and Republic. And here we are easily led into the essential difference (so much to the honour of Revelation) between the Pagan Oracles or Prophecies, and the Jewish. The obscurity of the Pagan arose from the ambiguity, equivocation or jargon or EXPRESSION; the obscurity of the Jewish from the figurative representation OF THINGS. The First (independent of any other Religion) proceeded from ignorance of futurity; the Latter, dependent on the Christian, proceeded from the necessity that those to whom the Prophecies were delivered should not have too full a knowledge of them.

Dr. Middleton, indeed, would fain persuade us, that the Oracles, or, as he chuses to call them, the Prophecies of the Pythian Apollo, were neither better nor worse, but exactly of the same absurd construction with the Scripture Prophecies. He would hardly venture to controvert what I have said of their logical fitness and propriety, as a mode of information in the abstract, because this would shew him ignorant of the nature and progress of human converse. Much less, I suppose, would he say, that this mode of information was not suited to the genius of the Jewish Religion; since he owns that to be only a preparatory System calculated to open and to prepare the way for one more perfect; and consequently, that it must be so contrived as to connect, and at the same time to hide from the vulgar eye, the two parts of the Dispensation, and the relation they have to one another. Now there is no conceivable way of doing this but by types and secondary senses. What then occasioned this insult upon them? That which supports all our free Writers in their contemptuous treatment of Religion, their mistaking the ABUSE of the thing for the thing ITSELF; and giving the interpretations of men, or the Doctrines of Churches, for Articles of faith or Scripture history. What hath been here said will shew the extreme weakness of this ingenious man's parallel between the Scripture Prophecies and the Oracles

of the Pythian Apollo." The PROPHECIES of the Py"thian Apollo (says he) were indeed obscure, equivocal " and ambiguous, admitting not only different but con+ trary senses; so that the character here given of the Scripture Prophecies was undoubtedly true of them, "that no event could restrain them to one determinate "sense, when they were originally capable of many. For "if the obvious sense failed, as it often did, to the ruin "of those who acted upon it, there was another always “in reserve, to secure the veracity of the Oracle : till "this very character of its ambiguous and ænigmatical

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senses, confirmed by constant observation, gradually "sunk its credit, and finally detected the imposture *. The Prophecies of the Pythian Apollo were obscure, equivocal and ambiguous. And this (says he) was the character of the Scripture Prophecies. Just otherwise, as is seen above. Scripture Prophecies were obscure; but the obscurity arose neither from equivocation nor ambiguity (which two qualities proceed from the EXPRESSION) but from the figurative representation of THINGS. So that the obscurity, which the Pythian Oracle and the Scripture Prophecies had in common, arising from the most different grounds, the character given of the Oracles, that no event could restrain them to one determinate sense when they were originally capable of many, by no means belongs to the Scripture Prophecies, whatever the men he writes against (who appear to know as little of the DOUBLE SENSE of Prophecies as himself) might imagine. For though equivocal and ambiguous EXPRESSION may make a speech or writing, where the objects are unconfined, capable of many senses, yet a figurative representation of THINGS can give no more senses than two to the obscurest Prophecy. Hence it will follow, that while the expedient in supporting the Pythian Oracles, by having a sense always in

* Examination of the Bishop of London's Discourses on Prophecy, &c. pp. 89, yo.

reserve

reserve to satisfy the inquirer, would gradually sink their credit, and finally detect the imposture; the discovery of a SECONDARY SENSE of Prophecy, relative to the completory Dispensation, will necessarily tend to confirm and establish the divine origin of Scripture Prophecy.

Such was the wonderful economy of divine Wisdom, in connecting together two dependent Religions, the parts of one grand Dispensation: by this means, making one preparatory of the other; and each mutually to reflect light upon the other. Hence we see the desperate humour of that learned man, though very zealous Christian*, who, because most of the prophecies relating to JESUS, in the Old Testament, are of the nature described above, took it into his head that the Bible was corrupted by the enemies of JESUS. Whereas, on the very supposition of a mediate and an ultimate Religion, which this good man held, the main body of Prophecies in the Old Testament relating to the New must, according to all our ideas of fitness and expediency, needs be prophecies with a DOUBLE SENSE. But it is the usual support of folly to throw its distresses upon knavery. And thus, as we observed, the Mahometan likewise, who pretends to claim under the Jewish religion, not finding the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments in the Law, is as positive that the Jews have corrupted their own scriptures in pure spite to his great Prophet †.

III. Having thus shewn the reasonable use and great expediency of these modes of sacred information, under the Jewish Economy; the next question is, Whether they be indeed there. This we shall endeavour to shew. --And that none of the common prejudices may lie against our reasoning, the example given shall be of TYPES and DOUBLE SENSES employed even in subjects relating to the Jewish dispensation only.

1. The whole ordinance of the passover was a TYPE of the redemption from Egypt. The striking the blood † See note [Z] at the end of this Book.

Mr. Whiston.

on the side-posts, the eating flesh with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and in a posture of departure and expedition, were all significative of their bondage and deliverance. This will admit of no doubt, because the Institutor himself has thus explained the Type-And thou shalt shew thy son (says he) in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes; that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year *. As therefore it was of the genius of these holy Rites to be Typical or significative of God's past, present, and future dispensations to his people, we cannot in the least doubt, but that Moses, had he not been restrained by those important considerations explained above, would have told them that the sacrifice of the lamb without blemish was a Type, a sign or memorial of THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

:

2. With regard to DOUBLE SENSES, take this instance from Joel who, in his prediction of an approaching ravage by Locusts, foretells likewise, in the same words, a succeeding desolation by the Assyrian army. For we are to observe that this was God's method both in warning and in punishing a sinful people. Thus, when the seven nations for their exceeding wickedness were to be exterminated, GOD promises his chosen people to send hornets before them, which should drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before them. Now Joel, under one and the same Prophecy, contained

Exod. xiii. 8, & seq.

† Exod. xxiii. 23. This, the author of the book called the "Wisdom of Solomon" admirably paraphrases:-" For it was "thy will to destroy by the hands of our fathers both those old "inhabitants of thy holy land, whom thou hatedst for doing most "odious works of witchcrafts, and wicked sacrifices; and also those merciless murderers of children, and devourers of man's flesh, " and

contained in the first and second Chapters of his book, foretells, as we say, both these plagues; the locusts in the primary sense, and the Assyrian army in the secondary-"Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl 66 all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it "is cut off from your mouth. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose "teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek"teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste, " and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, "and cast it away: the branches thereof are made "white...The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for "the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the "oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vine-dressers, for the wheat and for the

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barley; because the harvest of the field is perished*.-"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in

my holy mountain: Let all the inhabitants of the "land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like-A tire de"voureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth : “the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and "behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing "shall

❝ and the feasts of blood, with their priests out of the midst of their "idolatrous crew, and the parents that killed, with their own hands, "souls destitute of help: That the land which thou esteemedst "above all other might receive a worthy colony of GoD's children. "Nevertheless even those thou sparedst as men, and didst send wasps, forerunners of thine host, to destroy them by little and little. Not "that thou wast unable to bring the ungodly under the hand of the แ righteous in battle, or to destroy them at once with cruel beasts, or with one rough word: But executing thy judgments upon them by little and little, thou gavest them place of repentance, not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that "their malice was bred in them, and that their cogitation would never be changed." Chap. xii. ver. 3, & seq.

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* Chap. i. ver. 5, & seq.