same manner several of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Hosea, Amos, and Ezekiel, frequently connect the deliverance of the Israelites from captivity, with their deliverance from a greater thraldom by Christ. Examples of commingling may be found in 2 Samuel vii. 14. "I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee." This passage manifestly relates to Solomon, as both the occasion on which it was uttered, and the words themselves, clearly demonstrate. But that it also depicts the Redeemer, may be inferred from Hebrews i. 5, where part of it is quoted, and expressly applied to him. It is vain to deny the double reference of the passage; the features of the type and antitype being blended together. Another instance is observable in Isaiah xxxiv. 8, 9, 10. "For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Sion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever." This prophecy respects the fearful destruction of Edom, upon which the Lord is represented as taking vengeance for the sake of his church. The terms employed are exceedingly forcible, especially in the tenth verse, and cannot be confined to Edom alone. They rather point to the general judgment, which that of Edom prefigured-to the terrible vengeance which shall befal all the enemies of God at the last day. The words of the book of Revelation, 14th chapter, 10th and 11th verses, and of Jude, 7th verse, may be aptly compared with this passage. " I A third example is to be found in Isaiah xlv. 13th verse. have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts." This language, applied to Cyrus the deliverer of the Jews from exile, depicts at the same time a greater deliverer, even the Lord Jesus Christ. The words, "I have raised him up for righteousness, and I will direct all his ways," are quite similar to those in Isaiah xlii. 6, which G describe the Messiah. "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee," &c. Isaiah vii. 14, 15, 16. "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." Here a child born in the time of the prophet is taken as a representative of the child Immanuel about to be born of a woman. The description applies to both. Joel, chapter 3d. Here the first outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the general outpouring during the Millennium, are not distinguished. In the same way, we are inclined to interpret most of the Messianic Psalms which depict circumstances in the life of David or Solomon, with corresponding features in the history of our Lord. So Psalms ii., lxxii., xlv. The second Psalm refers to David and to his greater Son; the seventy-second to Solomon and Him whom he typified. So also the forty-fifth. In the New Testament, the same feature appears. Thus in the 24th chapter of the gospel according to St. Matthew, the destruction of Jerusalem and the general judgment are represented as coincident. The description includes both;the former having been an adumbration of the latter. Those who have endeavoured to separate one part of the chapter to the one event, and the remainder to the coming of Christ to judgment, have failed to make good their position, not from want of ability, but of the right key to the exposition.* The 29th verse has been usually fixed upon as the boundary; but the 34th manifestly disproves the whole view. In like manner Matthew xvi. 27, 28, with the parallels, exemplifies a flowing together of analogous events, both being represented as coincident.† This peculiarity of prophetic vision and description, demands a corresponding peculiarity of exegesis. When events are laid upon one another, or blended together in narration, the words in which they are described have a twofold reference. A single application does not include all that was designed; they look *See Schott's Commentaruis exeget, dogmat. in eos Christi Sermones qui de reditu ejus ac judicium futuro agunt, Jenae, 1820, 8vo; and Horsley's Sermons. + See Olshausen's Biblischer Commentar über sämmtliche Schriften des Neuen Testaments, vol i., 3d Edition, p. 858 et seq., and pp. 521, 22, towards two persons or objects. When thus commingled, they must be considered as symbolical and antitypical. They are blended in the picture presented to the prophetic view, just because it was divinely purposed that the one should adumbrate the other. There is, therefore, a natural and necessary connexion between them, not merely as they are related in the internal view of the prophets, but as antecedent and consequent mutually adapted by divine arrangement. They flow together, because much that was predicated of the one, may be also predicated of the other. As the series of prophecy advanced, the events painted on the prophetic canvass, in perspective, or in commingling colours, were gradually distinguished and separated. Light was thrown upon them by the unfolding of the divine purposes; and those who once failed to perceive the intervals of time between, began to see widening vistas. The coming of Christ in glory might have been regarded as almost coincident with his appearance in humiliation, until He was born of a woman. The one phenomenon is pourtrayed in the Old Testament as closely connected in time with the other; but in the Gospels, they are separated. Again, the destruction of Jerusalem and the general judgment appear coexistent in the Gospels; but in the book of Revelation, they stand apart. Thus as prophecy advanced, and the events connected with the Redeemer's church were accomplished, the predictions of seers assumed a clearer form; and the readers of these inspired effusions were able to avoid the chronological mistakes into which their predecessors fell. The preceding observations have an important bearing on several passages quoted in the New Testament from the Old, such ́as Matthew i. 22; ii. 15, 17, &c. Unless the events there alluded to had been related as type and antitype, the verb ngów could not have been employed with propriety. It is not enough. that they were similar or analogous: the similarity must have been designed. In the description of the symbolical occurrence was also contained a description of its correspondent antitype: Such as confine the view to the former, as though it alone were depicted, limit the range of vision to a narrower field than was presented to the internal view of the seer. They lose sight of the established relation of two things to one another, as soon as they separate them into their naked individuality; although the fact of their commingling description, should have led to the acknowledgment of a preordained correspondence between them The circumstance that events are fused as it were into one mass; or that a theocratic prophet, priest, or king, is described in language quite extravagant if limited to himself, shews a prefigurative character. The points of resemblance are described in the same language;-with the differences of feature we have no concern. Others again look to the antitype alone, because the New Testament intimates that language used in the Old refers to the person and kingdom of our Lord. They take certain passages in the ancient Covenant which truly allude to Messiah, to apply to Him alone. Thus also the field of vision is narrowed. The genius of the Jewish establishment was expressly modelled after the kingdom of Christ. The Hebrews were instructed by outward and visible objects. Spiritual scenes were conveyed to their mind through the medium of externals. They were taught to look forward to the Redeemer and his reign through the heads of their nation, and through important events connected with their history. Taking the features of their theocracy, the inspired prophets employed them as prominent images in drawing out a picture of future blessings; or as representations of the characteristics belonging to the Messiah and his kingdom. They neglected no opportunity of directing the believing Israelite to the future Messiah. Was a temporal deliverer mentioned-one who should confer signal benefits on the nation? He was described in language which could only find its full force and significancy in the spiritual deliverer thereafter to appear. Was a signal judgment about to fall on a particular people? The view was directed to the judgment of the great day, of which it was merely a faint adumbration. Was a monarch introduced, surrounded by a train of attendants, or pursuing and utterly discomfiting his enemies? The imagery transcends the type, and more appropriately pourtrays the antitype. In commenting upon prophetic passages such as these, it is usual to affirm, that they have a double fulfilment. Perhaps the *phrase is objectionable. There cannot with propriety be a double fulfilment, because the entire application and scope is not realised till both events take place. The former occurrence is merely an incipient and anticipative development of the latter. It connects the visible and temporal in the Jewish economy with the spiritual and distant future, pointing the waiting desires of the pious Hebrew along the line of prophecy to a glorious consummation. "The nearer subject in each instance," says an ad mirable writer, "supplies the prophetic ground and the prophetic images, for the future Christian subject." The former was to the Jew a pledge, that the entire prediction would be fulfilled. It was not itself the fulfilment, but an instalment, so to speak, of the fulfilment. It kept the expectations of the Messiah alive in the minds of the Hebrews. The former served as the envelope of the latter; whilst at the same time it declared a literal truth or important fact in the history of the Jewish commonwealth. When, therefore, the envelope was taken off by the occurrence of the prior event; the substantial meaning it enshrouded and adumbrated remained behind. Agreeably to this representation, it has been well observed, that "there is both reason and sublimity in prophecy; and we shall scarcely understand it, unless we are prepared to follow it in both. Its sublimity is, that it often soars, as here, far above the scene from which it takes its rise. Its reason is, that it still hovers over the scene of things from which it rose. It takes the visible or the temporal subject, as its point of departure (if I may borrow the phrase) for its enlarged revelation: and yet by that subject it governs its course. In this method of it, I believe that men of plain unsophisticated reason find it perfectly intelligible; and that it is only the false fastidiousness of an artificial learning which puts the scruple into our perceptions either of its consistency or its sense. But when we consider that this structure of prophecy, founded on a proximate visible subject, had the advantage both in the aptitude of the representation, and in the immediate pledge, of the future truth; a sounder learning may dispose us to admit it, and that with confidence, whenever the prophetic text, or mystic vision is impatient for the larger scope, and the conspicuous characters of the Symbols and the Fact concur in identifying the relation."† How important to the Jew the theocratic envelope was, may be inferred from the fact of its adoption, even when spiritual events connected with Messiah's reign are solely and singly predicted. Thus after the second temple had been built and its services established, Malachi foretels, that "from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." Here it is de *Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, Fourth Edition, 1839, p. 316. |