No mystical or typical sense, therefore, ought to be put upon a plain passage of Scripture, the meaning of which is obvious and natural; unless it be evident from some other part of Scripture that the place is to be understood in a double sense. When St. Paul says, (Gal. iii. 24. Col. ii. 17.) that the law was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, and a shadow of things to come, we must instantly acknowledge that the ceremonial law in general was a type of the mysteries of the Gospel.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE PROPHECIES.

PROPHECY, or the prediction of future events, is justly considered as the highest evidence that can be given of supernatural communion with the Deity. The force of the argument from prophecy, for proving the divine inspiration of the sacred records has already been exhibited; and the cavils of objectors have been obviated. (See pp.47-60. supra.) Difficulties, it is readily admitted, do exist in understanding the prophetic writings: but these are either owing to our ignorance of history, and of the Scriptures, or because the prophecies themselves are yet unfulfilled. The latter can only be understood when the events foretold have actually been accomplished: but the former class of difficulties may be removed in many, if not in all, cases; and the knowledge, sense, and meaning of the prophets may, in a considerable degree, be attained by prayer, reading, and meditation, and by comparing Scripture with Scripture, especially with the writings of the New Testament, and particularly with the book of the Revelation. With this view, the following general rules will be found useful in investi

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gating, first, the sense and meaning of the prophecies, and, secondly, their accomplishment.

I. Rules for ascertaining the SENSE of the Prophet Writings.

1. As not any Prophecy of Scripture is of self-interpretation (2 Pet. i. 20.) or is its own interpreter, "the sense of the prophecy is to be sought in the events of the world, and in the harmony of the prophetic writings, rather than in the bare terms of any single prediction."

In the consideration of this canon, the following circumstances should be carefully attended to:

[i.] Consider well the times when the several prophets flourished, in what place and under what kings they uttered their predictions, the duration of their prophetic ministry, and their personal rank and condition, and, lastly, whatever can be known respecting their life and transactions.

[ii.] As the prophets treat not only of past transactions and present occurrences, but also foretell future events, in order to understand them, we must diligently consult the histories of the following ages, both sacred and profane, and carefully see whether we can trace in them the fulfilment of any prophecy.

[iii.] The words and phrases of a prophecy must be explained, where they are obscure; if they be very intricate, every single word should be expounded; and, if the sense be involved in metaphorical and emblematic expressions (as very frequently is the case), these must be explained according to the principles already considered.

[iv.] Similar prophecies of the same event must be carefully compared, in order to elucidate more clearly the sense of the sacred predictions.

For instance, after having ascertained the subject of the prophet's discourse and the sense of the words, Isa. liii. 5. (He was wounded, literally pierced through, for our transgressions,) may be compared with Psal. xxii. 16. (They pierced my hands and my feet), and with Zech. xii. 10. (They shall look on me whom they have pierced.) In thus paralleling the prophecies, regard must be had to the predictions of former prophets, which are sometimes repeated with abridgment, or more distinctly explained by others; and also to the predictions of subsequent prophets, who sometimes repeat, with greater clearness and precision, former prophecies, which had been more obscurely announced.

2. In order to understand the prophets, great attention should be paid to the prophetic style, which is highly figurative, and particularly abounds in metaphorical and hyperbolical expressions.

By images borrowed from the natural world, the prophets often understand something in the world politic. Thus, the sun, moon, stars, and heavenly bodies, denote kings, queens, rulers, and persons in great power; and the increase of splendour in those luminaries denotes increase of prosperity, as in Isa. xxx. 26. and lx. 19. On the other hand, their darkening, setting, or falling signifies a reverse of fortune, or the entire destruction of the potentate or kingdom to which they refer.

3. As the greater part of the prophetic writings was first composed in verse, and still retains much of the air and cast of the original, an attention to the division of the lines, and to that peculiarity of Hebrew poetry by which the sense of one line or couplet so frequently corresponds with another, will frequently lead to the meaning of many passages; one line of a couplet, or member of a sentence, being generally a commentary on the other.

Of this rule we have an example in Isa. xxxiv. 6. :

The Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah,

And a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

Here the metaphor in the first verse is expressed in the same terms in the next: the sacrifice in Bozrah means the great slaughter in the land of Idumea, of which Bozrah was the capital.

4. Particular names are often put by the prophets for more general ones, in order that they may place the thing represented, as it were, before the eyes of their hearers: but in such passages they are not to be understood literally.

Thus, in Joel iii. 4., Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Palestine, are put, by way of poetical description, for all the enemies of the Jews.

5. The order of time is not always to be looked for in the prophetic writings: for they frequently (particularly Jeremiah and Ezekiel) resume topics of which they have formerly

treated, after other subjects have intervened, and again discuss them.

6. The prophets often change both persons and tenses, sometimes speaking in their own persons, at other times representing God, his people, or their enemies, as respectively speaking, and without noticing the change of persons; sometimes taking things past or present for things future, to denote the certainty of the events.

Isa. ix. 6. liii. throughout, Ixiii. throughout, Zech. ix. 9., and Rev. xviii. 2., to cite no other passages, may be adduced as illustrations of this remark.

7. When the prophets received a commission to declare any thing, the message is sometimes expressed as if they had been appointed to do it themselves.

Isa. vi. 9, 10. is merely a prediction of what the Jews would do : for when the prophetic declaration was fulfilled, Jesus Christ quoted the passage and explained its general sense in Matt. xiii. 15.

8. As symbolic actions and prophetic visions greatly rescinble parables, and were employed for the same purpose, viz. more powerfully to instruct and engage the attention of the people, they must be interpreted in the same manner as parables. (For which, see pp. 182—184, supra.)

II. Observations on the ACCOMPLISHMENT of Scripture Prophecies.

A prophecy is demonstrated to be fulfilled, when we can prove from unimpeachable authority, that the event has actually taken place, precisely according to the manner in which it was foretold.

1. The same prophecies frequently have a double meaning, and refer to different events, the one near, the other remote ; the one temporal, the other spiritual, or perhaps eternal. The prophets thus having several events in view, their expressions may be partly applicable to one, and partly to another, and it is not always easy to mark the transitions. What has not been fulfilled in the first, we must apply to the second; and what has already been fulfilled, may often be considered as typical of what remains to be accomplished.

The following examples out of many which might be offered, will illustrate this rule:

[i.] The second psalm is primarily an inauguration hymn, composed by David, the anointed of Jehovah, when crowned with victory, and placed triumphant on the sacred hill of Sion. But, in Acts. iv. 25., the inspired apostles with one voice declare it to be descriptive of the exaltation of the Messiah, and of the opposition raised against the Gospel, both by Jews and Gentiles.

[ii.] Isa. xi. 6. — What is here said of the wolf dwelling with the lamb, &c. is understood as having its first completion in the reign of Hezekiah, when profound peace was enjoyed after the troubles caused by Sennacherib; but its second and full completion is under the Gospel, whose power in changing the hearts, tempers, and lives of the worst of men, is here foretold and described by a singularly beautiful assemblage of images. Of this blessed power there has in every age of Christianity been a cloud of witnesses.

Thus, it is evident that many prophecies must be taken in a double sense, in order to understand their full import; and as this twofold application of them was adopted by our Lord and his apostles, it is a full authority for us to consider and apply them in a similar way.

2. Predictions, denouncing judgments to come, do not in themselves speak the absolute futurity of the event, but only declare what is to be expected by the persons to whom they are made, and what will certainly come to pass, unless God in his mercy interpose between the threatening and the event.

Of these conditional comminatory predictions we have examples in Jonah's preaching to the Ninevites (Jonah iii. 4—10.), and in Isaiah's denunciation of death to Hezekiah. (Isa. xxxviii. 1.) See also a similar instance in Jer. xxxviii. 14-23.

III. Observations on the Accomplishment of Prophecies concerning the MESSIAH in particular.

1. Jesus Christ being the great subject and end of Scripture revelation, we ought every where to search for prophecies concerning him.

We have the united testimony of Christ (John v. 39. Luke xxiv. 25-27. 44.) and of an inspired apostle (Acts x. 43.), that