it were dependent on it, and acceptable to God only through the covenant ratified by it; so the Sacrifice on Mount Calvary was offered once for all, and needs no repetition, for the Sacrifice of the Mass, now daily offered, is offered in an unbloody manner and procures for us all the benefits of the Blood once shed on Calvary.

4. The Covenant Sacrifice was not intended as a daily act of worship, but was the seal and basis of the dispensation which it inaugurated. A provision was made for its renewal and commemoration in the Old Law by a fourfold system of typical sacrifice, since the Old Law was one of type and promise, and the intentions for which sacrifice is offered are four in numberviz., supreme adoration, thanksgiving, the obtaining pardon for sin, and petition for particular favours and graces. Whilst in the

Old Law each of these purposes had its own special typical sacrifice, in the New Law the Sacrifice of Mount Calvary is perpetually renewed by a sacrifice which is substantial, not typical, and offered for the same four ends.

5. It was after the Covenant Sacrifice that God gave to Moses minute instructions as to the ceremonial worship and the services of the Old Law; similarly, it was during the forty days after the Sacrifice on Mount Calvary that our Lord gave His Apostles directions for the worship of the New Law and the administration of the sacraments.

These similarities and parallelisms would alone seem to be sufficient grounds for considering the Covenant Sacrifice to be a true type of that on Mount Calvary.

But we may claim a much higher authority for the assertion of its truly typical character. For St. Paul (Heb. ix. 23), speaking of the ordinances which were the only outward means of grace for the Jews under the Mosaic Law, says of them that they themselves were cleansed by blood, and that they were "patterns of heavenly things." He then adds that the "heavenly things themselves, i.e., the ordinances of the New Law, of which the Jewish ones were types, depend for their value on better sacrifices; or, in other words, that while the Levitical rites derive their justifying value from the Covenant Sacrifice, the Sacraments of the New Law derive theirs from the great sacrifice on Mount Calvary. His words are: "It is necessary, therefore, that the patterns of heavenly things should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these " (Heb. ix. 23).

We have therefore the authority of Holy Scripture for the typical and prophetical character of this sacrifice; and the recognition of this fact might help to convince those out of the Church that the type cannot end here. If the Covenant Sacrifice typifies

that of Mount Calvary, the subsequent Levitical sacrifices which rested on it, and were the application of it, must themselves have antitypes in the ordinances of Christianity.

If the full typical and prophetical character of this Covenant Sacrifice be admitted, it follows that the worship of Sacrifice cannot have come to an end with Mount Calvary. For there, as at Mount Sinai, the Covenant Sacrifice, the basis of our reconciliation and worship, was offered once for all; but the worship of sacrifice which depends upon it must be continued daily, or the fourfold sacrifices of the Old Law would have no meaning, and would not be, as St. Paul calls them, "patterns" or types "of heavenly things."

Nor is it in controversy only that this great typical teaching is of value. It is a distinct prophecy of the sacrificial and sacramental system of the Church. And it is of no little importance that Christians should recognise a prophecy of this system as a whole.

Indeed, the primary object of types and symbols was not controversy, but the edification of those who believe. So St. Paul teaches (in 1 Cor. x. 11) that the things that happened to the Israelites in figure were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

Temptations against faith are of two kinds; those which arise upon particular doctrines or details, and those which assail the whole revealed system-the latter perhaps are specially characteristic of our own time. Prophecies are of great value in confirming faith, and overthrowing both these classes of temptation; and perhaps such a type as that we have been considering may be of help to some, as presenting a distinct confirmation and corroboration of the main system of the sacrificial worship of the Church.

In some respects teaching by type is more effective than teaching in plain words. For words appeal chiefly to the understanding, while a type impresses the imagination and memory as well.

I have passed over all passages in which the sacrifice of Mount Sinai is mentioned in connection with the Holy Eucharist or the Mass; my object being to show that, although it may have more than one meaning, its special value as a prophecy lies in its foreshadowing what was to happen on Mount Calvary; and that, not merely as all sacrifices of Patriarchal or Mosaic times foreshowed it, but in an especial manner as the Sacrifice once offered on which all other worship must rest.

I may perhaps add two remarks to what I have said on this subject. First, I notice that simple analogy has a very powerful effect in producing conviction in the human mind. It is not, perhaps,

so much that it produces certainty itself, as a sort of sense of certainty; it has what may be called a "clinching" effect in fixing and confirming the conclusions arrived at by the intelligence Mere analogy, though its evidence is probable only and not demonstrative, is sufficient, according to Bishop Butler, in certain degrees to create the highest moral certainty. Few persons can have read carefully his treatise on the "Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature" without feeling how great is the force of his argument in support of religion, and yet it rests simply on evidence which is in itself only probable, though cumulative. A true type has all this convincing force of analogy, and something more, for it is, as I have said, a real prophecy.

Secondly, Of the practical effect of analogies on the minds of men we have a very remarkable instance in the history of the religious body known as Irvingites. Starting from Scotch Presbyterianism, they were led on by a series of supposed symbols which they believed they saw in Holy Scripture, to a very highly sacramental system and a very elaborate ritual. Every detail in their organisation and worship having been arranged in accordance with a mystical explanation of the details of the construction of the tabernacle of Moses, it is no matter of surprise that very extensive analogies are to be seen between the two. This system of false symbolism has so great a power of conviction with them, that very few of their number are ever converted to the Catholic Church; although they have fully admitted the necessity of Apostolic authority in the Church to which even the bishops must be subject, and the need of a perpetual teaching of the Holy Ghost in the Church-two doctrines which would be quite sufficient to bring any ordinary well-disposed Protestant to recognise the Catholic Church as the One Church of God. positive evidence offered by the Irvingites in support of their own. apostles and hierarchy is so weak that few would be convinced by it, yet the pre-arranged analogies on which their system is based are so numerous and exact as to exercise the greatest hold upon their imaginations.

The

Does not this suggest that we might make more use than we do of the argument of true symbolism in confuting those who are in error, and confirming those who have the Faith?

W. J. B. RICHARDS.

ART. VII.-WERE THERE FOUR MONTHS BEFORE THE HARVEST?

AN EXAMINATION OF JOHN IV. 35.

Οὐχ ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι τετράμηνός ἐστιν καί ὁ θερισμὸς ἔρχεται; Say ye not there are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh? John iv. 35.

A

T the outset it may be well to give very briefly and without any attempt to justify it, the chronological order here followed, of some of the earlier events of the public life of our Lord. Without this the treatment of the time of year when our Lord sat by the Sychar well, and spoke with the Samaritan woman, would be hardly intelligible.

It will be evident to any one at all acquainted with the harmonical difficulties of the Ministry, that the subjoined list of approximate dates does not pretend to any kind of finality. Probably every stament in it has been controverted a hundred times over, not only by conflicting assertion, but by volumes of argument. Take one example: An incident will be here mentioned apparently lightly-that is, no single argument will be given for fixing the time of its occurrence, and yet round this unnamed feast of John v. 1. commentators have done battle since the days of St. Irenæus, and will in all likelihood protract the dispute to the end of time and the day of full knowledge.

For the opinion that this feast was Pentecost, we have nearly the whole of the Greek Church, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Origen (most probably), Euthymius, Theophylactus, Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Maldonatus, Calvin, Beza, Westcott and Hort (apparently). In support of the Pasch, there is a great array of names, among others, St. Irenæus (probably), Bengel, Bishop Middleton, John Lightfoot, Luther, Scaliger, Grotius, Kuinoel, Coleridge, Corluy, Bloomfield, Erasmus, Lohmann, Greswell, à Lapide, Archbishop McEvilly, Martini, Fouard, Fillion, Reischl, Grimm. For Purim, a feast more rollicking than religious, there are Kepler,* Petavius, Lange, Bishop Ellicott (favourable) Canon Cook (favourable), Archdeacon Farrar, Olshausen, Meyer, Wieseler,† Stier, Lamy, Winer, Lücke,

The first advocate of Purim.

This very learned critic is strongly opposed to the Pasch theory. Greek scholars instinctively feel that if is omitted before coprý in John v. 1, the feast cannot be the Pasch. Of the omission of the article, Wieseler says. "Exegetisch und Kritisch steht das Resultat fest, dass der Artikel ý. spätere Correctur ist." Chronolog. Synopse der vier Evangelien.

....

Neander. The claims of the Feast of Dedication are supported by Ebrard, and those of the Day of Atonement by Caspari. Dean Alford can come to no conclusion whatever.

The following is the rough outline of the scheme of which the following criticism on John iv. 35 forms a part-not so much a logical part, for my contention about the harvest verse would stand, though the general scheme were to fall, but a chronological part, the time-relation of which to other parts, must be shown:

The Baptism and Fast over, near the end of March.

The Wedding at Cana, end of March.

Our Lord leaves Cana for Capharnaum with His Mother for some days.

Leaves Galilee for Jerusalem for the first Pasch, middle of April. Signs worked on this occasion chiefly for His fellow-Galileans. San.e occasion, interview with Nicodemus.

Leaves Jerusalem for the desert to baptise through his disciples, while the Baptist was baptising near Salim.

Stays in the desert about a fortnight (according to some, many months).

Leaves the desert to begin the Galilean Mission, last day of April.* On His way passes through Sychar, meets the Samaritan woman; SPEAKS OF THE HARVEST WHILE LOOKING AT THE RIPE FIELDS.

iv. 35.

John

Moves north. Beginning of the Galilean Mission with Capharnaum for base, early in May.†

Interruption of Mission for journey to Jerusalem for Pentecost. (John v. 1.). One miracle worked, that on the Paralytic, rather early in June.

Immediate return. The Galilean Mission resumed.

From this point we must occupy ourselves with the passage through Samaria and the mention of the Harvest.

What then was the date of this event?

From a very large and learned body of critics the answer comes readily: It was four months from the April Harvest. Therefore it was December.

In parts lower than the slopes of Gerizim, harvest had already begun. "Harvest began about middle of April, and lasted till end of May." Dr. Tristram, "The Land of Israel," p. 583.

"It was in the month of April I visited this holy place on the Jordan. It was already the time of harvest, for the people of Jericho were reaping their little fields up on the plain." Rev. J. L. Porter, "The Giant Cities of Bashan," p. 110.

The Samaritan harvest was later. See, too, the admirable section on the Bible Calendar in "Aids to the Student of the Holy Bible."

+ Origen says ad loc. very remarkably, ὡς νεωστὶ τοῦ πάσχα προγεγνημένου καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις πεπραγμένων αὐτῷ. The Speaker's Commentary quite inconsistent with this.