figured. Man is endowed with Reason to direct. him; and we must rely on his using it: we must suppose that he will not take up an opinion without a deep personal investigation; and we must take for granted that the man who enters upon so grand and sublime a study as that of fathoming the mysteries of the Bible, is gifted with that degree of judgment and discretion, which will prevent him from running into absurdity, and receiving into his belief a set of idle suppositions which are derogatory to God.

In short, we reply to the question of limit, that so long as a fact evolves itself, and the natural action of its parts tends, without constraint, to the end we aim at, we may take it for granted, that we are following out the true design of Scripture; - but that as soon as we are obliged to exercise our ingenuity to find resemblances; to bring together remote and unconnected facts;-to force words and ideas from their usually received sense; to fill up gaps and intervals in the matter tested; either to invent, modify or refine; we may be morally certain, that such is not the way of Scripture, and that it will show a true wisdom at once to stop.

Under the restrictions then of this law, we endeavour to give currency to the expressed opinions by substantiating them by proofs; -premising yet again, that if true, they must accompany the entire progress of Revelation; and that the strength of the theory depends not so much on its equal power, in every transaction in which it is exhibited, as on its completeness as a system.

Div. II.

The mind of Adam, when created, was in perfect harmony with God. Pure, upright and holy, he

knew sin but in the law which forbade him to transgress. But fallen into transgression through the knowledge of good and evil, those principles became immediately exemplified in the lives and actions of his two sons. They stood in their several centres of light and darkness. Christianity, the one true faith, had been imparted to him by the Almighty, in the promise of the future seed; and the actions of his sons, by the same divine power, were made immediately subservient to his Counsels, as types and symbols of things yet to come. Cain the elder, became the figure of the Law; Abel, the younger,—the emblem of the Gospel. The former, as the Jew, offered on the altar the fruits of the ground; the sacrifice of the Intellect, apart from the affections. It was rejected. Abel offered a lamb -the firstling of the flock-the sacrifice of faith and love - as Christ offered Himself, the lamb without blemish. It was accepted; and Abel, as Christ, became the beloved of his heavenly Father. But Cain, the elder, in hatred of his holiness, slays the beloved of God; in the same manner as the Law-his antitype-crucified Jesus, the true Abel of the New Covenant. And what the effect? It is of most remarkable coincidence; Cain, as the Jew, became a wanderer (in punishment of this his sin) over the face of the earth; and as on the one "a

mark was set" that all might know him; so in the prophetic law of Moses, has the other, scattered over the face of the earth, become "an astonishment and a by-word among all the nations whither the Lord God should lead them."*

A rule however and a law of Scripture has been suggested by this parallel, which it will be of the highest moment to us scrupulously to observe. It is, that the characters of the Bible thus hold in contrast together, and standing as illustrations of abstract principles, are sometimes to be referred as types of Christ and images of Satan; and sometimes as emblems of the Gospel and the Law; which latter, in Scripture phrase, is frequently represented as relatively superior and inferior; so that the nicest circumspection is at all times necessary, to discern the precise form in which the internal sense is to be collected. The peculiar force and tendency of the emblem depends on the nature of the states which are required to be held in contrast. Judaism, when opposed to the religion of the Heathen, evidently possesses the quality of superiority;--but the same Law in its absolute subordinations to the religion of Jesus stands forth as palpably, when compared with that Faith, as the shadow to the substance, and consequently inferior. Its aspect changes with the Law it is contrasted with. Judaism, in the mind of the true Israelite, was for a long succession of ages, the perfection of a religious system. It was hallowed to his dearest feelings; and in the glory of its prophets, its miracles, and the continued Presence of the Deity, seemed the code of faith which the Almighty

* Deut. xxviii. 37.

had blessed with his choicest favor and regard. And so indeed it was until the dawn of Christianity. But when Christ came, the Law fell from its elevation. Its sacrifices were no longer valid; its ceremonies no longer holy; and standing in contradistinction to Christianity, appeared by the comparison, as that which was inferior and weak to that which was great and strong. Much as St. Paul revered the Mosaic Covenant, -as must all who have a right feeling and a right judgment in regard to the dispensations of God; it is a principal labor throughout his Epistles to depreciate its sanctions, and to wean the mind of the Jew from his attachment to its rites, and his resolved belief in their sufficiency for salvation. He depressed and denounced the Law of Moses balanced against the Law of Christ, by just the same rule that David, or any early writer of Israel, would glorify and exalt his own Faith contrasted with the darkness and superstitions of Heathenism. This convertible power which is inherent in the nature of the objects themselves, must be most carefully observed and borne in mind, whenever we apply them to the portraiture of the two principles.

We dwell not at any length on the history of Noah. Borne in safety above the ruin and destruction of the world; riding triumphantly above the waters; and carrying with him in the Ark those souls whom God had judged worthy of being saved; the allusion to Christ, rescuing the faithful from death, and exalting them with Himself through "the Ark of the Covenant” of Christianity, is too manifest to exact a lengthened subdivision of all its characters and tendencies. The parallel however throughout is of an exceeding

beauty. In his position as the typical Redeemer of the just, he naturally, and in perfect conformity with Scriptural usage, subjects the instruments he employs to a degree of the same emblematic character, with which he himself has been endowed. We cannot receive the man as a type, and wholly place the recorded acts which he performs under that figure out of the pale of that interpretation. When we find from the writings of St. Peter, that he was "a preacher of righteousness" to the world while the ark was in preparation, we recognize the similarity between this act, and that of Christ exhorting the world by his prophets in the ages previous to his Incarnation. Knowing him to have been a type of Christ, we feel that this resemblance was intended. On the same principle we descend to acts of apparently less moment; but in reality of equal weight and correspondence.

While borne over the waters we find that he sent forth a dove from the ark. But what in the ancient times of Christianity was signified by a dove? It was the recognized emblem of the Holy Ghost. Noah-the Saviour of the faithful in the Ark-sent forth a dove over the waters of destruction; as Christ sent forth the Holy Ghost over the world of sin, when the Salvation of human nature had been effected-and he had become emphatically the Saviour. And what the result?-that the dove "found no rest for the sole of her foot" except with the faithful in the Ark. She returned therefore; and "Noah put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the Ark." The world under the wrath of God had no resting place for his Holy Spirit. He must perforce dwell within the Ark.

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