the received opinion, that ISAAC, in this transaction, was a TYPE OF CHRIST'S SACRIFICE is erroneous; that neither the circumstances of the narrative, nor the allusion to it by St. Paul, warrant any such inference; and that by a departure from the simple outlines traced in Scripture, much of the force and beauty of this most significant type has been overlooked, or has been obscured, by various unauthorised conceits. The real type of Christ, on this, as well as on other important occasions, was THE RAM OR MALE LAMB caught in the thicket, and provided by God. Isaac was the type of the FAITHFUL CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM.

As this notion is opposed to high, I may say universal, authority*, it behoves me to shew some grounds, on which I thus differ from all preceding interpretation.

I. I am not acquainted with any passage of Scripture, in which it is intimated, that Isaac was, on this occasion, a type of Christ's SACRIFICE. Much, I know, has been said respecting his bearing the wood, and thus representing Christ bearing the cross. But for this, and various other particulars, nothing like authority † has been exhibited.

II. It can be, I think, satisfactorily shewn both from the whole tenor of the transaction, and also

* Dr. Graves in his Lectures on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. p. 279, adopts Warburton's account of this typical transaction, and adduces it as a proof of the doctrine of the Resurrection being known to Abraham and Isaac. But the view I take of the subject, though differing from his, will not affect the force of his argument.

That Isaac was in many respects a type of Christ, and that even in this case he might be such, I do not mean to dispute. There are points, and very strong points of resemblance, such as Isaac being figuratively as Christ was really, the FIRST FRUITS of our resurrec tion. But then, these, if at all intended in this case, are secondary points of typical resemblance; they are not, I maintain, in the PRINCIPAL import of this singular adumbration of future events. If we suppose that the type had a twofold signification, then Isaac may be said to be a type of Christ. But the plain and primary import of the type is, in my judgment, that, which I am endeavouring to illus trate and establish.

from the allusion to it by the Apostle (Heb. xi. 19), that Isaac was, then, the representative not of Christ, but of ALL THE CHILDREN of the Promise, ALL WHO SHOULD BE TRUE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM, WHETHER IN CIRCUMCISION, OR IN UNCIRCUMCISION. (Rom. iv. 8.) Isaac's figurative resurrection, instead of being primarily intended as a type of Christ's resurrection, was a type of HIS OWN AND THEIR resurrection through faith in the atoning Sacrifice of Christ, which Sacrifice was adumbrated not by Isaac's, for his blood was not shed, but by the OFFERING OF THE GOAT OR MALE LAMB. The peculiarity from which the recorded title of the place arises, is the extraordinary fulfilment of Abraham's most true, but involuntary prediction," the Lord will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering." Isaac, the representative of the faithful sons of Abraham, or, in other words, of all believers, asks, Where is the Lamb? and receives the remarkable answer, God will provide a Lamb. Abraham, as father of the faithful, acknowledges by laying his son upon the altar, that all our lives are forfeited to God, and at the same time manifests his faith in God's promises, that " in Isaac shall thy seed be called; accounting" (as the Apostle tells us)" that God was able even to raise him from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." It was indeed from the dead that he received him; for, when he had raised his arm to slay him, he must have considered his life as forfeited. But observe! this figurative resurrection of the representative of the faithful children of Abrahamthis restoration IS NOT GRANTED WITHOUT BLOOD. The Patriarch is taught that we are bought with a price; that the restoration is through an atoning sacrifice. The ram taken in the thicket is the type

* I shall presently have occasion to shew that restoration is what is uniformly implied in the notion of atoning Sacrifice.

This directly contradicts Mr. Davison's assertion, that "No expiation or atonement is joined with this emblematic oblation;" and

*

of Christ. GOD WILL PROVIDE A LAMB said the Father of the faithful; and God did provide one, figurative of that Lamb, which He hath provided to "take away the sins of the world." GOD WILL PROVIDE was the prophetic remark before the Sacrifice-GOD WILL PROVIDE † was the name attached to the place after the Sacrifice-the name recorded, to convey to the remotest ages the prophetic character of the transaction; to shew, that the male lamb, provided by God, made atonement for forfeited life, and pre-figured the spotless Lamb, by whose Sacrifice atonement should be made for all mankind.

Can any thing be added to render this type still more plain, yes, one circumstance may yet be added. "Abraham took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering INSTEAD of his son."

Here the expiatory and vicarious character of the type is strongly marked; and I contend, that, in this Sacrifice, we have the clearest indications, that animal Sacrifice was typical and piacular before the law. That this transaction adumbrates more circumstances of the Christian scheme, than any previous type, is quite obvious; but to Mr. Davison's assumption, that, "In the surrender to sacrifice of a beloved son, the Patriarchal church begins with an adumbration of Christian reality;" it affords not the slightest foundation. Sacrifice was the continual and uniform practice of the Patriarchal church before this event; there is no change, nothing new either in the symbol, or in the manner of its being offered; the lamb the symbol of God's eternal purpose of remission by blood, was the type given to the church from the very fall, and the type given also

at once bars the inference (which even in the other view of this type is open to formidable objections) that "consequently it was a symbol only of the Act, not of the Power and Virtue of the Christian Sacrifice."

.8 .ver אלהים יראה .14 .ver יהוה יראה ?

in this very instance. The restoration of Isaac typified the restoration of all true children of Abraham through faith, the lamb, provided by God, typified the great, and meritorious Sacrifice, by which the restoration of the faithful, even from the dead, should be finally achieved *.

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Davison's supposed "internal reason" against the existence of expiatory sacrifice antecedently to the Mosaic law.

"I OFFER it," says Mr. Davison, "in the next place to be considered that, as the Scripture history does not furnish the proof of atoning oblations in the first ages of the world, so there is one internal reason which renders it highly improbable, that an institution of that kind then existed. For, I ask, if Sacrifices of expiation and atonement were given to that early

*The other question, whether there was any contemporary disclosure made of the mystical import of this sacrifice," will be considered under another head of our subject.

Mr. D. says, "It" (this type) "stands at the head of the dispensation of revealed religion, as reduced into covenant with the people of God in the person of their founder and progenitor." If by" the people of God" he means all believers, the proposition here advanced is highly objectionable, for "the dispensation of revealed religion was "reduced into covenant" even with Adam. This is in fact a restatement of the opinion, which he has advanced in his work on prophecy: "That there were no signs in the Flood nor in any thing before or after it that the worst evil of the fall had been done away. I shall not enter upon this point here, but shall merely observe that so long as the first promise, the death of Abel, and the translation of Enoch, (See Dr. Graves' Lect. on the Pentateuch, Part III. Lect. iv. v. 1.) stand upon record; so long that proposition cannot be maintained. 1. Respecting the true nature of the covenant with Abraham, and that portion of it which was really new, and peculiar to him, I beg to refer the reader to the Appendix to my Sermons. p. 427-434.

time, of what were they expiatory? For what offences did they ratify the atonement? For moral transgression, no doubt: for sin estimated according to the great law of God. The ceremonial law did not exist. The moral only could be the rule of duty to the primitive world. It only, therefore, could receive the rite of expiation. But since expiation for moral sin was not the privilege of the later dispensation, that of Moses: since atonement for all the greater instances of transgression, and even in the extent of man's ordinary obliquity of practice, was not included in the operation of the Mosaic rites; had such an institute of atonement been granted, in the first period of things, to the primeval race, the divine economy would have been retrograde; a sacrament of grace and pardon would have been withdrawn; or, which is the same thing, it would have reduced from greater purposes to less; and all this is a change in the revealed ratification of the Divine mercy, and the remedial provisions of the Divine law, a change of disproportion in the appointment, and of loss and disfavour in the effect, which is highly inconsistent with our best notions of the progressive order of revealed religion, and with the actual evidences of that order contained in the general system of it. If the worshipper under the law sought in vain for a Sacrifice to take away sin, and absolve his conscience from the burden of his moral guilt, we must be slow to believe that the penitent before the law stood on better ground, or had promises and appointments of greater efficacy. David knew of no such Sacrifice ordained; and therefore Abel and Noah scarcely could have had the privilege of it *."

Of all his reasonings upon this head the keystone is a supposed fact, which, certain as he appears to consider it, I think he cannot establish; viz. that

*Davison on Sacrifice, p. 84, 85.