that the double sense of prophecy, in its true idea, is a check upon the pretences of a vague and unappropriated prediction, rather than a door to admit them; But this is not all. For if the prediction distribute its sense into two remote branches or systems of the divine economy; if it shew not only what is to take place in distant times, but describe also different modes of God's appointment, though holding a certain and intelligent resemblance to each other; such prediction becomes not only more convincing in the argument, but more instructive in the doctrine, because it expresses the correspondence of God's dispensations in their points of agreement, as well as his foreknowledge." [22]

This representation so far coincides with the one given in the preceding pages, that it virtually recognises a combination of type with prophecy; but differs, in that it supposes both to have been included in the prediction, the one constituting the primary, the other the secondary sense of its terms. And, undoubtedly? according to this scheme, as well as our own, the correspondence between God?s dispensations might be sufficiently exhibited, both in regard to doctrine and general harmony of arrangement. But when it is contended further, that prophecy with such a double sense, instead of rendering the evidence it furnishes of divine foresight more vague and unsatisfactory, only supplies an accumulated proof of it by creating an aggravated difficulty in the fulfilment, it seems to be forgotten that the terms of the prediction, to admit of such a duplicate fulfilment, must have been made so much more general and vague. But it is the precision and definiteness of the terms in a prediction, which, when compared with the facts in providence that verify them, chiefly produce in our minds a conviction of divine foresight and direction, And in so far as prophecies might have been constructed to. comprehend two series of disparate events, holding in each of the relations,, and in each fulfilled, it could only be by dispensing with the more exact criteria, which we cannot help regarding in such cases as the most conclusive evidence of prophetic inspiration.

But as it was by no means the sole object of prophecy to provide this evidence, so predictions without such exact criteria are certainly not wanting in the word of God. There are prophecies which were not so much designed to foretel definite events., as to unfold great prospects and results, in respect to the manifestation of God's purposes of grace and truth toward men. Such prophecies were of necessity general and comprehensive in their terms, and admitted of manifold fulfilments. It is of them that we would understand the singularly pregnant and beautiful remark of Lord Bacon in the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, that " divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, are therefore not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment; though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one age." The very first prophecy ever uttered to fallen man--the promise given of a seed through the woman that should bruise the head of the serpent; and that afterwards given to Abraham of a seed of blessing, may be referred to as illustrative of the principle; since in either case--though not by virtue of a double sense, but of a wide and comprehensive import---a fulfilment from the first was constantly proceeding, while " the height and fulness" of the predicted good could only be reached in the redemption of Christ and the glories of his kingdom.

To return, however, to the matter at issue, we have yet to press our main objection to the theory of the double sense of prophecy; we dispute the fact on which it is founded, that there really are prophecies (with the partial exceptions already noticed) predictive of similar, though disparate series of events, strictly applicable to each, and in each finding their fulfilment. This necessarily forms the main position of the advocates of the double sense; and when brought to particulars, they constantly fail to establish it. The terms of the several predictions are sure to be put to the torture in order to get one of the two senses extracted from them. And the violent interpretations resorted to for the purpose of effecting this, afford one of the most striking proofs of the blinding influence which a theoretical bias may exert over the mind. Such Psalms,, for example, as the second and forty-fifth, which are so distinctly characteristic of the Messiah, that some learned commentators have abandoned their early predilections to interpret them wholly of him, are yet ascribed by the advocates of the double sense as well to David as to Christ. Nay, by a singular inversion of the usual meaning of words, they call the former the literal, and the latter their figurative or secondary sense,--although this last is the only one the words can strictly bear.

There is no greater success in most other cases; we shall confine ourselves to one. "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell., neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption: thoii wilt make known to me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore," These words in the sixteenth Psalm were applied by the apostle Peter to Christ, as finding in the events of his history their only proper fulfilment. David, he contends, could not have been speaking directly of himself, since he had seen corruption; and instead of regaining the path of life, and ascending into the presence of God (namely, in glorified humanity), had suffered, as all knew, the common lot of nature. And so, the apostle infers, the words should be understood more immediately of Christ, in whose history alpne they could properly be said to be accomplished. Warburton, however, inverts this order. Of the deliverance from hell, the freedom from corruption, and the return to the paths of life, he says, "Though it literally signifies security from the curse of the law upon transgressors, viz. immature death, yet it may very reasonably be understood in a spiritual sense of the resurrection of Christ from the dead; in which case the words or terms translated soul and liell are left in the meaning they bear in the Hebrew tongue of body and grave!" He does not, of course, deny that Peter claimed the passage as a prophecy of Christ's resurrection; but maintains that he does so, "no otherwise than by giving it a secondary or spiritual sense." In such a style of interpretation, one cannot but feel as if the terms primary and secondary, literal and spiritual, had somehow come to exchange places; since the plain import of the words carries us directly to Christ, while only by a strained and inadequate meaning can they be adapted to David.

Such, indeed, is usually the case in the instances referred to by the advocates of this theory. The double sense they contend for does not strictly hold in both of the relations; and very commonly what is contended for as the immediate and primary, is the sense that is least accordant with the grammatical import of the words, We, therefore, reject it as a satisfactory explanation of a numerous class of prophecies, and on three several grounds: First, because it so ravels and complicates the meaning of the prophecies to which it is applied, as to involve us in painful doubt and uncertainty regarding their proper application. Secondly, should this be avoided, it can only arise from the prophecies being of so general and comprehensive a nature, as to be incapable of a very close and specific fulfilment. And, finally, when applied to particular examples, the theory practically gives way, as the terms employed in all the more important predictions are too definite and precise to admit of more than one proper fulfilment,

2. We turn now, in the last place, to the mode of prophetical interpretation which has commonly prevailed with those who have ranged themselves in opposition to the theory of the double sense. The chief defect in this class of interpreters consists in their having failed to take sufficiently into account the connection subsisting between the Old and the New Testament dispensations. They have hence generally given only a partial view of the relations involved in particular prophecies, and not unfr'e- quently have confined the application of these to circumstances which only supplied the occasion of their delivery, and the form of their delineations. The single sense contended for has thus too often differed materially from the real sense. And many portions of the Psalms and other prophetical Scriptures, which in New Testament Scripture itself are applied to gospel-times, have been stript of their evangelical import, on the ground that the writer of the prophecy must have had in view some events immediately affecting himself or his country, and that- no further use, except by way of accommodation, can legitimately be made of the words he uttered.

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 Rosenmuiller, "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 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 Israel-- the 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-hash-baz)--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.

Notes

1. It is proper to state, however, that we cannot present here anything like a full and complete elucidation of the subject; and we therefore mean to supplement this chapter by an appendix on the Old Testament in the New, in which the subject will both be considered from a different point of view, and followed out more into detail. See Appendix B.

2. So, for example, in Hos. vi. 5, " I have hewed them by the prophets; "Gen. xxvii. 37, " Behold I have made him thy lord; "xlviii. 22, "I have given thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite"--each ascribing to the word spoken the actual doing of that which it only declared to have been done.

3. Non Simois tibi, nee Xanthus, nee Dorica castra Defuerint. Alius Latio jam partus Achilles, Natus et ipse dea.--.ZEii. vi. 88-90.

4. Trojae renascens alite lugubri
Fortuna tristi clade iterabitur etc.--Carm. L. III. 3, 61-68. See also Seneca Medea, 374, etc.

5. Those who contend for the actual re-appearance of Elijah, because the epithet of "the prophet," they think, fixes down the meaning to the personal Elijah, may as well contend for the re-appearance of David as the future king; for "David my servant" is as distinctive an appellation of the one, as "Elijah the prophet" of the other. But in reality they are thus specified as both exhibiting the highest known ideal--the one of king-like service, the other of prophetic work as preparatory to a divine manifestation. And in thinking of them the people could get the most correct view they were capable of entertaining of the predicted future.

6. The last clause might as well, and indeed better, have been rendered, "Exalt the horn of his Messiah." Even the Jewish interpreter, Kimchi, understands it as spoken directly of the Messiah, and the Targum paraphrases, "He shall multiply the kingdom of Messiah." It is the first passage of Scripture where the word occurs in its more distinctive sense, and is used as a synonyme for the consecrated or divine king. It may seem strange that Hannah should have been the first to introduce this epithet, and to point so directly to the destined head of the divine kingdom: it will even be inexplicable, unless we understand her to have been raised up for a "sign and a wonder" to Israel, and to have spoken as she was moved by the Holy Ghost. But the other expressions, especially " the adversaries of the Lord shall be destroyed, and the ends of the earth shall be judged," shew that it really was of the kingdom with such a head that she spoke. And the idea of Grotius and the Rationalists, that she referred in the first instance to Saul, is entirely groundless.

7. The view now given of Hannah's song presents it in a much higher, as we conceive it does also in a truer light, than that exhibited by Bishop Jebb, who speaks of it in a style that seems scarcely compatible with any proper belief in its inspiration. The song appears, in his estimation, to have been the mere effusion of Hannah's private, and, in great part, imsanctified feelings. "We cannot but feel," he says, "that her exultation partook largely of a spirit far beneath that which enjoins the love of our enemies, and which forbids personal exultation over a fallen foe." He regards it as " unquestionable, that previous sufferings had not thoroughly subdued her temper--that she could not suppress the workings of a retaliative spirit,--and was thus led to dwell, not on the peaceful glories of his (Samuel's) priestly and prophetic rule, but on his future triumphs over the Philistine armies" (Sacred Literature, p. 397). If such were indeed the character of Hannah's song, we may be assured it would not have been so closely imitated by the blessed Virgin. But it is manifestly wrong to regard Hannah as speaking of her merely personal enemies--her language would otherwise be chargeable with vicious extravagance, as well as unsanctified feeling. She identifies herself throughout with the Lord's cause and people; and it is simply her zeal for righteousness which expresses itself in a spirit of exultation over prostrate enemies.

8. Lev. xxv. 23; Ps, x. 16; Isa. xiv. 25: Jer ii. 7, &c.

9. Ex. xix. 5; Ps. xciv. 5; Jer. ii. 7; Joel iii. 2.

10. Ex. xv. 26; xviii. 16; etc.

11. Ex. xxii. 28; Ps. Ixxxii. 6.

12. Deut. xxxiii. 26, 29.

13. See Warburton's Legation of Moses, B. V. sect. 3.

14. 1 Chron. xxix. 23.

15. 2 Chron. ix. 8.

16. 2 Chron. xiii. 8.

17. 1 Sam. x. 2.

18. This appellation is used of David far more frequently than of any other person. Upwards of thirty times it is expressly coupled with David; and in the Psalms he is ever speaking of himself as the Lord's servant.

19. According to the view now given, there is no need for that alternating process which is so commonly resorted to in the explanation of Nathan's prophecy, by which this one part is made to refer to Solomon and his immediate successors, and that other to Christ. There is no need for formally splitting it up into such portions, each pointing to different quarters, nor can the understanding satisfactorily rest in them. The prophecy is to be taken as an organic whole, as the kingdom also is, of which it speaks. David reigned in the Lord's name, and the Lord, in the fulness of time, was born to occupy David's throne--a mutual interconnection. The kingdom throughout is God's, only existing in an embryo state, while presided over by David and his merely human descendants; and rising to its ripened form, as soon as it passes into the hands of one who, by virtue of his divine properties, was fitted to bear the glory. The prophecy, therefore, is to be regarded, as a general promise of the connection of the kingdom with David's person and line, including Christ as belonging to that line, after the flesh; but in respect to the element of eternity, the absolute perpetuity, guaranteed in the promise, not only admitting, but requiring the possession of a nature in Christ, higher unspeakably than he could derive from David.

20. The same view substantially of this portion of Isaiah's writings was given by Vitringa, who thus sums up the leading topics of discourse:--"The great mystery of the manifestation of the kingdom of God and his righteousness in the world through the Messiah, his forerunner, and apostles, with the revival of an elect church, then reduced to a very small number, with its more remarkable preceding signs, and the means that should be subservient to the whole work of grace,--among which preceding signs the deliverance from Babylon by Cyrus, in connection with the destruction of Babylon itself, as typical of the overthrow of all idolatrous and Satanic power, are chiefly dwelt upon, in like manner, as the conviction both of Jews and Gentiles concerning the vanity of idols and the truth of God and his spiritual worship, hold the most prominent place among the concurrent means."

21. Marsh's Lectures, p. 44.1. VOL, I. I

22. Davison on Prophecy, p. 196.