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ing into the rest and enjoyment of heaven.* Properly speaking, however, there is no typical sense of words. Types are not words, but things, which God intended to be significant signs of future events. "When we explain a passage typically (says Pareau), we only subjoin one sense to the words: the typical sense exists in the things." Persons and things only can be types: the language of the Old Testament, relating to typical persons or prescribing typical things, has no double sense,-the one literal and the other typical; nor is it to be interpreted in a manner different from any other part of the Bible.

Types have not unfrequently been confounded with the moral allegory, or parable; but they are obviously dissimilar, and should be carefully distinguished. An allegory or parable is a fictitious narrative; a type, on the contrary, is something real. The former are pictures of the imagination; the latter is an historical fact. A parable, like a modern romance or novel, may be founded on fact; but historical verity is essential neither to an allegory nor to a parable. They may be, and usually are entirely fictitious. Of this nature are the parables of our Saviour, Bunyan's allegory of the Pilgrim's Progress, and Hannah More's allegory of Parley the Porter. Not so a type. This must necessarily be an historical verity. Whatever it be which is designed to prefigure something future, whether a person, thing, institution or action, the first not less than the second must have a real, and not a merely imaginary existence.

"The essence of a type," says Holden, "consisting in its foreordained similitude to something future, requires it to be a reality; otherwise it would want the first and most important kind of resemblance, viz., truth. Fiction may resemble fiction; one ideal personage may be like another; but there can be no substantial relationship between a nonentity and a reality. If that which is prefigured be a fact, that which prefigures it must be a fact likewise. Hence, between the type and the antitype there is this correspondence, that the reality of the one presupposes the reality of the other."

There are, it is true, some points of similitude between a type and an allegory. The interpretation of both is an interpretation of things, and not of words; and both are equally founded on

* Introd. Vol. II. p. 359.

Interp. of the Old Test. See also Stuart's Ernesti, p. 12.
Diss. on the Fall of Man, p. 313.

resemblance. The type, moreover, corresponds to its antitype, as the protasis, or immediate representation in an allegory or parable, corresponds to the apodosis, or its ultimate representation. A material difference, however, exists in the quality of the things compared, as well as in the design of the comparison. When, for instance, Joshua, conducting the Israelites to Canaan, is described as a type of our Saviour conducting his disciples to heaven; or when the sacrifice of the passover is described as a type of the sacrifice of our Saviour on the cross; the subjects of reference have nothing similar to the subjects of an allegory, though the comparison between them is the same." And though a type, in reference to its antitype, is called a shadow, while the latter is called the substance, yet the use of these terms does not imply that the former has less of historical verity than the latter.* But while there is a material difference between a proper type and a proper allegory, there may be supposed to exist a close affinity between typical interpretation and the allegorical interpretation of historical facts. The custom of giving to the incidents of Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, a secondary application to other facts, in some re-. spects similar, for the purpose of illustration or instruction, was introduced at a very early period of Christianity, and is warranted to some extent by the authority of the sacred writers themselves. Thus Paul allegorizes the history of Hagar and Sarah, in his Epistle to the Galatians. But this species of allegorical interpretation does not necessarily destroy the historical verity of the narrative. It by no means converts the facts into emblems. The allegorical, figurative or secondary interpretation is merely superinduced on the historical. Thus, the history of the creation and the fall of man has, by some, been allegorized for the purpose of moral instruction, who still regarded it as historical truth, and gave it a literal interpretation. "It was usual," says Holden, "in the early periods of Christianity, with the ministers of religion, with a view to excite the piety and devotion of the

* Marsh's Lectures in Div., Lec. XVII. p. 89.

Chap. 4: 24. A tivá korìv ákλnyogovuɛra, “which are [thus] allegorized [by me"], i. e., accommodated for the purpose of illustration to the case of the Law and the Gospel. Philo often employs the verb yogέo in the same sense. He allegorizes this very history of Sarah and Hagar, although in a different manner from Paul. Allegor. II. p. 135, 29.

hearers, to extract spiritual meanings from the sacred history. They expounded Scripture facts in a mystical or allegorical manner, which, by awakening attention, facilitated the way for a moral application to the hearts of the people. Such expositions were adopted as the best means of warming the affections and inflaming the devotion of the faithful; and they may now occasionally be employed in Christian assemblies with effect; but they were never meant to vacate the literal sense of the Scriptures. The reality of the facts was unimpeached, and was, in truth, the only firm foundation upon which their allegories were raised, and without which they would have been no better than empty fables, and baseless creations of the fancy."*

We may then, as Bishop Marsh has remarked, allegorize an historical narrative, and yet not convert it into an allegory. This method of deducing spiritual instruction from particular passages of Scripture, when employed with sobriety and discretion, may be productive of no evil, provided there is no claim of divine authority for such interpretation, and no impression on the mind of the reader or hearer that the accommodated sense is the true sense of the passage. But how often are the bounds of propriety transgressed in this matter, especially by preachers of limited information? And how frequently is the caution which we have suggested disregarded? For that which is purely the work of human invention there is claimed, not unfrequently, the authority of Scripture; and the mystical or allegorical meaning takes the place of the literal and only proper meaning. Thus the Bible is converted into a mere collection of allegories.

Typical interpretation, however, stands upon different ground, and, when properly understood and explained, produces very

* Diss. on the Fall, p. 296. "Our argument," says Berriman," from the typical interpretation of the ancient rites, and the allegorical explication of ancient history, must depend upon the supposition of their having been literally prescribed and transacted; and in vain shall we look after the hidden meaning, if the fact, under which it is said to be concealed, be fictitious and without foundation. If the history of the creation or the fall of man be themselves supposed to be fictitious, no allegory that is built upon them can have any weight or importance." Berriman's Sermons at the Boyle Lectures, Vol. III. p. 767.

different effects. The relation of the type to the antitype is not a matter of fancy and human invention, but of divine authority; and the application of the one to the other leaves the truth of history unimpaired. Many excellent commentators, we are aware, have understood Paul to assert, in the passage in Galatians already referred to, that the historical facts to which he alludes were proper types. If this opinion be correct, still it would not justify us in attaching to any portion of Scripture an allegorico-typical sense, without the express authority of an inspired writer for so doing. But the correctness of this opinion, we think, may well be doubted. Paul, in applying the history of Sarah and Hagar to the Jewish and Christian covenants, certainly does not call it a type, but merely affirms that, in giving such an application, he had allegorized the history. And if to allegorize a portion of history does not necessarily convert it into an allegory, neither does it necessarily convert it into a type.

Again: Types have been often confounded with mere symbols or emblems. A type is indeed a kind of symbol, but differs in certain respects from every other species. The term symbol is equally applicable to that which represents a thing past, present or future. The images of the cherubim over the mercy-seat, for example, were symbols; the water in baptism and the bread and wine in the eucharist are symbols; but none of these are types. A type has reference in every case to something future, and hence is virtually a prediction of its antitype. But there is nothing predictive in the bread and wine, or in the baptismal water. They are inerely emblems, not types: symbols and types, therefore, agree in their genus, but differ in their species. An ordinance, however, may at the same time be commemorative and prefigurative; it may have both a retrospective and a prospective reference, and consequently exhibit the specific character of an emblem and also of a type. Such was the case with the Jewish passover. It was partly intended to perpetuate the remembrance of the miraculous deliverance of the Hebrews from Egyptian servitude. Thus it had a retrospective reference. It also prefigured the propitiatory sacrifice of the Son of God. Here we perceive its prospective and typical reference.

Once more: The mode of conveying information by types has been frequently confounded with prophetic instruction delivered by significant actions. The following examples will show

what are intended by significant actions. When Ahijah was commissioned to predict that the kingdom of Israel should be taken from Solomon, he clad himself with a new garment and met Jeroboam in the way. Taking hold of the new garment he rent it into twelve pieces. Ten of these he gave to Jeroboam, to signify by action, as well as by word, that the kingdom would be rent out of the hand of Solomon, and that ten tribes would acknowledge him as their head. 1 Kings 11: 30. Again when Elisha the prophet became sick with the disease which terminated his life, King Joash made him a visit and wept over him. The prophet by divine direction informed him, by means of a symbolical action, of events which were about to take place. He commanded the king to take a bow and arrows, and put his hands upon them, to indicate his war with Syria. Then the prophet placed his own hands upon the king's hands to intimate that victory cometh from God alone. He next directed the king to open the windows facing the country east of the Jordan, which was at that time in possession of the Syrians, and to shoot. The king having done as directed, the prophet said to him: "The arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek till thou hast consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows; and he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground; and he smote thrice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it; whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice." 2 Kings, 13: 14-19. We have another example of the same nature in the case of Jeremiah, when, by breaking a potter's vessel in the valley of Hinnom, he intimated to the Jews the destruction of their chief city. Jer. 19: 10-13. By making bonds and yokes, and putting them first upon his own neck, and then sending them to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon and Tyre, he declared their subjugation to the yoke of the king of Babylon. Jer. 27: 2-8. In the New Testament the same method of conveying prophetical intimations occurs. Agabus took Paul's girdle, and, binding his own hands and feet with it, said: Thus saith the Holy Ghost; So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. Acts 21: 11.

These and similar acts of the prophets have been called typ

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