Scriptural researches

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Contents

PAGE

Introduction i

CHAP.

Introduction

It is obvious, that it may tend to confirm pii expositions offered, if they are again found in % work compo^d without the slightest knowledge J them.

The most marked feature of these obscure ld| hours will perhaps be found in the attempts 1 give prophetic significations to various facts corded both in the Old, and in the New Testaments, but principally in the former. The Almighty not only vouchsafed to us the sure word of prophecy, the moat irresistible, and indestructible evidence of the truth of Christianity, but he even deigned to add a farther confirmation to our faith in the disclosure of prominent features of the future fortunes of his ancient people, and of the church of Christ in adumbrations of them, furnished by events narrated in the inspired writings, and bearing with them, as it were, a secondary sense. It is enough to cite one single passage from the Old Testament as an attestation of the employment of this important mode of inslruction by the heavenly wisdom having been declared in the time of the prophets. The Almighty thus expresses liiniself in Hosea : " I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets." (xii. 10.).

In the New Testament our Lord, by describing himself to be typified in certain respects by Jonas, and by the serpent hfted up by Moses, attests the

L

X INTBODWCTIOK.

existence of this mode of indirect prophecy. And if we knew upon divine authority but one single instance of instruction thus pecuhar and of high value afforded to us, where the means of extending it are almost unlimited, we undoubtedly should not only be warranted, but called upon to feel ourselves assured, that it was not one single event alone recorded by the inspired writers, that was pregnant with delineations of futurity for our guidance and support. We should be confident, that the sacred history teems with knowledge thus concealed in its occurrences, and we should avow to ourselves, that it is our duty to make diligent search after treasures accumulated for us by the mercy of Heaven, when apprised both of their existence, and of the process to be followed in the accjuisitioo of them. But it can be shewn, that in multiplied instances the New Testament requires us, with the authority of inspiration, to recognize very remarkable typifications prefigured in the Old.

We find St. Paul designating Jesus Christ as the last Adam, (1 Cor. xv.), and speaking of the created Adam as being " the figure of him that was to come." (Rom. v. 14.).

The same apostle speaks of the institution of marriage as typifying tlie union existing between Christ and his church. (Eph. v. 22—33.).

St. Peter speaks of the few who were in the ark, that is, eight souls, aa having been saved by

IKTSODUCTION. "W

water, and proceeds thus : *' the like figure where-

unto even baptism doth also now save us," &c.

(1 Pet. iii. 20, SI.). Baptism, it thus appears, was

typified by the flood.

St. Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews informs

us. that Isaac, who had been on the point of being

ofiered up as a victim by his father, when restored

to him was a type of the resurrection. (Hebrews

In his epistle to the Galatians we are told, that

Hagar was a type of the old, and Sarah of the

new covenant, (iv. 2S — 31,).

We learn from the first epistle to the Corinthians, that the paschal lamb was a type of Christ, as it is said, " for even Christ our passover is sacriiiced for us." (1 Cor. v. 7-).

We learn moreover from the same epistle, that the Israelites when passing through the Red Sea were typically baptised by its waters (x. 1, 2.), and that the rock from which those quickening streams gushed out, which restored them to life when perishing of thirst in the wilderness, was a type of Christ ; the words are, " that rock was Christ." (x. 4.).

The second epistle to the Corinthians tells us, that the veil, which Moses put on his face when declaring to the people of Israel the commandments of God, denoted prophetically their ignorance of the things revealed in the Old Testament, as read to them by one whose face was veiled ;

rTHODtrcTios.

aod the apostle states, that this ignorance had been removed by our Lord, saying, that tliis " veil is done away in Christ." (iii. 13 — 17)

That the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness is a type of Christ crucified, we learn, as has been already observed, from his own mouth. (John ill. 14, 15.).

Another type already adverted to is also notified to us by our Lord, as prefiguring himself, that of the prophet Jonas, whose restoration to the light, after having been three days imprisoned in the belly of the whaltr, adumbrated the resurrection of our Lord from the grave, after that his body had lain for the same space of time in the death of the tomb. Our Lord declared, that no other sign than this should be given to the evil and adulterous generation, which sought one of him ; and we must conclude from these words, that it was a clear and decisive one, and that it was their extreme wickedness alone, which imposed tliis narrow limit on that species of warning and instruction. (Matthew xii. 3&— 41; xvi. 4. Luke xi. 29, 80.).

When St. Paul wished to convince the Corinthians, that they should take upon themselves the maintenance of tlieir spiritual teachers, he thus expostulates with them ; " Say I these things as a man ? Saith not the law the same also ? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadetb out the com.

INTBODDCTION.

Doth God take care for oxen, or saitii lie it a gether for our sakes ? For our sakes, no doiibl lliis is writteo," &c. (1 Cor. ix. 8 — 10.), signification of the precept of the Jaw here referrt to is also more briefly pointed out in the 1 epistle to Timothy, (v. 17, 18.).

The seventh chapter of the epistle to the I brewB shews Melchisedec to us as a type Christ, in his character of an high priest. (11 —

We learn from the seventh chapter of the j that Moses prefigured our Lord as an heart sent prophet. (37)

That David, king of Israel, was a type of 1 future heavenly sovereign of the Hebrews, descendant in the flesh, is rendered abundantly clear by the prophets, Jeremiah, (xxx. 9-), kiel (xxxiv. 23; xxsvii. 24, 25.), and Hoa (iii. S.), and by the Acta of the (ii. 25—31.).

The words uttered to David by the Alniigl with respect to Solomon, " I will be his fathei and he shall be my son " (2 Samuel vii. 14), have" their full and final application to Christ, as we are taught by a passage in tlie epistle to the Hebrews, (i. 5), whence it appears, that Solomon here prefigured our Lord.

The typification of Rome by Babylon is sufficiently proved by a reference to the sevenleenUi _ chapter of the Revelations. (1 — 18.).

These exemplifications might be pushed mucii

XIV INTRODUCTlOy.

farther. But should we set aside the whole mass of successful interpretation of types, which the piety, industry, andingenuity of uninspired writers has afibrded ; and should we also abstain from insisting upon the immense number of them conveyed in the religious institutions of the Israelites, we cannot but recognize in the historical adumbrations thus cited so great an extent of prophetic adaptation of past to future occurrences established by divine authority, as to compel us to conclude, under a plain and obvious analogy, that the heavenly work, for which the materials were abundant, and whose Almighty artificer rose up early to speak and to send all his servants, the prophets, to Israel, and to protest * was not left imperfect. We cannot reasonably doubt, that he has deigned to trace a complete series of instructive and admonitory pictures, in which the past is made to dehneate the future. In various of them, which have been brought to light, the likenesses presented have been astonishing, and the colours most vivid.

We read the history of Israel, and are startled to see its events burst again into life before our sight. We peruse the records of foregone things with the indifference attaching to the contemplation of that, which is not ours, and which is no more ; but if we clear away the film from our

* Jeremiah vli., xi., xxv., xsvi., xxix,, xxxii., &c nPTBOBUeTIIW.

eyes, we are astounded to see placed before then ia lively figures the past, present, and future fortunes, in weal and in woe, of the church of Christ, and of the ancient people of God,

But if these views are juBt as to the extent of typiticatioD existing, it must be admitted, that whilst we have almost idolised the achievements of human art, and have eagerly ransacked the bowels of the earth in search of the relics of Grecian sculpture, we have not been over anxious in our endeavours to raise the curtain, which veils these mysterious and inexpressibly interesting masterpieces of heavenly skill ; that very little indeed has been effected in the lapse of nearly eighteen hundred years in bringing them to the day; and that a fearful mass of unachieved labour Femaiii^ to our reproach.

I should not now feel myself warranted in affirt ing, that every circumstance recorded in the Scrip* ' tares aifords some adumbration of futurity. But I cannot entertain a doubt, that the Almighty has not left his labour incomplete, and that every marked event, which either has taken place since the dispensation of grace, or is yet to take place in the religious history of Israel, and of the Christian church, has been foreshadowed by facts narrated in the annals written under inspiration.

Many may have been deterred from the investigation of types, by what is constantly averred of the danger of being led into strained and fanciful inter-

XVI INTHODCCTIOX.

pretations. It is certainly true, that if we wert; not positively assured by divioe authority, that certain events indicate, aiid foreshadow others then unborn, and thus have a prophetic Bense, no man would have ventured to assign to them such a secondary meaning. But knowing as we do, that the nierey of God, inexhaustible in the means employed for teaching, and admonishing our shortsighted and erring race, to direct has added figurative prophecy, it is our plain, and imperative duly to convince ourselves, that we have not neglected any of those mysterious sources of knowledge, and to explore them with all humility, but ivith all diligence. The nature of this exploration requires, that it should be performed with patience, prudence, and circumspection ; and where the reward of the fulfilment of a duty is great, let nu one complain, that it is accompanied by somewhat of risk, and difRculty. But we derive from expositions of types vouchsafed to us by him, who was the truth itself, the assurance, that tliis research should be prosecuted with a certain degree of Iwldness.

There is probably no uninspired expounder of these secrets, who would have ventured to discover in the rebellious prophet Jonas, signally chastised for his disobedience, a type of our Saviour under any circumstances, or who, mindful of the shaptassumed by the tempter in Paradise, and of the head, which was to be bruised by the seed of the

INTBODnOTION. XVH

woman, would pronuunce the brazen serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness to be an emblenh of the crucified Redeemer.

It seems, that several expositors of t}-pes wi in England in the seventeenth century; but their writings are seldom to be found; it never happened to me to meet with any of them, and I cannot hear of any modem work, in which historical prefiguratinn has been either extensively or systematically investigated ; and if this is so, the feeble, imperfect, and desultory attempt, which I make, may the more readily find pardon and

With respect to the search after historical types, it may be observed, that whilst, to say the least, no one can surely venture to lay down any rules according to which it may be determined, that events narrated in the Scriptures have not any farther or mystical sense, a presumption arises, that a figurative meaning attaches to occurrences, when there is a striking recurrence of a combination of peculiar circumstances in facts happening more than once, when things of little apparent importance, or standing by themselves, and unconnected with events which precede, or follow them, are related circumstantially, and brought into a degree of notice, which they do not seem to deserve intrinsically in the most economical of all records, and when immoral conduct is depicted in detail, and when this is done without its being reprehended.

sole,

X\^I1 INTKODirCTION.

or without punishment consequent to its being signified to us ; — and it is in this last case perhaps, that we may the most safely conclude, that such a narrative is a veiled prediction. The absence of the mention of blame, or chastisement, should on no account excite the presumption, that evil deeds were committed with impunity ; but it should lead us to the certain inference, that the recital is expressly so framed, in order that we may be turned from seeking a moral instruction, a pursuit which would carry us away from the object to be attained, and that the main and essential information to be sought for is typical and figurative. It would be as absurd as impious to imagine, that guilt could escape the equal and unerring justice of Heaven ; nor can we doubt for a moment, that the daughters of Ijot, the wife of Potiphar, and Taraar, could not have rendered themselves obnoxious to it with impunity. Neither can we possibly suppose, that if Naaman actually became an accomplice to an idolatry, which he knew to be a crime against the God of heaven, who had shewn him signal mercy, he braved unscathed his vengeance, nor that Gahazi enjoyed the spoils acquired by his fraud in prosperous fruition- We have only to conclude, that we are not told in what manner their offences were visited on them, in order that we may not, on finding a moral lesson, content ourselves with it and abstain from research after a. typical one, and that we may under-

INTBODCCTION.

stand, that an hidden sense of prophetic im] lies concealed, and that it is to tlie discovery of it that our diligence should be applied. I would beg permission to call especial attention to thisconsideration, because, if such passages be indi ously scrutinized, they will unquestionably sooni or later be found to contain new evidences of divine truth and wisdom, and to shew strength and unity of design in parts of the system, which have been by some considered as inexplicable and somewhat difficult to defend, and have been exultingly cited and commented on by infidels as blemishes or points of weakness.

It need scarcely be observed, that the details ^ven in the different cases of immorality referred to are indispensably necessary, as they furnish those peculiar features of each of them separately, by which alone we are enabled to judge, whether the likeness of the supposed antitype is accurate and complete, and its reality is established.

I am well aware, that there may be much ger in explaining the Scriptures in a figurative sense; but I apprehend, that this danger mainly lies in a practice deserving all condemnation, the assigning such a sense in the first instance, and as a primary meaning, except where a literal one involves an evident impossibility, as for example where our Lord speaking of himself says, " I anl the door of the sheep," and in another place, "'■ am the true vine." X urate ^^h dtnri^H

INTRODUCTION.

If, as should be invariably done, each and statement of facts be at first received and understood in its plain and direct sense, the truth of Scripture would be maintained, exuberance of fancy would be repressed, and a great extent of misinterpretation of the revealed word would be avoided. It has been for want of due caution in this respect, as it appears to me, that a variety of future events predicted, which appertain exclusively to regenerate Israel, are attributed to the universal church, in despite of unsiiitableness of application, of inconsistencies, and of the obviously necessary construction of the explicit and unequivocal language employed, and of the clear and circumstantial statements given.

These observations however refer to the errors, into which the well-intentioned may fall. But the licence assumed of i>eeking some other rather than the literal sense, where it would operate inconveniently to a preconceived system, has given birth to a peril novel in its nature, but most menacing from the rapidity of its progress. It is grievous to see in Neologism, that new, dangerous, and most insidious foe to Christianity, an illegitimate progeny of those German Protestant churches, which were the nursing mothers of the Reformation ; and thus born, he would fain appear like " Satan transformed into an angel of light," and be seen conspicuous as a zealous champion of the fiible. But he tells you, that he is a discreet one, anxious to place the maintenance of its authenticity upon solid and rational grounds, and to establish the course of events represented in its most ancient records as much in consonance as possible with that, which we, although living in truth under an wholly different dispensation, witness in the present day, so as to call as little, as may he, upon our faith, which he is very desirous of not seeing brought into action.

The Neologist excites no suspicion in the unwary hy starting ohjections. He comes as an ally with an host of solutions of whatever matters our antagonists, as he assures us, deem intricate, problematical, or enigmatical, as difficult to understand, and therefore hard to believe. He tells u$, that many events, in themselves simple and natural, have received a figurative or poetical garb from the imagination of the writers; and he implores us not to lay things to the charge of the Almighty, which may cause his justice wisdom to be questioned, by calling iheni dis] sations of his. Fertile in resources, and full of eu pedients in our hchalf, he has always at hand a decipher, through which, as he informs us, we may attain rational explanations of difficulties, which, according to his assertions, either cannot be solved by the ordinary processes of our understanding, or are repugnant to our reason. If you reject one of these explanations, he has another at

XXll INTRODUCTION.

your service; and you may take any one you please, provided you do not understand the thing related according to the words of Holy Writ. Thus a few years since the two following versions of the history of the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac had found their way into two different catechisms composed for the use of schools under the controul of a German Protestant government. According to one of theni, Abraham, oppressed by anight mare, imagined, that Isaac, who was sleeping close to him, was a wild beast about to devour him, and would have stabbed him, had he not providentially awoke- The otber e\position stated, that Abraham found the usage of offering up a son in sacrifice so firmly and universally established amongst the Canaauites of his day, that, standing alone as a single stranger, he was, however reluctantly, about to comply with it, when a better-advised friend, in a happy hour, dissuaded him from that deplorable act of weakness. Thefirst of these solutions is the safest, in so far as that we cannot prove, that Abraham had not a night mare; but as to tlie second, I trust, 1 can shew in the proper place, that the sacrifice of children by their parents did not exist amongst the Can aanites of Abraham's age, and that the Syrians, his contemporaries, however idolatrous they were, believed the transaction of the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac to have occurred essentially as it is stated in the book of

L

Genesis, and to have taken place in all its stages under the immediate interposition and guidance of a Deity.

InmanyinstanceR, little research will be necessary to enable us to repel attacks of this nature. But in some, in order to confound the devices of the archfoe, it is necessary to seek out from Holy Writ the counsels and purposes of the Almighty, in orde|E to shew, that the pretended difficulties do not exi and that it waa in his perfect wisdom, and for o instruction, that ho gave an especial direction tc events, or caused certain facts to be delineated in a particular manner. And should it prove, that even Pagan mythology may be made to furnish what i may be termed a reluctant testimony to the truA / of Scripture, it will be an evidence, that will nei-J ther be useless nor unsatisfactory, although nowitt such an one as to afford the main ground of otii faith on the paints in question.

The Neologist will assuredly tell us, that there has either been a very unfortunate vitiation of the text, or a strange coloring of the facts in many other histories, such as, for instance, those of Abrahani'ji and Isaac's denials of their wives, and of the apparently gratuitous miracle, through which Elijah and Elisha walked through the Jordan. There will be found in this volume attempts to demonstrate with respect to those two histories, and others which are of a nature to he especially obnoxious to a Neologist, that the facts, exactly i^ rit the

orde|!^^H

n to

in a

rven

^hat ^J

■uth^H

XXIV INTRODBCTION.

related, carry with them, besides their primary, a second and mysterious sense strictly consistent with, and analogous to, other parts of the sacred writings, and graciously intended for our inatniction, and for the confirmation of our faith.

A Jew, a few years since, was conversing with a North German Protestant clergyman on that stupendous miracle, through which his fathers passed tlirough the depths uf the Red Sea, whilst its waters were heaped up as a wall on the right hand, and on the left, by the hand of the Almighty, when the reverend gentleman told him, that if he would have the goodness to receive the plain facts of the case as they occurred, no one would trouble him about his faith ; that a continuation of strong easterly winds, and a remarkably low spring ebb, had laid a portion of tlie bed of the sea dry i that Moses had ably and boldly taken advantage of the unexpected chance ; but that the Egyptians, who had not calculated the tides correctly, were caught and overwhelmed by the returning flood. The Jew, when relating this conversation to a Christian, exclaimed, that his brethren could never receive the New Testament as an heavenly law from such expounders of the canonical books of the Hebrews,

The waves of the German ocean have no more proved a protecting barrier to us against this theological pestilence, than they have against the physical plague, which holds its appointed course

L- tKTBOOOCTION.

of chastisement through our land. And it is n that the minister of the altar is called upoD i stand between the living and the dead, and 1 strive with might and main to arrest this contagion. He is no longer armed with the censer^l the incense, and the hallowed flame; the great 1 and final atonement is made. But he has the vincible weapons of the everlasting gospel ; and he has powerful arms of another nature, which he is now called upon to take in hand. He will be told reproachfully, that we find recorded in the Testament certain occurrences, which appear to b irreconcil cable with the peculiar dispensations ( the Almighty respecting Israel, and acts of i ness and deeds of darkness brought to light, e exposed in their details in striking colon that we neither learn, that any reproach or c demnation of these iniquities was expressed, that any judgment fell tin the heads i authors ; and of all these things examples are pre sented in the following pages. And it is precise from passages like these, that new evidences of t truth of our religion are to be deduced, and th^l instances of indirect and figurative prophecy are ti be collected, powerfully corroborative of direo^ prediction, and consonant with it. The Christiat who shall have reflected on these things, cannt doubt, that they are, every one of them, forward to our view, and in the very sliape whi they wear, expressly in order to draw our atteog b

XXVI INTEODDCTION.

tion to their mystical sense, to make us to understand, as has been alreatly observed, tliat the Almighty, in matters thus related, vouchsafes to us not a moral lesson, and that such an one we are not to seek, hut a j»opketif instruction, and to excite us to endeavor to discover it. I have attempted to shew that these things are so, and to prove it by examples. Should I be deemed to bave failed in my proofs, still the principle is unquestionably true. But even if I am allowed to have succeedetl, still I must confess, that I have made but a beginning of an immense work, and with feeble hands. I therefore feel an earnest anxiety to see the talents, the learning, and the piety, which grace the ministers of the church of Christ, brought into action in extensive and systematic labors in this most important field of inquiry, whwe the object in view is to silence the false friends, but the real and most dangerous enemies of the gospel, and to demonstrate, that parts of the Scriptures, which many either have not understood, or have not known how to defend, and which by many also have been objected to, as containing matters wliich had better been omitted, as useless, or unintelh'gibie, or as conveying no moral lesson compensating for the inconvenience of their details, do really testify to the unity and gTBodcur of the design of the Almighty in devising and rearing the mighty fabrie of Christianity, and that new evidences of its truth are supitmtoiHrcTioir.

plied by the very parts of the building, which i are required to condemn and retiend). And ha I would recur to what has been already said i specting particular means of defence now withid the reach of the advocate of tlie gospel. The e\Tdences of its truth, which rest upon direct or veiled prophecy, necessarily accrue gradually, as the events foretold occur, and cumulatively, thus fu» J nishing perpetually new arms to its defenders. ItT is not here my purpose to observe upon, or to citH those fulfilments of direct predictions contained i Holy Writ, which have occurred in the lapse c ages, in attestation of its veracity ; but I ' fain call attention to this consideration, that thl same flow of time has of necessity brought with ii the accomplishment of many of the figurative pr< phecies of the historical types, and that thus, fct those, who shall in all diligence and humility dec qate themselves to the search for them, there t new weapons of warfare olTenaive and defensivt store, in unexplored parts of the arsenal of th) Christian army. These pages contain the expo' ' Ntion of certain views of such fulfilments as, among others, have presented themselves to my mind ; but even should they be admitted to be correct, as their number is comparatively small, I would still entreat those, who are competent to such a task, to give to this feeble outline an extension, a fulness, and a strength, which I am not capable of bestowing upon it. Whether my conjectures be

Xxyta INTRODUCTION.

well fouDded or not, if types exist, and wc know that they do, one thousand eight hundred years of the existence of the church of Christ, to which they assuredly mainly relate, an existence full of triumphs, and of sufferings, of the most opposite fortunes, and of the strangest vicissitudes, must have brought with them the realization of very many of those figurative predictions. There is an abundant harvest, which awaits but the hand of the reaper.

It may often be reproached to me, that the pursuit of particular inquiries, susceptible of much extension and illustration, has been carried on within very narrow limits. In reply I should observe, that I have not the smallest pretension to exhaust any one matter of research. I confine myself to endeavoring to unfold and render clear such particular views, as I have thought it my duty to submit to the public, purposely abstaining from attempts to follow up any one subject in all its ramifications. I believe that I have by so doing best promoted my chance of utility, which I should Jiave forfeited by an enterprize exceeding my powers.

I am painfully aware that, according to the present mood of the minds of men, I shall with many incur the imputation of much unkindness and religious intolerance for expressing myself, as I do, respecting the church of Rome; and I confess, that I could never forgive myself, if I had written