same tenure, receiving it not from hereditary descent, as the sons of Aaron did, so that, in this respect they were without father and mother, both received their priestly office directly from God, and it was not to descend to their posterity, but to remain in themselves, unchangeable and perpetual. This contradicts the Popish idea of the descent of Christ's priesthood to his ministers, and represents him as still exercising the priest's office before God, making intercession for his people. It is, therefore, profane for any man to call himself, or permit himself to be called, a priest. We have no priest but Christ. His ministers are only his servants, ambassadors whom he has sent out to invite people to the gospel feast. V. The next type we notice is, the two sons of Abraham, representing, in allegory, or type, the children of the two covenants. The covenant of works, given in full on Mount made first with Adam, and Sinai, is represented by Hagar, who was a bondwoman, and whose children were born into bondage. It is to be observed, that Hagar is the Arabic name for Mount Sinai. The Jews, though children of Abraham after the flesh, were yet in bondage to the law, which was given upon Mount Sinai. They sought justification by the law; but it only brought them into bondage; for they could have no justification by it, unless they fulfilled it perfectly. This applies equally to those who now seek justification by their own works. All who are in a natural state are born after the flesh, as Ishmael was; and they are in bondage to the law, and under its wrath and curse, because they have not kept it; and if they continue in this state, they will be finally cast out, as Ishmael was. But the covenant of grace is represented by Sarah, who was a freewoman, and whose children, therefore, were born free. Her son, Isaac, was not born after the flesh, but by promise, out of the ordinary course of nature. So the true children of Abraham, under the covenant of grace, are "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." And by virtue of this new and heavenly birth, they are the children of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise; and they are delivered from the curse of the law, through the covenant of grace, whereby Christ has redeemed them from the curse of the law, being made a curse for them. VI. Moses was a type of Christ. The Lord said unto Moses, concerning the children of Israel, "I will raise them up a prophet, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words into his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all the words that I shall command him." This, Stephen applies to Christ, in his address before the Sanhedrim, at the time of his martyrdom; and no other prophet has ever appeared, "like unto Moses, to whom the Lord spake face to face," excepting Jesus Christ. The typical resemblances between Moses and Christ are these:-They were both saved in infancy, from the persecution of cruel kings; they were both, in early life, before the commencement of their ministry, employed in secular and laborious pursuits; they both rejected the temptation to worldly greatness, to do the will of God; they resembled each other in character, both being meek and faithful; Moses delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, as Christ delivers his people from the bondage of sin and Satan ; they were both maltreated and rejected by their own people, whom they came to save; they both united in one person the offices of prophet, priest, and lawgiver; the Lord spake to them both with an audible voice, and face to face; they were both transfigured: Moses, when his face shone as the face of an angel, and Jesus, while at prayer on the Mount of transfiguration, "when the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering ;" and they both exercised the office of Mediator between God and man. Moses stood between the people as the medium of communication between them and God, as Christ does now. VII. The vail which Moses put over his face, when he spoke to the people, after going into the tabernacle before God, Paul informs us, represented the comparative obscurity of the Old Testament dispensation. The people could not look steadfastly in Moses' face, because it shone, as it were, the face of an angel. This vail, the apostle said, still remained upon the hearts of the Jews, when the law was read; for they could not steadfastly look to the end of that which was abolished. But this vail, he says, is done away in Christ. We can look upon him as our Mediator, without being dazzled with the brightness of his countenance; and in him all obscurity is taken away from the method of salvation. VIII. The redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their whole journey through the wilderness, appear to be typical of Christ's redemption of his people from the bondage of sin and Satan, and of the Christian life; while the land of Canaan, with the entrance of the children of Israel into it, was typical of heaven, and the final entrance of the people of God into that blessed abode. This will appear from the following considerations:-(1.) The passover was evidently typical of the application of the blood of redemption to believers. Paul expressly declares this; and it most evidently had its accomplishment in Christ; and this was the last of the means used to deliver them from bondage, as application to the blood of Christ is the last means by which the sinner is brought out of bondage. (2.) Paul declares that the passage of the Red Sea, under the cloud, was typical of baptism, which is the door into the Christian church, and entered near the commencement of the Christian race. Their pilgrimage through the desert must, therefore, represent the Christian pilgrimage through this world, which, in regard to spiritual things, very much resembles that desert land through which they passed. (3.) Paul declares expressly that certain things which happened to them, in their progress through the wilderness, happened to them for examples or types; he also declares that the manna and the miraculous supply of water in the wilderness, represented the spiritual meat which Christ has provided for his people; and Christ himself asserts the same thing in his discourse to the Jews, recorded by the evangelist John. So that it is a fair inference, that this journey was intended to rep Canaan, like the heavenly resent the Christian life. And it is clear from what Paul says, in the fourth and eleventh chapters of Hebrews, that Canaan was a type of heaven. He represents some as having failed of that rest, as typical of others that will fail of entering the heavenly rest. He also represents the patriarchs, while sojourning in the land of promise, as seeking a better country, that is, an heavenly. The same thing, also, is to be inferred from the fact, that rest, is a land of promise. the children of Israel from through the wilderness, are ment and progress of the events connected with them must be typical of things connected with Christian experience. All the ceremonial law, also, which was given during the journey through the wilderness, was typical of Christ and the gospel. They were, the apostle says, "shadows of good things to come." This gives the narrative of these events a double interest to the minds of Christians. But it is necessary to guard against carrying these typical resemblances too far; for a type never comes fully up to the antitype, and there are generally some parts of it which do not apply at all to the thing signified by it. Moreover there is often more than one thing signified by the same type, so that some things necessary to carry out the one, will not apply to the other. Here is evidently not only a type of the redemption of individual Christians, with their personal experience; but also of the church of God, taken collectively, all under one and the same figure. This mingling of figures is very common in the Scrip |