sented, that Ahab should be so smitten; as the unbelief of the former, followed by his destruction, represented the unbelief of the king, who therefore should perish in the same manner. So Isaiah (chap. xx.) walked naked and barefooted, to represent, symbolically, the captivity of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, upon whom the Israelites trusted too much, instead of wholly confiding in God. The prophet Ezekiel (chap. iv.) is also commanded to do several things which would be absurd were they not symbolical. Hosea's marriage with a loose woman was literal, but the intent symbolical; the shame which accrued to the prophet by such an action, reflecting upon the Israelites, who were to be affected by the actions of their prophets; and therefore the actions themselves must be visible and real. In Acts x. Peter fell into an ecstasy, and had a vision to show him that God had set aside the distinction of meats, which separated the Jews from the Pagans; and under that notion to signify, farther, that the partition-wall betwixt Jews and Gentiles was now taken away, and that both should be equally received into the church; which vision was corroborated by the call of Cornelius, and the visible descent of the Holy Ghost. From the rule thus illustrated, we must infer that the actors in the Revelation being symbolical, the person of John himself, wherever he is in any way concerned in the action, must be also symbolical. He is not only the spectator commissioned by Christ to see the visions, but also the mediator, angel, or deputy, to transmit them to the church. He represents, therefore, his fellow-members of Christ's church, which are present, when the actions re-mode of conversation which so well exercised presented in the visions are actually performed. IX. For the purpose of facilitating the study of symbols, Dr. Lancaster drew up, at the cost of great labour, "A Symbolical Alphabetical Dictionary," which he prefixed to his Abridgment of Daubuz's Commentary upon the Book of Revelation, and which has been deservedly held in very high repute. This work is now, however, exceedingly scarce, and when met with, fetches a high price. To the generality of students, therefore, it is not available, nor would a mere reprint of it be altogether acceptable. As the first work of the kind, it reflects great credit upon the author's Tesearch; but it is often unnecessarily diffuse, and It unfrequently inaccurate, while there is a great Ent of precision in distinguishing between metaphors and symbols. Mr. Horne has bestowed some labour on his "Index of Symbolical Language," in the fourth volume of his "Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures;" but it has most of the defects and redundancies of Lancaster (whom he has taken as his model), in

at least a fivefold degree. A great number of words are introduced, which have nothing to do with symbols, and can therefore only tend to distract the attention and bewilder the mind of the student. The best work we have seen is "A Key to the Symbolical Language of Scripture," by Thomas Wemyss (Edinburgh, 1835), in which the labours of preceding writers have been judiciously appropriated. The Vocabulary of Scripture Symbols, at the end of this volume, was first drawn up from careful examination and comparison of the Bible itself, and then received some additions from Lancaster's Dictionary, above mentioned. It may be found useful in the absence of a more elaborate work.

X. Intimately connected with the language of symbols, is that of actions or signs; whence it becomes necessary to submit a few remarks upon this topic also.

1. In the early ages of the world, language. must have been extremely rude, narrow, and equivocal; so that men would be perpetually at a loss, as Bishop Warburton remarks, on any new conception, or uncommon accident, to explain themselves intelligibly to one another. This would necessarily induce them to supply the deficiencies of speech by apt and significant signs. Hence, mutual converse was upheld by a mixed discourse of words and ACTIONS; whence came the eastern phrase of the voice of the sign, Exod. iv. 8. But this custom, which originated in necessity, being improved into ornament, subsisted long after the necessity ceased, especially among the Orientals, whose natural temperament inclined them to a

their vivacity by motion, and so much gratified it by a perpetual representation of material images.

2. Of this description of language, as well as of symbols, we have a great number of examples in the sacred writings. Thus, the false prophet pushed with horns of iron, to denote the entire overthrow of the Syrians, 1 Kings xxii. 11. Jeremiah, by God's direction, hid the linen girdle in the hole of a rock, near the Euphrates, Jer. xiii.; broke a potter's vessel in sight of the people, ch. xix.; put on bonds and yokes, ch. xxvii.; and cast a book into the Euphrates, ch. li. 63. Ezekiel, by the same appointment, delineated the siege of Jerusalem on a tile, Ezek. iv.; weighed the hair of his beard in balances, ch. V.; carried out his household stuff, ch. xii.; and joined together the two sticks for Judah and Israel, ch. xxxvii. 16-20. By these actions the prophets instructed the people in the will of God, and conversed with them in signs. But there is no real ground-leaving divine revelation out of

the question-there is no real ground for charging | hear him: "When there is any thing in the antithe prophets, in these symbolical actions, with type resembling the type, it is justly affirmed, absurd and fanatic conduct, as some pretenders that God, who knows all things from the beginto wisdom have done. The absurdity of an ning, ordered the type in such a manner, that it action consists, as Bishop Warburton remarks, might signify beforehand that truth which was in its being extravagant and insignificative; but in the antitype: unless we would rather mainuse and a fixed application make the actions of tain, that the likeness of an ingenious picture to the prophets both sober and pertinent: the fana- the original was rather the effect of chance than ticism of an action consists in a fondness for of the intention of the artist, which is contrary unusual actions and foreign modes of speech; but to all reason." But what a specimen of reasonthe actions of the prophets were idiomatic and ing is this! The point to be proved is the existfamiliar.* ence of types; and yet it is taken for granted, from the fancied resemblance which certain things and persons bore to one another, that they stood in the relation of correlates, and that, because we are pleased to make the one the antitype, the other must be the type. ||

try to the latter. The type, as well as the anti- | when comparisons are instituted in the New Testype, must have been pre-ordained; and they must tament between antecedent and subsequent perhave been pre-ordained as constituent parts of the sons or things, we must be careful to distinguish same general scheme of Divine Providence. It is the examples, where a comparison is instituted this previous design and this pre-ordained connexion merely for the sake of illustration, from the exwhich constitute the relation of type and antitype. amples where such a connexion is declared, as Where these qualities fail, where the previous exists in the relation of a type to its antitype.” design and the pre-ordained connexion are want- 4. It was remarked in the preceding section, ing, the relation between any two things, how that a type and a symbol differ from each other, ever similar in themselves, is not the relation of as a genus and a species; and it is very necessary type to antitype. The existence, therefore, of that that this distinction should be strictly attended previous design and pre-ordained connexion must to, in the interpretation of Scripture. The term be clearly established, before we can have authority symbol, as Outram observes, is equally applicable for pronouncing one thing the type of another. to that which represents a thing past, or present, But we cannot establish the existence of that or future; whereas the object represented by a previous design and pre-ordained connexion, by type is invariably future.+ Thus, those institutions arguing only from the resemblance of the things of Moses which had the nature of types, are called compared; for the qualities and circumstances a shadow of things to come" (Col. ii. 17); and, attendant on one thing, may have a close resem- those things which "happened unto the fathers blance, with the qualities and circumstances at- for types," are said to have been "written for our tendant on another thing, and yet the things admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are themselves may be devoid of all connexion. come," 1 Cor. x. 1-11. In the same sense, the Mosaic law, which abounded with numerous types, is declared to have had "a shadow of good things to come" (Heb. x. 1); and those things which, by the command of God, were formerly transacted in the tabernacle, are described as prefiguring what was afterwards to be done in the heavenly sanctuary, Heb. ix. 11, 12, 23, 24.‡

(2) How, then, it may be asked, shall we obtain the proof required? By what means shall we determine, in any given instance, that that which is alleged as a type was really designed for a type? The only possible source of information on this subject is Scripture itself. The only possible means of knowing that two distant though similar historic facts were so connected in the general scheme of Divine Providence, that the one was designed to prefigure the other, is the authority of that work in which the scheme of Divine Providence is unfolded. Destitute of that authority, we may confound a resemblance subsequently observed, with a resemblance pre-ordained; we may mistake a comparison founded on a mere accidental parity of circumstances, for a comparison founded on a necessary and inherent connexion. There is no other rule, therefore, by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no other possible means by which we can know that a previous design and a pre-ordained connexion erited. Whatever persons or things, therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by Christ, or by his apostles, to have been designed as prefigurations of persons or things relating to the New Testament, such perens or things so recorded in the former, are types of the persons or things with which they are compared in the latter. But if we assert that a person or thing was designed to prefigure another person or thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared by divine authority, we make an assertion for which we neither have nor can have the slightest foundation. And even

5. In the interpretation of types, as thus defined, it will be necessary to attend to the following circumstances, all of which are pointed out by Witsius and Outram.

(1) The efficacy really possessed by the antitype, exists in the type only in appearance, or in a much lower degree. For though a type often possesses some quality in common with its antitype, yet that quality is always considerably weaker in the type than in the antitype; as the death of those victims by which the Messiah's death was prefigured, had far less efficacy with God and men, than what belongs to the death of Christ. Hence the apostle says, "For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of

"Our

* Lectures on Criticism and Interpretation, Part II, lect. vi. + Hence a type is virtually a prediction of its antitype. Mr. Horne has been guilty of a strange contradiction, in treating of types and the typical sense of Scripture. In his chapter on the interpretation of Types, he says, quoting from Outram : definition of a type includes, also, that the object represented by it is something future," vol. ii. p. 650, 4th edit. In his chapter on the sense of Scripture, however (vol. ii. p. 495), he says, "The typical sense is, when, under external objects or prophetic visions, secret things, whether present or future, are represented!"

The relation between Judaism and Christianity, by means of types, is discussed by Mr. Faber, Hor. Mos. book ii. sect. 2.

the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offer year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect," Heb. x. 1. Here, as he uses the phrase, the very image of the things, to denote the things themselves, so he declares the Jewish sacrifices, which were types of the sacrifice of Christ, to have had only a shadow of that efficacy of which his sacrifice possesses the reality. And this was the reason why those sacrifices never perfectly purified the persons by whom they were offered; as is evident from the language of the same apostle, "For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Heb. ix. 13, 14. The argument on which this inference proceeds, is, that the efficacy which was found only in a figure, or in a very small degree in the type, is possessed in reality, and in a far superior degree, in the antitype.*

(2) But, as was said, the type is sometimes destitute of the properties of the antitype, even in the lowest degree, and possesses only some quality which symbolizes or shadows them forth. Thus, the daily incense burned in the temple, which represented the prayers of the saints (Rev. v. 8; viii. 3, 4), possessed no real quality in common with prayers. For its sweet odour, though sufficiently adapted to indicate how acceptable all pious prayers were to God, was not a quality of the same kind as that which it represented in those prayers. So, also, the brazen serpent, which healed all who fixed their eyes upon it, and which was typical of the Saviour of the world, possessed no efficacy in itself, and had no property in common with that divine person"in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

(3) The analogy between the type and the antitype must not be pushed beyond the point to which revelation has extended it. 66 Thus, because we find Paul, by a singular usage, perhaps, of the word TUTOS, expressing that connexion and contrast which existed between the first and the second Adam, and his illustration of the subject, amounting strictly to this, that 'as in' (the one) Adam all die, so in (the one) 'Christ shall all be made alive; are we, therefore, authorized to pursue this same idea of relation through all the circumstances of our first parents' creation and fall? To advance, that as Eve was drawn forth from the side of Adam, so from the wounded side of our Redeemer

6

was drawn his mystic consort, the church of the faithful? That as Adam was made on the sixth day, and did eat the fruit at the sixth hour, so our Lord was crucified on the same day, and at the same hour? That as Adam's soul was in spiritual darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour, so the earth was covered by the material darkness which succeeded our Lord's death, for the same space of time? That David, in his kingly power and character, typified the future king of the spiritual Israel; that in the sufferings and sorrows which caused him so repeatedly and pathetically to pour out his soul before God, he bore, however faintly and imperfectly, the figure of him who for us suffered as no man ever has or could, we readily grant; and though, in this case, we may not be able to assent to all that is proposed even by a Horne or a Horsley, yet by denying this typical character of the royal Psalmist, we incur the danger, at least, of sacrificing to the excessive and ungrounded indulgence of critical refinement, means of personal edification and advancement in the love of Christ, which no man may despise or overlook with safety. But are these feelings enhanced or enlivened—are we not rather disposed to suspect and doubt the grounds on which we have hitherto cherished them-when it is urged to us by our fathers in this blessed faith and hope of the Christian, that the voice and harp of David, expelling the evil spirit of Saul, prefigured the authority with which our Lord commanded the evil spirits, and they obeyed him; that the rescue of David's two wives from the hands of the Amalekites, prefigured the rescue of the spiritual sisters, Israel and Judah, both the daughters of one mother, the heavenly Jerusalem? It were easy to occupy a much longer time with instances which show abundantly the necessity and wisdom of restricting in general our exposition of scriptural types to those express points in which the Scripture itself authorizes us to consider them as typical, or which immediately flow from the nature of the relation or character which we are taught to regard as constituting the analogy between the type and its antitype? Thus we readily grant that Aaron, as the appointed high-priest of JEHOVAH, was a real and intelligible type of Him who is made for us a High-priest for ever; and that the sacrifices which he offered were typical. Admitting this, we can see no absurdity in admitting also, that when, in his sacerdotal character, he stood between the living and the dead, and stayed the plague from Israel, he exhibited the prefiguration and symbol of a still higher deliverance. And there are types, it may be added, of so general and extensive a

* This subject is ably treated in Dr. J. P. Smith's Discourses character, as to admit, by the fairest deductions of

on the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ, Disc. I.

criticism, the application of much that is said

|