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Of the nature of the Mosaic writings, the Apostle gives us several more examples in the Epistle to the Hebrews. With what force of argument does he demonstrate, that Melchizedeck was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ!* So, how positively does he assert the typical nature of all the ceremonial institutions! Thus speaking of the priests, and of the gifts which they offered according to the law, he says, that they "serve unto the example” [vπodsiypa—properly, according to Schleusner, that which presents something visible to the sight]" and shadow of heavenly things:" which interpretation he confirms by adding, "as Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle; for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern [Turos] shewed to thee in the mount." Soon after, taking up more particularly the subject of the tabernacle constructed by Moses, he affirms, that it was a figure for the time then present:" and he presently calls the rituals of the tabernacle worship "the

Chs. v. and vii.

+ Heb. viii. 5. It is necessary to remark, that the words Tues in this passage, and aVTITUTOS in that to be noticed immediately, have meanings exactly the reverse of those which the words type and antitype have acquired in English. With the Apostle, the type is the pattern, and the antitype is that which, as a copy, answers to the type : but with us, the type is the copy, and the antitype is the original, or pattern, of the type. This seems to have originated in inaccurate writers confounding the Greek particle anti with the Latin particle ante. To bear the popular meaning, the word should be spelled antetype: though then it is an incongruous compound from two languages. The ambiguity introduced by the translators in the use of the word pattern, should also be noticed. In the passage above, they use it in the sense to which it is now fixed,,—as the original from which a copy is made: but in the next quotation they use it in the sense, not of a pattern, but of a copy taken from a pattern. It must further be noticed, that the word AVTITUTOS, in the passage quoted below from Peter, does not mean an antitype in either of the senses here explained, but something that answers to another thing of the same order as itself; not as a copy to a pattern, or as a pattern to a copy, but as two similar things of the same kind or degree, that exactly match each other.

Heb. ix. 9.

patterns [rodsyuara] of things in the heavens," and speaks of them in contrast with "the heavenly things themselves ;"* immediately adding, that "the holy places made with hands, are the figures [avrura] of the true." Agreeably to this view of the Mosaic rituals, he speaks of "the law" as "having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things :" where by "the image," as has been judiciously remarked, he means, what is respectively a substance ;-a solid statue being a substance respectively to its own shadow.

We find then that the testimony of the Apostle Paul is very copious and conclusive: He affirms the representative character of the persons mentioned in the Old Testament; of all the particulars attending the celebration of the Mosaic worship; of the history of the Israelites in general; and, in fact, of every thing connected with that people and church and he repeatedly calls our attention from the mere "letter" of Scripture, to the "spirit" that resides within.

The epistolary writings of the other Apostles, and the remains of their discourses, being small in extent, and almost entirely occupied with practical exhortations, are less explicit on this subject. Peter, however, plainly discovers, in two or three instances, what his sentiments respecting it were. Thus, in his first serinon, he not only applies to the gift of the spirit, which they had just received, the following part of a prophecy of Joel,-" It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy :"--but he cites the remainder of Joel's prediction also, as then receiving its accomplishment" And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and

Heb, ix. 23.

{ Ver. 24.

Ch. x. 1.

signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come." Now although the words first quoted may be considered as bearing, in their literal sense, a relation to the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it is only in a sense quite different from that of the letter, that the other part of the prediction was then fulfilled.

The same Apostle assures us, that there is a symbolic meaning in the history of Noah. Having mentioned the ark, "wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water;" he adds, "the like figure [avriTurov] whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God,) by the resurrection of Jess Christ." Here we are expressly told, that the waters of Noah were as truly a figure of something spiritual, as are the waters of baptism, these being the fellow-type to the other their import is also briefly stated.

But not only does Peter mention particular instances in which a spiritual sense is contained within the letter of the Scriptures, but he also declares that this is the case universally, when he says, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise, in your hearts :"-If he had concluded here, he would have clearly described the fact, as it exists. The prophetic writings are called a light shining in a dark place how beautifully does this describe the difference between their literal expression and the divine wisdom within it-the light denoting the pure truth of their inward meaning, and the dark place in which it shines the obscurity of the letter, which is such, that, to discover the light, devout contemplation is necessary, until it shines as the day-star in our own minds also. But to make the fact + 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21. See Note above, p. 83.

Acts ii. 16 to 21.

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more certain, and to encourage us to the study of the Scriptures under this view of them, the apostle adds, "Knowing this first; that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation."* Now the Scriptures would be of "private interpretation," if their meaning were confined to the natural occurrences to which they usually refer in their letter, if nothing more were intended beyond the persons and things there commonly mentioned. I am not unapprized of the other modes in which this statement has been explained; but I am fully satisfied that this is the only one which comes up to the apostle's meaning. If regard is to be had to the context, both that which precedes and that which follows, as well as to the proper force of the words, the meaning surely must be that -which is quoted by Dr. Doddridge from Dr. Clarke and Mr. Baxter, who understood the passage as if the apostle had said, "Scripture is not to be interpreted merely as speaking of the particular person of whom it literally speaks; but as having a further sense, to which the expressions of the prophets were overruled under the influence of the Spirit," &c. Evidently, if the meaning of the Scriptures is not to be regarded as appropriated merely to the persons and things of which they treat in their letter, -if they thus are not of private but of universal interpretation; then they must contain an interior sense, a hidden wisdom, adapted to the edification of every Christian in every age of the world.

The evidence, then, to the nature of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, is already very complete but had all the other writers of the New Testament been silent on the subject, we still should have had sufficient information to guide our judgment, in the book that closes the canon of Scripture. In this book—the Revelation of John, how full is the testimony which we find to the hidden wisdom contained in

* 2 Pet. i. 19, 20.

all the affairs and writings relating to the Jewish dispensation! It would, however, engage us too long, were we to examine it in detail: suffice it then to say, that much of the imagery of this book is taken from the state of things which existed under the Mosaic law. Though written, according to the best computations, upwards of twenty years after the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, it contains repeated mention of both ;*—as also of the ark,—of the altars of incense‡ and of burnt offerings§, of the twelve tribes of Israel,|| notwithstanding ten of them had long before been entirely dispersed and mixed with other nations; besides many of the persons** and places†† treated of in the sacred history of the Jews; all which furnish the writer with a copious store of imagery that is evidently purely symbolic: how plain then is the inference, that these things belonging to the circumstances of the Jewish dispensation, and which are here incontrovertibly used as mere symbols, bearing a spiritual meaning, were equally symbols, and equally bore a spiritual meaning, when they really existed in, or in the vicinity of, the land of Canaan, and when they are spoken of in the letter of the other books of Scripture.#

Thus it is perfectly clear, that every thing relating to the Jews as a people, typified something belonging, either to the true Jews spoken of by Paul, who are such inwardly in the spirit and not outwardly in the letter, or else to those mentioned in the Revelation, "who say they are Jews and are not ;"§§ in other words, either to the true or to the merely professing members of the Church universal: and as the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, in the literal sense, refers to such things, it follows, that the whole of the Sacred Scriptures contains an inward meaning distinct from

* Ch. iii. 12, xxi. 2, xi. 1, 19, xv. 5, 8, xvi. 1, 17. ↑ Ch. xi. 19. Ch. viii. 3. § Ch. xi. 1. || Ch. vii. 4 to 8. ** Ch. ii. 14, 20, ch. iii. 7, v. 5, xi. 3, 4. (see Zech. iv. 11 to 14) ft Ch. xi. 8, chs. xvii. and xviii. xxi. 2, &c. ‡‡ See this argument farther deduced in the Appendix, No. I. §§ Ch. ii. 9, iii. 9.

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