been asserted, that a short direct prophecy might have been interpolated. And it often requires much labour, and may not always be possible, to trace its existence, from the day in which it was uttered by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, to the time when the caviller comes forth to demand a reason of the hope that is in us.

But no imaginable ingenuity could invent, and impose upon a people as a correct history of their nation, a long series of events which had no foundation in truth. Nor could any impostor exercise such a control over the events of his life, as to fulfil this series in his own person. :

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The questions, therefore, which we have to determine, are these: whether the connection between the events do exist; and whether this connection be a preconcerted one. And a satisfactory decision upon these points can be obtained only by a careful comparison of the several events, which lay claim to this character. Now there are, undoubtedly, facts in the Old Testament, to which express reference is made in Holy Scripture, as being, in some sense, typical of corresponding events in the New Testament. And to those who are fully convinced, from other sources, that the Scriptures are the revealed word of God, this cir

cumstance is conclusive in proving that the one had reference to the other, whether the connection may to us be obvious or not.

In arguing from the fulfilment of types alone to the inspiration of Scripture, we must undoubtedly not assume that inspiration to exist.

Yet when an action, in the life of Christ, is expressly declared to correspond with a previous action, in the life of some person recorded in the Old Testament; when that correspondence is perhaps even predicted; and is in itself obvious: too particular to have been occasioned by accidental coincidence; and entirely independent of the personal agency of Christ himself; the very allegation of such a fact is a phænomenon, which, at least, challenges enquiry by its very singularity. There is nothing like it in the recorded history of the world.

A resemblance, indeed, in certain circumstances of the history of two individuals in different ages might exist, without the one being a type of the other. One person may imitate the actions ascribed to another. This has been done. Yet he, who unconsciously thus served as a model, was never conceived to have been the type of him, who endeayoured to follow his example. And on this supposition the circumstances of correspondence

must be few; for they must be solely in the power of the imitator.

One person may casually be placed in circumstances similar to those of another. Yet, however close the connection may be, it will be of a very different kind from that of type and antitype. It would be no difficult task to point out a similarity in the actions related of different persons in the Grecian and Roman history, or even in the Scriptures, while yet the coincidences are of such a nature, that no argument can be founded upon them, in favour of a preconcerted connection between the events, in which they were severally engaged. And this preconcerted connection is the peculiar characteristic of a type.

Similarity alone proves nothing.

But when there appears upon earth an individual, evidently endued with power from above, speaking as never man spake," and doing works such as no man can do except God be with him; restoring sight to the blind, energy to the impotent, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead: when this same prophet, in addition to the miracles which he performs and the verbal prophecies which he fulfils, refers expressly to certain most extraordinary events, confessedly the shadows of things to come,a

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d Col. ii. 17.

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well known to the people whom he addresses, and forming a prominent part in their singular national history, as prefiguring other events, equally extraordinary, which were to be directed against this heavenly messenger himself: when the manna, which their fathers did eat in the wilderness, is appealed to as a figure of that bread of life which came down from heaven: when a fact so wonderful as a brasen serpent erected in the wilderness, upon which whosoever looked was healed of the deadly effects of a venomous bite, is asserted to have foreshadowed the lifting up of the Son of Man, and that, before the event occurred which was to accomplish the prediction: when the miraculous preservation of the prophet Jonah is declared in the same manner to have sig"nified the time, in which this prophet's body should continue in the earth when the sacrifice of the paschal lamb is set forth as a symbol, which was to be "fulfilled in the kingdom of God:"h and when, upon a closer enquiry, these, and numerous other alleged circumstances in the history of the Jews, are found to correspond both almost and altogether with the life, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Him, who founds upon that resemblance the

reality of his divine mission-we surely have a proof of unity of counsel in the purposes of God, of his Providence overruling and ordering the events of this world so as to complete his designs, and of the inspiration of those volumes, which, purporting to contain his revealed will, exhibit this internal evidence of their heavenly origin,

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It must not however be denied that the argument drawn from the fulfilment of types requires to be applied with great caution, It has been contended that the very fulfilment, which is the basis of our reasoning, is purely imaginary that it exists only in the fancy of the commentator, who has mistaken accidental similarity for preconcerted design: that the narratives of Scripture, when impartially considered, afford no sufficient foundation for the weight of proof which is laid upon them; and that men of ardent minds have carried the analogous method of allegorical interpretation to such excess as even to destroy the truth of history. To such objections it will be sufficient to reply that, in cautiously applying typical illustration, we introduce no new nor visionary scheme. This mode of interpretation is familiar to the age and country in which the Scriptures were first published, it is frequently adopted by the inspired writers;

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