make thy enemies thy footstool, &c. This is as plain as a prophetic description ought to be; it is applicable to Christ alone, and it sets forth his exaltation, his royal dignity, his priestly office, the propagation of his gospel, the obedience of his subjects, the destruction of his enemies, and of the Roman emperors, who persecuted his church. But of this prophecy something more shall be said, when we come to the reign of Constantine.

III. A type is a rough draught, a less accurate pattern or model, from which a more perfect image or work is made. Types, or typical prophecies, are things which happened and were done in ancient time, and are recorded in the Old Testament, and which are found afterwards to describe or represent something which befel our Lord, and which relates to him and to his gospel. For example: Under the law, a lamb was, offered for a sin-offering, and thus an atonement was made for transgressions. John the Baptist calls Christ the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world, and St Peter tells Christians that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ as of a lamb. Hence we infer and conclude that the lamb was a type of Christ; and upon considering it, we find that it has all that can be required to constitute a type; for it is in many respects a very just and lively representation of Christ. The lamb died for no offence of his own, but for the sins of others; so did Christ: the lamb could not commit. sin by his nature, nor Christ by his perfection: the lamb was without bodily spot or blemish; Christ was holy and undefiled: a lamb is meek and patient; such was the afflicted and much injured Son of God.

These types are useful to persons who have already received Christianity upon other, and stronger evi

dence,

dence, as they shew the beautiful harmony and correspondence between the Old and New Testament; but they seem not proper proofs to satisfy and convince doubters, who will say perhaps with the schoolmen, Theologia symbolica non est argumentativa.

Unless we have the authority of the scriptures of the New Testament for it, we cannot conclude with certainty that this or that person, or this or that thing mentioned in the Old Testament is a type of Christ, on account of the resemblance which we may perceive between them: but we may admit it as probable.

Joseph was a Nazarene, as the word may denote a separate person. And though he were not under a Nazarite's vow, yet as he was separate from his brethren, he is called Nazir a Nazarite, in the more general and lax signification of the word. And there is a very singu lar correspondence between him and Jesus. Joseph was the beloved son of his father; and so is Jesus too. But as he was hated by his brethren, so Jesus came to his own, and his own received him not. If the sun, moon, and stars did, in a figure, obeisance to Joseph; they did it to Jesus without a trope. Come, let us kill him, was the language of the brethren, both of Joseph and of Jesus.-They were both sold for pieces of money; both became servants. The bloody coat of Joseph answers to the blood of Jesus. They were both forced down into Egypt; both were numbered with transgressors. Joseph is imprisoned with Pharaoh's butler and baker, one of them is saved, the other destroyed: Jesus suffers with two thieves, and one of them is saved also. Joseph sold corn, and saves his people; so does Jesus, the multiplier of loaves, and the Bread of Life. If Joseph exhort his brethren to peace, so did Jesus. If they bowed the knee to Jo

* Gen. xlix. 26.

seph,

seph, every knee must bow to Jesus. If Joseph were highly exalted upon his sufferings, so was Jesus. They

were both men of sorrow, both fruitful branches, both lifted up from a low and sorrowful condition.

Sampson was a Nazarite, in the strictest sense, and a perpetual one, and a type of the Messias too, as the Jews intimate in their two Targums upon Gen. xlix. 18. À very fit type he was of Jesus Christ. He was so in his very birth: he was the son of a barren woman; Jesus of a virgin. The tidings of the birth of Sampson were brought to his mother by an angel; as was that of the birth of Jesus. He shall be a Nazarite, says the angel of Sampson; and of Jesus it is said, that he dwelt in Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was said by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. Of Sampson the angel foretells that he should deliver Israel; and the angel tells of Jesus, that he should save his people. An angel was sent to satisfy both Manoah and Joseph. If the Spirit of God be said to move Sampson; that Spirit descended upon Jesus, and led him into the wilderness. If Sampson marries a Philistine woman, Jesus espoused the Gentiles. Sampson killed the lion, destroyed the Philistines, removed the gates of the city, and at his death gave the greatest blow to his enemies: but it is Jesus Christ that overcame the devil, and the world, and got the conquest of death and hell, that destroyed the devil by his death, and that raised himself up from death to life. Kidder's Demonst. of the Messias, ch. iii.

IV. There are prophecies of double senses, which admit no more than two senses, which are nearly of the same kind with typical prophecies, and many of which might perhaps be cleared up by observing that the prophet meant one thing, and the Spirit of God, who spake by him, meant another thing; for the Ho

VOL. I.

I

ly

ly Spirit so over-ruled the prophets, as to make them use words which strictly and rigidly interpreted could not mean what themselves intended.

Somewhat of this kind is the prophecy of the high priest Caiaphas; for the Spirit of God has sometimes spoken by bad men. When the chief priests and Pharisces consulted what they should do with Jesus, the high priest said, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. His meaning was plainly this, that it mattered not whether Christ were guilty or innocent, because the public safety absolutely required his death. And this spake he, says St John, not of himself; but, being high priest that year, he prophecied that Jesus should die for that nation, that is, be a sacrifice and atonement for their sins. He prophecied then, and knew it not; for he had himself another intent and meaning.

As Daniel, xii. 8, 9. says, that he knew not the meaning of the prediction which he delivered, so the Gentiles, if we may be permitted to introduce them upon this occasion, have remarked concerning their prophets, that they knew not the import of their own prophecies, or rather, that they were merely passive, and knew not even that they were speaking. Aéyros μèr πολλὰ καὶ καλὰ, ἴσασι δὲ ὐδὲν ὧν λέγεσι, says Socrates, in Plaકે to's Apol. and in Menon. p. 99. Ed. Steph. The Sibyl also says, or is made to say, concerning herself, L. ii. - οὔτε γδ' οἶδα

ων

Ὅτι λέγω, κέλεται δὲ Θεός [με] ἔκατ ̓ ἀγορεύειν.

Which is very like the words cited from Plato, Tacitus, Annal. ii. 54. Tunc [sacerdos] haustá fontis arcani aquá, ignarus plerumque literarum et carminum, edit responsa versibus, &c.

When

er.

When the prophets of God spake in his name, they talked and acted like men who knew that they were prophesying. In some of the Pagan oracles, the god is supposed to use the organs of the man, and the man is supposed to know nothing of the discourse. This appears to have been the case of some dæmoniacs in the New Testament, in whom the evil spirit was the speakThe Pagan prophets therefore either were, or pretended to be out of their senses; and by this argument some sly or credulous people imposed upon Justin Martyr, (if he wrote the Cohortatio) and made an excuse for the nonsense and the faults against metre in the Sibylline oracles. The Sibyl, said they, uttered verses when she was inspired; when the inspiration ceased, she remembered nothing that she had said. They who attended her and wrote down her prophecies, being often unskilful and illiterate people, made frequent mistakes, and gave us lame verses and false quantities. Cohort. ad Græc. 38. See what is said above, p. 12. See also Smith on prophecy, who has collected passages from Plato and others, to shew that the Pagan prophets were in a sort of phrenzy and delirium, ch. iv.

This is the very same excuse which the Pagans made for the bad style and other defects of their oracles. Van Dale De Orac. p. 162.

Since no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, that is, the meaning of prophecies is not what perhaps the prophet himself might imagine in his private judgment of the state of things then present, but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; there may therefore very possibly, and very reasonably be supposed to be many prophecies, which, though they may have a prior and immediate reference to some