manded action should import or represent the Sacrifice. of Christ and then indeed comes in the question, Whether that Intention be best discovered from God's declaration of it to Abraham, or from a similitude and correspondency between this commanded action and the Sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, 2. I make bold to tell him, that a similitude and correspondency between the event and the transaction which prefigured it, IS NOT ENOUGH to shew this dependency, to the satisfaction of Unbelievers; who say, that a likeness between two things of the same nature, such as offering up two men to death, in different ways, and transacted in two distant periods, is not sufficient alone to shew that they had any relation to one another. With the same reason, they will 'say, we' might pretend that Jephtha's daughter, or the king of Moab's son whom the father sacrificed on the wall, 2 Kings iii. 27. were the types of Christ's sacrifice. Give us, they exult, a proof from Scripture that God' declared or revealed his INTENTION of prefiguring the death of Jesus; or some better authority at least than a modern Typifier, who deals only in similitudes and correspondences, and has all the wildness, without the wit, of a Poet, and all the weakness, without the ingenuity, of an Analogist! Now whether it be our Examiner, or the Author of the Divine Legation, who has given them this satisfaction, or whether they have any reason to require it of either of us, is left to the impartial Reader to consider.

P. 27. [L]. Let us see now what Dr. Stebbing has to say to this reasoning." By your leave, Sir," says he,, (which, by the way, he never asks, but to abuse me; nor ever takes, but to misrepresent me)" if the Apostle had

meant by this expression, to signify that Isaac stood as "the Representative of Christ, and that his being taken "from the mount alive, was the figure of Christ's Re"surrection; it SHOULD have been said, that Abraham "received CHRIST from the dead in a figure." Should

it so? What? where the discourse was not concerning Christ, but Isaac? Had, indeed, the sacred Writer been speaking of Abraham's knowledge of Christ, something might have been said; but he is speaking of a very different thing, his faith in God; and only intimates, by a strong expression, what he understood that action to be, which he gives, as an instance of the most illustrious act of faith. I say, had this been the case, something might have been said; something, I mean, just to keep him in countenance; yet still, nothing to the purpose, as I shall now shew. The transaction of the Sacrifice of Christ related to GOD. The figure of that transaction, in the command to offer Isaac, related (according to my interpretation) to ABRAHAM. Now, it was God who received Christ; as it was Abraham who received the type or figure of Christ, in Isaac. To tell us then, that (according to my interpretation) it SHOULD have been said, that Abraham received CHRIST from the dead in a figure, is, in effect, telling us that he knows no more of logical expression than of theological reasoning. It is true, could he shew the expression improper, in the sense which I give to the transaction, he would then speak a little to the purpose; and this, to do him justice, is what he would fain be at." For, Christ it was, according to your in"terpretation (says he) that was received from the

dead in a figure, by Isaac his Representative, who "really came alive from the mount. If the reading had “ been, not ἐν παραβολῇ, but εἰς παραβολήν, it would have "suited your notion; for it might properly have been

said, that Isaac came alive from the mount as a figure, "or that he might be a figure of the Resurrection of "Christ." [Consid. p. 147.] Miserable chicane! As, on the one hand, I might say with propriety, that CHRIST was received from the dead in a figure, i. e. BY a representative so on the other, I might say that ISAAC was received from the dead in a figure, i. e. As a representative: For Isaac sustaining the person of Christ, who

was

was raised from the dead, might in a figure, i. e. as that person, be said to be received: yet this our Examiner denies, and tells us, the Apostle SHOULD have said that Abraham received CHRIST, and not ISAAC.-" But (adds he) if the reading had been not iv Пapabox, but εἰς Παραβολὴν, it would have suited your notion." notion." And the reason he gives is this: "For it might properly have. "been said that Isaac came alive from the mount As a

figure, or THAT HE MIGHT BE a figure of the resur"rection of Christ." Strange! He says, this would have suited my notion; and the reason he gives, shews it suits only his own; which is, that the exactness of the resemblance between the two actions, not the declaration of the Giver of the Command, made it a figure. This is the more extraordinary, as I myself have here shewn that the old Latin translator had turned the words into IN PARABOLAM instead of IN PARABOLA, for this very reason, because he understood the command in the sense our Examiner contends for; viz. That Isaac, by the resemblance of the actions, MIGHT BE, or might become a figure.

σε

was,

However, he owns at last that "a reason will still be ແ wanting, why, instead of speaking the fact as it really that Isaac came alive from the mount; the Apostle chose rather to say (what was not really the is case) that Abraham received him from the dead." [Consid. pp. 147, 8.] Well; and have not I given a reason? No matter for that: Dr. Stebbing is turned Examiner, and has engrossed the market. His reason follows thus, "If Isaac did not die (as it is certain he "did not) Abraham could not receive him from the dead. And yet the Apostle says, he received him from the dead. The clearing up this difficulty will shew the true sense of the passage. passage." [Consid. pp. 147, 148.] What, will the clearing up a difficulty of his own making discover the true sense of another man's writing? This is one of his new improvements in Logic; in which, as in Arithmetic,

Arithmetic, he has invented a rule of false, to discover an unknown truth. For there is none of this difficulty in the sacred Text; it is not there (as in our Examiner) said simply, that Abraham received Isaac from the dead, but that he received him from the dead IN A FIGURE, or under the assumed personage of Christ. Now if Christ died, then he, who assumed his personage, in order to represent his passion and resurrection, might surely be said to be received from the dead in a figure. A wonderful difficulty truly! and we shall see, as wonderfully solved;-by a conundrum! But with propriety enough. For as a real difficulty requires sense and criticism to resolve it, an imaginary one may be well enough managed by a quibble.-Because the translators of St. Mark's Gospel have rendered i wola wapaboxy by, with what comparison shall we compare it, therefore, i wapaCox, in the text in question, signifies COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING. But no words can shew him like his own"The Apostle does not say simply and absolutely, that "Abraham received Isaac from the dead; but that he "received him from the dead i wapaboy, in a parable." See here now! Did not I tell vou so? There was no difficulty all this while: The sentence only opened to the right and left to let in a blustering objection, which is no sooner evaporated than it closes again as before. It was not simply said-No. "But that he received him-ir "wagaboλy in a parable, i. e. in a comparison, or by com

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parison. Thus the word is used, Mark iv. 30. Where"unto shall we liken the kingdom of God, or with what "COMPARISON [ir wolg wagabory] shall we compare it. [ἐν ποίᾳ παραβολῇ] "The meaning then may be, that Abraham's receiving "Isaac alive (after his death was denounced) by the re"vocation of the command; was AS IF HE HAD re"ceived him from the dead. Thus several Interpreters "understand the place. Or it may be, as others will have it, that the Apostle here refers to the birth of Isaac; "which was [i wapaboλ] COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, a receiving

a receiving him from the dead; his father being old, "and his mother past the age of child-bearing, on which "account the Apostle styles them both dead.. Which in"terpretation, I the rather approve, because it suggests, "the proper grounds of Abraham's faith." [Consid. pp. 148, 149.]

ἐν

He says, iv waabo signifies in or by comparison; and that the word is so used in St. Mark; to prove which, he quotes the English translation. Now I must take the liberty to tell him, that the translators were mistaken; and he with them. Пagaboan, in St. Mark, is not used in the sense of a similitude or comparison, but of a parable. The ancients had two ways of illustrating the things they inforced; the one was by a parable, the other by a simple comparison or simile: how the latter of these arose out of the former I have shewn in the fourth Volume. Here, both these modes of illustration are referred to; which. should have been translated thus, To what shall we COMPARE the kingdom of God, or with what PARABLE shall we illustrate or parabolise it.--ὁμοιώσωμεν-παρα Cáλwue--which words express two different and wellknown modes of illustration.

But now suppose in wolg wagacony had signified with. what comparison: How comes it to pass that i wapaCox should signify by comparison, or as it were, or COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING? In plain truth, his critical analogy has ended in a pleasant blunder. How so? you will ask. Nay, 'tis true there's no denying, but that speaking by comparison is comparatively speaking; and, if men will put another sense upon it, who can help that? they say, comparatively speaking signifies the speaking loosely, inaccurately, and incorrectly. But was it for our Doctor to put his reader in mind of such kind of speakers? But the charge of a blunder, an innocent mishap, I am ready to retract; for I observe him to go into it with much artful preparation; a circumstance which by no means marks that genuine turn of mind, VOL. VI.

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which