Page images
PDF
EPUB

LECTURE I.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT DRAWN

FROM THE HISTORICAL TYPES CONTAINED

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

ERRATUM.

P. 8. 1. 18, for in which read during which,

the extraordinary birth, actions, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, who was called Christ, is a fact which no one can dispute.

That these books have been transmitted to our own times in a state of general accuracy, and that they are the genuine productions of the writers whose names they bear, has often been most satisfactorily proved.

And that these writers were faithful and credible witnesses of the facts which they relate no one can reasonably doubt, who has learned, as all may learn, their unshaken reso

A

lution in encountering the perils and sufferings, to which they voluntarily exposed themselves, solely in attestation of the truth of those facts.

But when the Scriptures lay claim to the peculiar title of a rule of life, it becomes necessary, not only to establish their authenticity, but to shew that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." This assertion is to be proved by the evidence of miracles and prophecy, and by the inherent excellence of the doctrines which the writings contain. And whoever will read with attention the proofs, which have already been accumulated with this intention, will rise from the investigation with a perfect confidence in the certainty of those things, in which he has been instructed,

[ocr errors]

But there is also a collateral branch of proof, by which it seems possible to confirm the divine authority of the Scriptures: and it is this.

[ocr errors]

The historical authenticity of the Old and New Testaments can be established each by a separate proof. Now between the events recorded in the two books there exists a close and avowedly preconcerted connection. The Old Testament throughout plainly prefigures the New, and is declared to do so. Its history, laws, and institutions, the apparently

a 2 Tim. iii. 16.

casual events which occurred to the Jewish people, all had reference to future events, which were literally fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, and were all fulfilled in no other. The national records of the Jews are a continued prophecy of Christ: a prophecy pervading all their existence as a people: a prophecy discernible from the earliest ages; in the calling and trials of their father Abraham, in their Egyptian bondage, in their wanderings in the desert, in their hymns of victory over the enemies of Sion, and in their lamentations of captivity by the waters of Babylon: even more conspicuously displayed in their religious rites, in the judgments which they suffered, in the favours which they received at the hand of God-whether they obeyed or whether they rebelled, still were they made the instruments of perpetuating, by types and figures, the memorial of Him, in whom the promises and threatenings of the law all had their completion.

Now, by whatever means we satisfy ourselves that this studied mutual relation exists, the connection, if once established, affords a proof of design in the events, and of inspiration in the volumes, which record them and found their claim to inspiration upon such a connection.

This too is a proof in some degree independent both of verbal prophecy and of miracles. For it might exist if there were not one direct prophecy in the whole volume of Scripture; and if all the facts recorded in it, when separately considered, indicated no deviation from the ordinary course of events.

So far, indeed, as the declared connection of two series of facts, in the relation of historical type and antitype, may be regarded as a mode of conveying information respecting future events and of recording their completion, the argument from this connection is of the same nature as that which is drawn from the fulfilment of prophecy; and may be regarded as one branch of that extensive division of evidence.

It will also be found that verbal prophecy tends materially to establish that preconcerted connection between different events, upon which the whole proof depends.

But there is this peculiar advantage attending an enquiry into the prefigurations of the Gospel dispensation, that they never could have been fraudulently inserted. They are woven into the very texture of the narrative, and can be detached by no force but such as is sufficient to destroy the whole.

It is a conceivable supposition, for it has

« PreviousContinue »