scenes and events bearing a strong and striking resemblance.

It is of very great importance to attend to this principle in the interpretation of the book of Psalms. The typical character of David, known and understood by himself to be a type of Christ, and the typical character of many of the great events in his history, are the only true clue to his meaning in many of the Psalms. Primarily he may have had his eye on the events and circumstances of his own life; but it is only as he saw and understood them to be typical, and illustrative of something correspondent in the character and history of the Messiah, towards whom his hopes and aspirations were directed, that they excited the deep interest of his heart. The Spirit thus gave him typical revelations, and through him the church. For thus were they understood and quoted by Christ and his apostles. So too did the ancient rabbinical writers among the Jews understand the Psalms. The 22d and 69th psalms are a striking description of the sufferings of the Messiah; the 2d, 21st, 45th, 68th, 72d, 89th and 110th, of the triumph of the Messiah; the 16th, 35th, 40th, 102d, and others, of his humiliation and exaltation, actually so understood and quoted in the New Testament. So frequent and indeed continual are the references in the Psalms to the Messiah, upon the principle just stated, as to justify the position taken by the Rev. John Fry,* Rector of Desford, Leicestershire, and formerly of the University College, Oxford, that Christ and the events of his first or his second advent are the perpetual theme from one end to the other of this sacred book. This fact affords an abun dantly satisfactory solution of what in that book ap pears to be inconsistent with a Christian spirit, and * See his New Translation and Exposition of the Psalms.

has led some to denominate particular parts of it cursing psalms-such as the 109th, &c. They are but denunciations and predictions of divine vengeance on the enemies of Christ, and might have been just as correctly translated in the future tense as in the imperative mode.

This typical character of some predictions not being duly considered, has led some to great mistakes about what has been called the secondary or double sense. It is undoubtedly the fact, that sometimes predictions have been delivered in terms which describe a near and literal fulfilment, and yet look forward to a more remote and analogous fulfilment. Hence some have contended, as they thought unanswerably, in favor of the allegorical or spiritual interpretation, as though there is always an occult sense behind the literal expressions. But a closer attention to this subject will show that the argument is fallacious.

One or two examples, and the statement of the obvious principle of interpretation in relation to them, will set this matter in a plain and intelligible light. Joel, in his first and second chapters, predicted approaching ravages of the land of Israel by the palmerworm, the locust, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar. Afterwards he predicts the invasion of the country by a mighty "nation," whose strength and numbers and ravages, he describes, by language suggested from the desolating character, numbers, progress, and effects of an army of locusts. These two events are so blended together in that description, as to make it evident, that the first desolation by the locusts was regarded by the prophet as a type of the more terrible desolation to follow by the Assyrian army. A careful attention to the language of the prophet, shows evidently that he had the two literal events in view, and, in filling up his description taken from the

type, i. e. the locust ravages, uses terms applicable and evidently pointing to the antetype, i. e. the Assyrian invasion.*

Of like character are other typical predictions, of which we notice that of the destruction of Babylon, given in the 13th and 14th chapters of Isaiah. The description is most graphic, so far as the literal Babylon is concerned, and all has been verified to the very letter; but both at the commencement (ch. 12. 6-16) and at the close (ch. 13. 24-27), the language directs us to a far more terrible and extensive desolation of the kingdoms of this world than took place at the overthrow of ancient Babylon by the Medes.

Other prophets and Christ himself adopted the very words of Isaiah, and especially the apostle John, when they predicted the great convulsions, revolutions, and overthrow of nations, which should take place at the destruction of the Roman power, whose capitol has been metaphorically denominated "great Babylon" the first literal Babylon being the type of the last, and the destruction of the first being the type and pledge of the destruction of the last.

The same thing is also true in relation to the predictions concerning Edom, and Moab, and other wicked nations, whose destruction was predicted by the prophets as events not very remote from their day, but which events were spoken of as types and proofs or pledges of the fulfilment of predictions looking to a much more remote period and to future powers to arise in the world, not having, as yet, in the days of

* Joel, 1. 2. Warburton did not discern the peculiar force of Joel's expressions, (1. 6, compared with 1. 4,) and has supposed the whole to be allegorical, without any private hint, as in v. 6, that Joel referred to two literal events-the locust and Assyrian devastation-the one a type of the other.-Divine Legation, v. ii. 499.

the prophet, even been organized or received a name, and which therefore were named, metaphorically, descriptively, or typically, from nations then known, whose character and destruction those of the more distant nations, yet to be developed in the political world, should resemble.

The principle on which all such predictions are to be understood, and which predictions have led to much confusion about "the double sense," is a very simple and intelligible one. The prophets looked down the long vista of the world's and church's history, to the day and hour of the Messiah's ultimate and glorious triumph, and of the establishment of his kingdom on the earth. When the church was in distress, and calamities threatening her from the invasion of hostile nations, they delivered, under the direction of God, predictions for her comfort and hope. These brought distinctly into view, the final hour of glory and triumph, as the true reason and ground of hope for deliverance and redemption from any intervening seasons of distress and peril, of disaster and apparent desolation. In disclosing these sources of hope, the prophets sometimes began their predictions with a reference to the greatest and final deliverance, and then prophesied, in relation to the calamities or deliverances nearer hand, from which again they glanced to the last, and which precedent events themselves they described as types and pledges of its glorious accomplishment. Sometimes the prophets, in administering consolation, would predict and describe the last coming of the Messiah, and glance from it to the second, viewing both as reasons for the events which should occur nearer at hand, and which, when verified, would be types and pledges of still greater. Sometimes, too, even symbolical language, such as the sun being darkened, the moon being apparently

turned into blood, and the stars falling from Heaven, would receive a literal verification in the extraordinary celestial and atmospheric phenomena which should occur before, or simultaneously with the events predicted by the symbols, and be, as it were, God's sensible exhibition of the symbol or type itself, as was remarkably the case towards the destruction of Jerusalem; and indeed has been, at different periods since in the world's history, so as to have swayed men into the superstitious notion, that frequent extraordinary eclipses of the sun and moon, the appearance of comets, unwonted brilliancy and forms of the Aurora Borealis, the decadence of meteoric vapors, and explosion of meteoric bodies, which astronomers and natural philosophers know not how to account for, are sure signs and omens of wars and calamities about to come upon the nations of the earth.*

The nature and use of types and of typical language as employed by the prophets, enable us easily and satisfactorily to understand all these things, so that, while we are delivered from all superstitious fears, we may know exactly, what use to make of, and what lessons to learn from, the prophetical writings.

Two things are obvious from the prophets' use of types the first is, that while types are not to be rejected utterly, they are not to be multiplied at the will of the interpreter. We must look carefully through the whole compass of the prophet's view, study well the import of his words, and only admit typical events, where the prophets themselves meant that the events should be so regarded. It will not do for us to assume it as a universal principle, which we may apply according to our own whims and conceits, and on the

* See N. Webster's History of Plagues, Comets, &c.