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Typical Nature of Scripture Metaphors.

§ vii. 3. and surely most significant circumstances, and hardly to be accounted for by the sayings of those, who would reduce all Mysticism to the mere workings of human fancy. Let us reflect, distinctly and at large, on each of them.

And first, as to the symbolical language of Scripture, is there not something very striking, to a thoughtful reverential mind, in the simple fact of such language occurring there at all? This is not meant of merely metaphorical and figurative language, expressing one human and temporal matter by another; but the case intended is, when truths supernatural are represented in Scripture by visible and sensible imagery. Consider what this really comes to. The Author of Scripture is the Author of Nature. He made His creatures what they are, upholds them in their being, modifies it at His will, knows all their secret relations, associations, and properties. We know not how much there may be, far beyond mere metaphor and similitude, in His using the name of any one of His creatures, in a translated sense, to shadow out some thing invisible. But thus far we may seem to understand, that the object thus spoken of by Him is so far taken out of the number of ordinary figures of speech, and resources of language, and partakes thenceforth of the nature of a Type.

For what is it wherein our idea of a Scriptural Type differs from that of a mere illustration or analogy? It appears to lie chiefly in these two things: first, that the event or observance itself, to which we annex the figurative meaning, was ordered, we know, from the beginning, with reference to that meaning: next, that the ideas having been once associated with each other, by authority of God's own Word, reverential minds shall never thereafter be able to part with that association; the sign will to them habitually prove a remembrance and token of the thing signified and this also must have been intended in the first sanctioning of the type, being the inevitable result, in all minds that fear GoD, and watch for the signs of His presence. Thus Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, for example, had it been related only by Josephus, might well have been used by way of similitude or comparison to illustrate the sacrifice of God's only begotten Son, on the same mountain, two thousand years after : but it is not clear that we could have positively called it a Type.

Scripture sanctions Natural as well as Historical Types. 167

That which warrants us in doing so, is the constant interpreta- § vii. 4. tion of the Church, confirming the thought which would natu

rally enter into good and considerate hearts on reading of it in

the Scriptures.

Now let us transfer this notion of a Type, from historical events related in Scripture, to such allusions as are now in questionallusions to the works of nature, and the outward face of things. There also the same distinction is clearly conceivable. Let an uninspired poet or theologian be never so ingenious in his comparisons between earthly things and heavenly, we cannot build any thing upon them; there is no particular certainty, much less any sacredness in them: but let the same words come out of the mouth of God, and we know that the resemblance was intended from the beginning, and intended to be noticed and treasured up by us; it is therefore very nearly the case of a Type properly so called.

We read, for example, that CHRIST " was the True Light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." This, perhaps, in some part of its sense, might be an image not unlikely to have occurred to an earthly orator, and we might have profited by it, as expressive and edifying, and there would be an end-but now we are informed by it, that even in the first creation of the material light, God had respect to this our spiritual Light; the one was designedly formed to be an image of the other; and such an image as believers should recognise, having their attention drawn to the resemblance by the Word of GOD Himself. May we not then apply the same term in this case as in the former, and may we not say that the Light visible is a natural Type of GOD manifesting HIMSELF by His Son, as Isaac on the mountain was an historical Type of our LORD yielding HIMSELF to the death of the Cross?

(4.) Now if there were in the Book of God but one such image taken from the works of nature, it might cause in thoughtful minds a serious apprehension, that other cases might exist, of a like intended resemblance between the worlds visible and invisible, though none of them were as yet clearly and expressly declared to us. Our natural tendency to express things unseen by what we see, would seem to have acquired a real though

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Illustrations, hon from a few given Symbols

§ vii. 5. slight sanction and warrant from above: and we might without irreverence begin to speculate (if the word may be used,) on other possible associations and mysterious meanings.

Indeed we should be almost driven to such speculations, in the case supposed, of earthly and heavenly Light. The idea of Light necessarily implies that of its opposite, Darkness; and naturally, to beings framed and conditioned as we are, it implies also the ideas of morning and evening, sun, moon, and stars, shadow and sunshine, twilight increasing and decreasing, and many others for all which, many would be inclined to imagine counterparts in the spiritual world, after they had been once made aware that the Light itself was intended to be typical.

Now, on further examination of the Scriptures, they would find these their anticipations verified. They would find that as Light was the regular symbol of Him, by whom the FATHER is manifested, who is GoD of GOD, LIGHT of LIGHT, the WORD who hath declared the Invisible; so is the Sun in the heavens the scriptural token of the WORD Incarnate, "coming forth as a bridegroom out of His chamber, and rejoicing as a Giant to run His course. They would find the condition of the world without CHRIST represented as "darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the people;" the dawnings of His manifestation, when incarnate but yet unborn, compared to the morning twilight or "dayspring from on high:" and the severe trials and apparent failures of the faith, which are to be expected even under the Gospel dispensation, these they would find compared to an evening twilight, endeavouring to prevail, but overcome by the Sun which never sets: as we read, "At evening time there shall be light."

Other passages would show them the Moon as the chosen emblem of mortal imperfect human nature, reflecting more or less of the Light which flows from CHRIST, less in the Synagogue, more in the Church of the New Testament: and again the stars, as lesser lights, Patriarchs, Apostles, Bishops, such as are any how employed in turning many to righteousness. Eclipses, rainbows, and other phenomena might be added.

(5.) But if the one idea of light and darkness, with their various relations and modifications, were found thus, from beginning to

we may assign to all Things visible a Mystical Import. 169

end, allegorized, not by our imaginations, but by Scripture itself; § vii. 6. -one might reasonably conclude the like in the case also of the other great and leading parts and attributes of the material world one might without presumption infer details and particulars, where express Scripture gave only the general and comprehensive statement. Thus if we only found the Church called generally the Vineyard of the LORD, His pleasant field, and the like, we might reason on the processes of cultivation, the marks of a good or unwholesome stock, the tokens of wrath and favour; though we nowhere read such parables as those of Isaiah and our LORD, developing the idea with authority.

If one of two contraries were clearly symbolical, the other would be understood to be so likewise: if good seed and noble vines are God's obedient and accepted ones, there would be no need to tell us that weeds and thorns and tares are the children of the Wicked One.

Where two things are by nature inevitably and inseparably related to each other, if Scripture give us the spiritual force of the one, it should seem hardly possible to avoid inferring that of the other. Thus if God's regenerate ones, taken separately, are as good seeds cast into the ground, the loaf which comes of that good seed stands naturally for the same persons formed into one Church or company; an imagination proved to be a verity by the double offering sanctioned in GoD's law, first of ears of corn, afterwards of consecrated loaves-and this (to anticipate another part of our subject) is an example of the manner in which God's ancient ritual gives apparent sanction to the symbolical use of things natural.

(6.) Now considering to what an extent nature (so to speak,) delights in pairs, and groupings, and relations; how "one thing," as the son of Sirach observes, is every where "set against another;" how impossible it is to find an object single and uncombined with all others, or to limit the extent of the associations and connexions, which manifest themselves one after another, when we set about tracing any one of the works of creation, through all its influences and aspects on the rest; it ought not perhaps to seem over strange, if the symbolical and

170 Force of the Phrase, “ A new Heaven and a new Earth.”

§ vii. 6. mystical use of any one thing were thought to imply the possibility at least of a similar use and bearing in all things.

And this presumption will evidently be strengthened, as the instances which Holy Scripture furnishes multiply, and as we find, on more and more acquaintance with it, that its typical allusions are more developed, and come out on its surface; as stars meet the eye more abundantly, when we continue gazing for any time on what seemed at first merely a space of open sky. St. Augustin appears to have been particularly gifted with the power of discerning this kind of holy imagery. It is really wonderful, as one reads his descants, on the Psalms more especially, how many allusions he detects and brings out, with more or less ingenuity in the particular instance; so that it must require, one would think, a mind prepossessed altogether with dislike of the principle of Mysticism, not to be carried away with him. But even without stopping to discern these more latent allusions, it should seem that on the very surface of Scripture so many of the chief visible objects are invested with spiritual meanings, that to affirm the same of the whole world of sense ought not to sound too hard a saying. The symbols which are mentioned are almost enough to make up between them "a new heaven and a new earth,” and to complete the proof, that "the first heaven and the first earth" are to be regarded, both generally and in their parts, as types and shadows of those which are out of sight.

66

On this head there appears something instructive in the circumstance that the phrase just referred to, a new heaven and a new earth," occurs both in the Old and in the New Testament at the very conclusion of a great body of Prophecy1, in the course of which the imagery of the visible world has been, one may say, unreservedly employed to represent the scenes and transactions of the invisible one. That is, after the devout mind has been accustomed in detail to associations of that kind, comes in the most comprehensive phrase that could be employed, apparently confirming, by the CREATOR'S authority, the view of creation, thus become familiar. Perhaps it adds something to the argument,

1 Isaiah lxv. 17; Rev. xxi. 1.