Reviews.

THE TYPES OF SCRIPTURE.*

No. II.-PRIMEVAL TIMES.

for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Obviously such was not the tenure outside Eden, or afterwards. It was not a principle which governed men, or any portion of men, during a finite period. The tree of life, the creation-tree, was barred “THE dispensation of Primeval and Patriarchal times," from the outcasts by divine power; and this, not in is the general title prefixed to Book Second of the judgment only, but, in a certain sense, in mercy. For Typology. We must be forgiven if we regard it as Not to have executed the sentence would have disman was in sin, and death was the declared penalty. a misnomer and an evidence of that laxity of thought honoured God, would have introduced hopeless conwhich everywhere characterizes the work. The era fusion into His dealings, would have set His words from the creation to the days of Noah is not, properly openly at nought. And besides, what could "living speaking, the sphere of dispensations, any more than for ever," then and thus, have been but never-ending the eternity which opens with the creation of the new heavens and new earth,-God's blessed answer at the misery to him whose sin was unremoved? But if the transient condition of Paradisiacal innocence differs close to man's miserable fall at the beginning of human essentially from the fallen, sinful humanity which history. The primeval epoch is nowhere in scripture succeeded, there was no new system set up thereon by styled a dispensation, (aiwv,) or anything equivalent. God, no subsequent human test given to the antediIt was not a course of time, marked by a certain specific luvians. Man sinned then without law, as afterwards character, and ruled by divine principles on the part he sinned under it. of God; and this is the true meaning of a "dispensation," save where the word is used in the wholly sooner broken down, than God appeared and announced It will be said, perhaps, that the first Adam had not different sense of a stewardship, or administration, the last Adam. There is no doubt that such is the (oikovoua,) as in 1 Cor. ix, 17; Eph. i, 10; iii, 2. Doubtless, from the fall to the flood, God did not bearing of the judgment which God predicted of the leave Himself without witness; but the period was vidential might and wisdom secretly ruled then, as serpent in Gen. iii. Unquestionably, also, His pronot characterized by government entrusted to man. The law was not then given to a people separated from tional dealings on God's part, extending through the always. But the question is of distinctive dispensaall others by peculiar privileges, nor had Gentiles, as antediluvian period; and the answer is, there were yet, been suffered to exercise universal empire in the none. These ages, ruled by characteristic features Sovereignty and providence of God. These things and more (not to speak of the developed dealings of impressed on them by God, find their suited place and that intervenes between the deluge promise and grace) came in subsequently to the deluge, and the "end," (1 Cor. xv,) when, the kingdom being and they are the subject-matter of the dispensations, given up, God shall be all in all. the millennium included, when every principle which has crumbled in the feeble hands of man, of Israel, and but fair to add, that his mistakes are not uncommon. As to all this, Dr F. gropes in the dark, though it is of the Gentile, shall be established and maintained, Thus he says, "In the whole compass of sacred history in manifest unfailing glory, by the Lord Jesus Christ. we find only three grand eras that can properly be They will flow on till the judgment of the dead before regarded as the formative epochs of distinct religious the great white throne terminates such displays of dispensations. They are those of the fall, of the God's ways among men, and ushers in the everlasting redemption from Egypt, and of the appearance and state; when they who despised or abused the holy work of Christ, as they are usually designated; though grace of God shall meet the due reward of the evil

which they feared not; when the family of the second Adam shall enjoy the blessedness procured for them by their Head, in whom they, while here, had trusted. For, looking more closely at these early days, do we find anything like a period regulated, under God, on distinctive principles? The facts are as simple as they are opposed to the notion. There was a positive place and command given to Adam. "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it;

*The Typology of Scripture: viewed in connexion with the entire scheme of the Divine Dispensations. By Patrick Fairbairn, Professor of Divinity,

Free Church College, Aberdeen. Second Edition, much enlarged and 2 The Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, vol. i, Genesis to 2 Chronicles. London: T. H. Gregg, 24, Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

improved, vols. i, ii. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1854.

No. 8. Vol. I.-January 1, 1857.

scope

in the

space

they might be more fitly described, the first as the entrance of faith and hope for fallen man, the second as the giving of the law, and the third as the revelation of the gospel. For it was not properly the fall, but the new state and constitution of things brought in after it, that in a religious point of view, forms the first commencement of the world's history." (Typ. i, 191, 192.) It is plain that he is doubly wrong, in what is included, and in what is omitted. For instance, the all-important manifestation of God's ways to Noah (forbearance towards mankind founded on sacrifice, divinely instituted government, and covenant with the pensations, though its leading principles are still in earth) have no place in Dr. F's. scheme of divine dis

66

force. On the other hand, it is absurd to call the fall a dispensation," or even God's announcement of the woman's seed in judging Satan. Nor was the clothing of Adam and Eve with skins " a dispensation," any more than the Lord's setting a mark upon Cain. Not

that faith did not take account of all these things, and look out for a Redeemer, who, if bruised Himself, should effectually destroy the evil one. But these are not the characteristics of dispensations, but rather the basis on which, substantially, all believers rest during every dispensation. But we must now turn to Dr. F.'s various chapters in their order.

The first (i, pp. 200-213) is devoted to a sketch of the fundamental truths which the history of the fall embodies. These, according to our author, are the doctrines, 1, of man's guilt and depravity; 2, of God's righteous character and government; 3, of grace and its provisions for the fallen; and 4, of the headship principle, by which, as ruin has come in through one, so through another the heirs might share in blessing. To these ideas, of course, we do not demur; but to us they seem more like the divisions of an ordinary sermon, than the unfolding of the magnificent Adamic types. In fact, the last point alone can be viewed as typical; the others are prominent moral lessons, but not types. It may seem incredible, but as far as we have observed, it is the fact, that the most momentous and strikingly beautiful shadow of better things, connected with our first parents, (save that referred to in Rom. v, 14,) is passed over in dead silence in this systematic treatise! The mystery of Christ and the Church, prefigured by Adam and Eve, (Gen. ii,) is not found there: it was a great thing in the apostle's eyes, (Eph. v,) however little it appears to be in Dr. F's.

word of God, as a living being, man was formed and fashioned from the dust, and God places him in immediate relationship, as a living being, with Himself, inasmuch as he becomes a living being, through God Himself's breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. All animated creatures are called living souls, and said to have breath of life; but God did not breathe into the nostrils of any in order to their becoming living souls. Man was, by his existence, in immediate relationship with God. It is important to consider this chapter as laying down, in a special manner, all the principles of the relationship of man, whether with God, with his wife, or with the inferior creation. Here were all things in their own order, as creatures of God, in connexion with the earth; but man's labour the means of their growth and fruitfulness. Nor did rain from heaven minister fruitfulness from above. The mist that watered it rose from the earth, drawn up by power and blessing, but not coming down. Yet man was, as to his place, in a peculiar one, in reference to God. Man did not dwell in heaven; God did not dwell on earth; but God had formed a place of peculiar blessing and delight for man's habitation, and there He visited him. Out of this garden, where he was placed by the hand of God, as sovereign of the world, flowed rivers, which watered and characterized the world without. Upon Adam reposed the duty of obedience. The image of God upon earth, in the absence of evil from his nature, and as the centre of a vast Incomparably better in this, and indeed in every system around him, and in connexion with him, his respect save plainness of style, is the "Synopsis of own proper blessing was in his connexion and interthe Books of the Bible." "In Gen. ii we have course with God. As soon as God had redeemed a the special relationship of man with God, with people, He dwelt among them. Here He created, his wife, (type of Christ and His Church,) with the blessed, and visited. Adam, created the conscious creation; and the two great principles, from which centre of all around him, had his blessing and seeverything flows as regards man, established in the curity in dependence on, and intercourse with, God. garden, where man was placed in blessing; namely, This, as we shall see, he forfeited, and became the responsibility, and a sovereign source of life-the tree craving centre of his own wishes and ambition, which of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. he could never satisfy. Earthly nature, then in its In these two things, in conciliating these two, lies the perfection, with man (in relationship with God by lot of every man. It is what is developed in the law, creation and the breath of life that was in him) for and in grace in Christ. The law put life as the result its centre; enjoyment; a source of abiding life; a of the perfect obedience of him who knew good and means of putting responsibility to the test; the evil—that is, made it depend on the result of our sources of universal refreshment to the world without; responsibility. Christ having undergone the conse- and, if continuing in his created condition, blessed quence of man's having failed, becomes (in the power intercourse with God on this ground-such was the of a life which had gained the victory over death, which position of the first and innocent Adam. That he might was the consequence of that disobedience) a source of not be alone here, but have a companion, fellowship, life eternal that evil could not reach, and that in a and the enjoyment of affection, God formed, not righteousness perfected in a work, which has taken another man, (for then the one were not a centre,) away all guilt from him that has share in it, a right- but out of the one man himself, his wife, that the eousness in which we stand before God according to union might be the most absolute and intimate posHis own mind, and righteous will, and nature. His sible, and Adam head and centre of all. He receives priesthood applies to the details of the development of her, moreover, from the hand of God Himself. Such this life in the midst of evil. In the garden the know-was nature around man, what God always owns, and ledge of good and evil did not yet exist; obedience man never sins against with impunity, though sin alone, in refraining from an act, which was no sin if it has spoiled it all, the picture of what Christ, the had not been forbidden, constituted the test. The Church, and the universe shall be at the end, in condition of man, in contrast with every other crea-power, in the obedient man. As yet all was innocence, ture here below, found its source in this; that instead unconscious of evil." (Synopsis i, pp. 10-13.) of springing from the earth or water, by the sole Such thoughts as these, as compared with the tedious

extreme.

and laboured common-place of Dr. F., remind us of Judge of all, though in special relationship with His the ancient scene, which some of our readers will re- earthly people, in whose midst He displayed Himself. member, where a single verse of Eschylus far out- The cherubim here, as elsewhere, were the symbolical weighed heaps of the wise saws of Euripides. It executors of the divine power in judgment. "Here, spares us the need of stating our view of the "tree (as we are well told, in the "Synopsis," p. 73,) "God of life," as to which Dr. F.'s chap. ii is vague in the manifested Himself as the supreme God in His moral being, armed with power to enforce respect to His laws, and to keep account of all that was done." Hence, Ps. xcix, 1: "the LORD reigneth; let the people tremble: (as in correct Bibles:) he sitteth between the cherubims; let the earth be moved." It is still a throne where His majesty and judgment claim respect and fear. There is not the most distant hint of promise. So in Exod. xxvi the tabernacle itself was composed of the same materials as the veil, the figure (as we know from Heb. x) of the flesh of Christ, in His essential purity, with all the divine graces adorning it. The cherubims, which were there too, give still the idea of judicial power, which Christ has, and will exercise as man. (Comp. John v, 22; Acts xvii, 31.)

Chap. iii is as striking a sample, perhaps, as could be chosen of the confusion which reigns in the author's system and book. The shadows and the realities, too, of God's ways in the government of the world, are lumped with the truths of redemption in one crude heap. Thus, in spite of considerable modification of his views put forth in the first edition, in spite of a professedly careful induction from their various notices in scripture, in spite of reviewing all the descriptions of their form and appearance, their designations, their positions and their agency, direct or indirect, Dr. F. sums up that the cherubim were in their nature artificial and temporary forms of being, which united the highest kinds of creaturely existence on earthman's first and chiefly; that they were set up before faith as representations of earth's living creaturehood, especially of its rational and immortal, though fallen, head, with reference to better hopes, which from the first gave promise of restoration, and afterwards shone with clearer light; that this restoration to life was intimated to be in accordance with God's holiness; and that thus God's purpose was betokened to raise humanity to a higher than its original destination.

Next, while Ezekiel describes the likeness of a man associated with them, the feet are straight, and the face of an ox answers to that of a cherub, as has been often remarked, though man's face was there too. The human form was generally in view, but the characteristic face or foot was an ox or calf's. Then, that they were not supports of the throne is impossible to admit for a moment. (Comp. Ezek. i, 22, 26; ix, 3 ; x, 18; xi, 22.) The firmament was over their heads, and above the firmament a throne. From this, the fullest description, For our part, we cannot but see in the cherubim doubt is excluded. They were the basis of God's the emblems of God's throne in connexion with the throne in the execution of judgment upon Jerusalem. creature and its responsibility-God's judicial action They reappear at the close of the prophecy, when God in power, which has reference to this world in contrast is sanctified in the heathen or Gentiles, dwelling with redemption. We do not say, in contrast "with judicially in Israel, "for out of Zion shall go forth the the redeemed;" for they, in a certain sense, will judge law." Ezek. xxviii speaks of one destroyed from the the world, but that is not redemption. The governing midst of the stones of fire, and cast out of the mountain throne of God may meet, as it were, redemption; but they are exactly opposite in principle, because the latter is based on God's grace and power, the former on the responsibility of the creature.

The principal occasions where the cherubim appear are four. In Gen. iii, 24, they do not hold forth mercy; but, along with the flaming sword, menace the creature, now guilty, if he dared to force the way. The thought there is the title of God in glory and judgment: "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." What has promise in a new man to do with keeping the way of that tree? Is man, in the presence of retributive justice, a keeper, in any sense, of the way of a tree of life? The idea is untenable and absurd. God's act in clothing the guilty with a garment which had its origin in the death of another, (ver. 21,) God's word in ver. 15, did betoken mercy, but not the cherubim.

As to the cherubim in the tabernacle, (with two added in the temple,) the thought is at bottom similar. Formed of the same piece, they were the sides and supporters of the throne where God sat in Israel, the

of God, because he was lifted up with his own beauty. But, instead of the anointed cherub there being a promise of restoration from a fallen condition, it is expressly said, (ver. 19,) "thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." As to the Hebrew or Greek words, translated rightly "living creatures," Dr. F. seems to forget that they are the commonest terms possible for describing animals from Genesis downwards. Life is emphatic, as also activity and intelligence, symbolized by the wings and eyes; but that it was, in the highest sense, spiritual and divine life is more than the author has proved. Neither do we pretend to determine how far God may be pleased to use man as His throne, in a figurative sense, (that is, as the seat of His power.) It is clear that the living creatures are the representative heads of the four main classes of created beings on earth, of such as were subsequently preserved in the ark. And even Dr. F. is compelled to own that their agency, as in Ezek. x, is the putting in force the wrath of God, not promising spiritual life and restoration to fallen man.

Indeed Dr. F. cannot but acknowledge something analogous in Rev. xv, where one of the living creatures is represented as giving into the hands of the angels

THE KINGDOM.
No. V.*

(Concluded from page 94.)

IF our object were the exposure of errors and contradictions in the scheme of our adversaries, no part perhaps could be found more fertile than the question of Christ's kingdom. But this would be disingenuous; for the province is so vast, and its boundaries in general so ill-defined in the minds of most Christians, that abundant scope presents itself for hostile criticism within the ranks of premillennialists. Dr. B. has, not unnaturally, taken advantage of the confusion, and seemingly with the most complete unconsciousness that it is "worse confounded" in his own statements. We shall try to steer as clear as may be of the same danger, though forced to show briefly, how little the popular view can lay claim to accuracy or comprehensiveness.

the last seven vials of God's wrath. "Nor" (says he, i, p. 239) "is the earlier and more prominent action ascribed to them materially different-that connected with the seven sealed book" .... “The work, in its fundamental character, was the going forth of the energetic and judicial agency of God." So say we, and, stranger still, in the words of him who had taught, two or three pages before, (p. 236,) that they are "an image of mercy and hope!" Further, he has no right to assume that the living creatures join with the elders in the new song, the redemption song, of Rev. v; at least, not as if they were celebrating their own share in the benefits of salvation. For it is well known, that the most recent, and certainly one of the ablest of New Testament textual critics, rejects the "us" (uâs) in Rev. v, 9; as every scholar does in the following verse: the reference in that case being to the saints in ver. 8, and not to either elders or cherubim, though it be they who sing. They do not therefore, "plainly stand related to the redemptive as well as to the creative Nor is our task difficult; for the scriptural account work of God." (i, p. 210.) And as to our author's is simple enough. The Lord Jesus was born King of way of accounting, in the same page, for the dis- the Jews. Matt. i, gives his genealogy as the Son appearance of the cherubim, after Rev. xix, it is wholly of David, the Son of Abraham: Matt. ii, His reunsatisfactory; because, in p. 238, he had contrasted cognition by the heaven-directed Magi, as the prethe royal elders and them, as the actual and the ideal dicted ruler of Israel. But if He was there for His respectively, and in p. 240 he says, "that the ideal people, they were unready for Him. His star was no give way to the real." The fact is, however, that in bright harbinger, save to the distant Gentile; His the Apocalypse the elders and living creatures vanish birth no joy, save to the despised of men: not only from view together. Nay, we are convinced that was the false king, the Edomite, troubled, but “ail Ezek. xliii shows the cherubim, after this very epoch, Jerusalem with him." What a welcome for the newupon earth as active as ever, in a blessed and glorious born King! Alas! all followed true to the sad but judicial way, when the Lord reigns. They do not beginning, growing false to Him around whose head therefore fade like the stars, but shine most in the prophecy and miracle, grace and truth, circled for a day of the Lord; and their existence, so far from crown of testimony and blessing, such as man had being temporary, is best fulfilled in that bright day, never worn. Blinded by self and Satan, the Jews saw and this, because the creation and government of God, no beauty in Him who was a Saviour as well as King, with which we have seen them inseparably bound up, who could not, would not, reign, when His people will have their fruition, and accomplish their proper needed to be saved from their sins. They were wrong, ends, in that day. On the whole then, the author's not intellectually alone, but morally. The chief priests scheme, as to the cherubic figures, is as unreasonable and scribes of the people could answer correctly, and and open to objection as any speculations of his German without hesitation, where the Messiah should be born. friends which he justly condemns. That restored man About His kingdom, too, they had no difficulty, may be connected with God in this place, we believe; though doubtless little true light; but a Messiah lifted but the place is displayed divine glory in creation and up from the earth was to them an insoluble enigma, judgment. and a deadly stone of stumbling. "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man ?" They were not mistaken in what they imagined the ancient prophets had foretold; but their carnal minds used one part of the revealed truth to contradict another equally true, and yet more vital. It is obvious and undeniable that the law does teach the perpetuity of the Son of man and His kingdom: no subsequent revelations rescind, deny, or modify this. So far the Jews were right, and our friends are

Want of space compels us to pass over the two next chapters, (iv, v,) which deal with sacrifice and the sabbath; but we do so the rather, as they will recur in a fuller form when we enter upon Israel's history and institutions. Chap. vi, with the Appendices, occupying the remainder of the volume, we reserve, if the Lord will, for our next.

The ground of settled peace, in the midst of a world of sin and sorrow, is to assure my soul that God is true when He says, that He so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The Christian is never brought into question about salvation, for the person who would have to judge him is the very One who has given him eternal life; and He cannot call His own work into question.

* 1. Christ's Second Coming: Will it be Premillennial? By the Rev. David Brown, D.D., St. James's Free Church, Glasgow. Fourth Edition. Edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1856.

2. Outlines of Unfulfilled Prophecy: being an Enquiry into the Seripture Testimony of the "Good things to come." By the Rev. T. R. Birks. M.A., rector of Kelshall. Seeleys, 1854. 3. Simples Essais sur des sujets prophétiques. Par W. Trotter. Tomes I. II. Paris: Grassart, 1855-56.