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truth I find in their case, and the more plainly I discover this Scriptural mark, that they are without prophets, and without a king; and, that as our enemies, they are the best witnesses to the truth of those prophecies, in which both their continuance and their blindness is foretold. I see in their judicial expul sion, that this religion is divine in its authority, in its continuance, in its perpetuity, in its morals, in its practice, in its effects. And hence I stretch forth my bands to my deliverer, who, having been predicted for 4000 years, came at last to suffer and to die for me, at the time, and under all the circumstances that have been predicted; and, by his grace, I now wait for death in peace, hoping to be eternally with him.And I ever live rejoicing, either in the blessings which he is pleased to bestow, or in the sorrows which he sends for my profit, and which I learn from his own example to endure.

By that fact, I refute all other religions. By that, I give an answer to all objections. It is just that a pure and holy God should not reveal himself, but to those whose hearts have been purified.

I find it satisfactory to my mind, that ever since the memory of man, here is a people that has subsisted longer than any other people; that this people has constantly announced to man that they are in a state of universal corruption, but that a deliverer will come; and it is not one man that has said this, but an infinite number: a whole people prophesying through a pe riod of 4000 years.

CHAPTER XII.

OF FIGURES.

SOME figures are clear and demonstrative; others are less simple and natural, and tell only upon those who have been previously persuaded by other means.These last resemble the prophetic figures borrowed by some men from the Apocalypse, and explained according to their own views. But between them and the true, there is this difference, they have no figures that are unquestionably established, by which to support their interpretation. It is very unjust, therefore, to pretend that theirs are as well sustained as ours, when they have no figures of established interpretation to refer to as we have. The two cases are not parallel. Men should not parallelize and confound two things, because in one respect they appear similar, seeing that in another, they are so different.

2. One of the main reasons why the prophets have veiled the spiritual blessings, which they promised, under the type of temporal blessings, is, that they had to deal with a carnal people, and to commit to their care a spiritual deposit.

Jesus Christ was typically represented by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to seek for his brethren: innocent, yet sold by his brethren, for twenty pieces of silver; and, by that means, constituted their Lord, their Saviour; the Saviour of strangers; the Saviour of the world; which he could not have been, but for the purpose to destroy him, and the sale, and the abandonment, of which his brethren were guilty.

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Joseph was innocent, and imprisoned with two criminals. Jesus was crucified between two robbers. seph foretold to men, in the same circumstances, the saving of the one, and the death of the other. Jesus

saved one, and left the other to his fate, though both were guilty of the same crime. Joseph, however, could only foretel. Jesus fulfilled also. Joseph also requested him who was to be saved, to remember him when he was come to prosperity; and he whom Jesus Christ saved, prayed that he would remember him when he came to his kingdom.

3. Grace is the type of glory. It is not itself the ultimate end. Grace was typified by the law, and is itself typical of glory; but so as to be, at the same time, a means of obtaining that glory.

4. The synagogue is not altogether destroyed, because it was a type of the church; but because it was only a type, it has fallen into bondage. The type was continued till the reality came, that the church might be always visible, either in the shadow or in the substance.

6. To prove, at once, the authority of both Testaments, we need only inquire, if the prophecies of the one, are accomplished in the other.

To examine the prophecies, we should understand them; for, if they have but one meaning, then certainly the Messiah is not come; but if they have a double sense, then as certainly he is come in Jesus Christ.

The question then is, Have they a twofold meaning? Are they types, or literal realities? that is, are we to inquire for something more than at first appears, or must we, invariably, rest satisfied with the literal sense which they directly suggest?

If the law and the sacrifices were the ultimate reality, they must be pleasing to God; they could not displease him. If they are typical, they must both please and displease him. Now, throughout the Scripture, they appear to do both. Then they can only be typical.

6. To discern clearly that the Old Testament is

* That is, according to the circumstances of different cases.

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figurative,, and that by temporal blessings, the prophets mean something further, we need only notice, First, That it would be beneath the Deity, to call men ly to the enjoyment of temporal happiness. Secondly, That the language of the prophets most distinctly expresses the promise of temporal good, whilst they, at the same time declare, that their discourses are really obscure; that the ostensible meaning is not the real one, and that it would not be understood till the latter days. (Jeremiah xxiii. 20.) Then evidently they speak of other sacrifices, and another Redeemer.

Besides, their discourses are contradictory and suicidal, if by the words law and sacrifice, they understood only the law and sacrifices of Moses. There

would be a manifest and gross contradiction in their writings, and sometimes even in the same chapter; whence, it follows, that they must mean something else.

7. It is said that the law shall be changed; that the sacrifice shall be changed; that they shall be without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice; that a new covenant shall be established; that there shall be a new law; that the precepts which they had received were not good; that their sacrifices were an abomination; that God had not required them.

On the other hand, it is said, that the law shall endure for ever; that this covenant is an everlasting covenant; that the sacrifice shall be perpetual; that the sceptre should never leave them, seeing that it could not depart till the arrival of the Everlasting King. Do these passages prove the then present system to be the substance? No! They only shew that it is either a substance, or a figure; but as the former passages conclude against the reality, they shew that the law is a figure.

All these passages, taken together, cannot be predicated of the substance; all may be affirmed of the shadow. Then they do not relate to the substance, but to the shadow.

8. To ascertain whether the law and its sacrifices be the substance, or a figure, we should examine if

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the views and thoughts of the prophets terminated in these things, so that they contemplated only this original covenant; or whether they did not look for something beyond, of which these were a pictural representation; for in a portrait we see the thing presented typically. With this view, we have only to examine what they say.

When they speak of the covenant as everlasting, do they mean to speak of that covenant, of which they affirm that it shall be changed? and so of the sac rifices, &c.

9. The prophets say distinctly, that Israel shall always be loved of God, and that the law shall be eternal. They say also, that their meaning in this is not comprehended, and that it is, in fact, hidden.

A cypher, for secret correspondence, has frequently two meanings. If, then, we intercept an important letter, in which we find a plain meaning, and in which it is said, at the same time, that the sense is hidden, and obscured, and that it is so veiled purposely, that seeing we might not see, and perceiving, we might not understand; what would we think, but that it was written in a cypher of two-fold signification, and much more so, if we found in the literal sense some manifest contradictions? How thankful should we be then to those who would give us the key to the cypher, and teach us to discern the hidden meaning, especially when the principles on which they proceed are quite natural, and approved principles! Jesus Christ and his apostles have done precisely this. They have broken the seal: they have rent the veil: they have disclosed the meaning: they have taught us that man's enemies are his passions; that the Redeemer was a spiritual Redeemer; that he would have two advents the one, in humiliation to abase the proud, the other, in glory to elevate the humble; that Jesus Christ was both God and man.

10. Jesus Christ taught men, that they were lovers of themselves; that they were enslaved, blinded, sick, miserable, and sinful; that they needed him to deliv

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