CHAPTER VI. FOURTH PILLAR, continued.-Types of the Old Testament. ROMANS xv, 4. "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." SOME are disposed to undervalue the Old Testament. They say Christ came to introduce a new law or new covenant; and that therefore he has abrogated the old. But Christ teaches no such thing. On the contrary, he says he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil ; and that not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. The only part of the Old Testament which is done away in Christ, is the ceremonial observances, which have their accomplishment in him. The substance having come, we have no longer any need of the shadow. Yet the record of these shadows, according to the declaration of the apostle in the text, was written for our instruction; and if it was written for our instruction, it is our duty to study it, that we may understand what is the voice of God, which speaks to us through these representations of things fulfilled in Christ. It is easy for the spiritual mind to perceive why God has given us a record of the manner in which Christ and his gospel were represented to the ancient saints. These representations furnish most striking illustrations of the object of Christ's work, and of the nature of the plan of salvation revealed in the gospel. It is with this view that I enter upon the consideration of the Types of the Old Testament dispensation. And if those who are desirous of knowing the way of salvation, will give diligent heed to the instruction contained in these types, they will see the glory of Christ's gospel, and its perfect adaptedness to their wants. A Type is a representation of some person, thing, or event, (which, at the time it is given, is yet to come,) by some other person, thing, or event, which bears a resemblance to it. But in order to constitute a type, it is not only necessary that there should be in it a resemblance to the thing typified, but that it should have been designed to represent it. The old writers, by overlooking this, may have given way to some fanciful interpretations; yet it appears to me that modern commentators have gone to a contrary extreme, in maintaining that nothing is to be considered as typical, except where there is an express declaration of its typical character in Scripture. Where such declarations occur they are incidental, and with no special design to teach this particular thing; and how do we know that there may not be many other types, to which no such incidental allusion has been made,- -are we to suppose that God has given instruction in the form of types, which he never intended should be available to his people in any age? Moreover, these allusions are mostly in the New Testament; and are we to suppose that all the instruction given in these types was designedly sealed up from the very persons to whom they were of old especially given? Many of these allusions, also, are explained by modern commentators as mere illustrations or accommodations. But I cannot forbear the remark, in this place, that if some of the old writers fell into a fanciful mode of interpreting the Scriptures, some of our modern expositors have fallen into a Germanizing mode, certainly no less disastrous to the cause of truth. They use an infidel's pruning-hook upon the tree of life. It need not be a matter of wonder, then, if they should cut off some of its branches, on whose luscious fruits the saints of old used to regale themselves with fond delight. I have, however, confined myself chiefly, in the following pages, to those types, the typical character of which is taught in Scripture. I have not attempted to consider all the types, but only a specimen of such as are most easily understood, and most strikingly illustrative of the way of salvation. It therefore seemed to suit my purpose better to make the selection chiefly from those concerning the typical character of which there is no dispute. My object is three-fold (1.) To awaken attention to this most interesting branch of divine revelation, by presenting a specimen of the instruction to be obtained from it; (2.) To illustrate the way of salvation, and show the agreement between the Messiah revealed in the New Testament, with the typical, as well as prophetic representations concerning him, in the Old; and (4.) To show, in the fulfilment of these types, the inspiration of the Scriptures; on which I shall remark more in full at the close. In the comparison of a type with its antitype, or the object represented by it, it is important to bear in mind that a type always falls short of its antitype. This must always be the case, when an infinite object is represented; because it must be shadowed forth by finite things. With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to consider some of the types of the Old Testament, by which the way of salvation was shadowed forth to the ancient saints : I. The first type of Christ was the first man, Adam. That Adam was a type of Christ, we learn from the declaration of Paul, in the fifth chapter of Romans; where he calls him the "figure of him that was to come. The typical resemblances between Adam and Christ are three. 1. Dominion. Adam was created with dominion over all things in this world. All things on earth were put under him. He was made a little lower than the angels, yet crowned with glory and honor above all the creatures upon earth. So Christ, in his incarnation and humiliation, was made a little lower than the angels, yet crowned with glory and honor, and all things in the mediatorial kingdom put in subjection under him. 2. Adam is the natural head of his race, and Christ is the spiritual head of the church. Paul says God gave him to be head over all things to the church; and represents him as bearing the samne relation to the church which the head does to the body. 3. There is another resemblance, which divines call representation. The old covenant of works, they say, which was made with Adam, was made with him as the representative of his race. This covenant was the continuance, in a state of holiness and felicity, on condition of perfect obedience; with the threatening of death for disobedience. And in this covenant Adam was put upon trial, not for himself only, but in a certain sense for his posterity also. By his fall, he involved them all in the consequences of his own transgression. So also Christ, in his mediatorial character, stands in the new covenant, which is the covenant of grace, in the same relation to his people which Adam stood to his posterity. The covenant of grace was made with Christ, as the head, representative, or surety of his people. He has undertaken for them, and in their behalf, to do for them what Adam failed to do, to live a life of perfect obedience; and not this only, but to repair the breach which has been made in the first covenant, by sin. He was made a little lower than the angels, that he might taste death for every man. This representative character of Adam and Christ, is explicitly declared in the fifth chapter of Romans, and in the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians: "As by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." "Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, |