rience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed." We should learn not merely to praise God in affliction, but to praise him for it. We should see that the lot of the afflicted is far more envia- ble than that of him who is " let alone ;" and, instead of trembling when we see the dark cloud of sorrow coming over us, we should tremble far more when we see it passing off, lest, per- chance, that which came charged with bless- ing to us, should, through our stout-hearted- ness and unteachableness, leave us callous and unblest.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TYPES.
THE ordinance in Israel concerning the meat-offering of the first fruits, was of a very peculiar kind. Thus it was commanded, " If thou offer a meat-offering of thy first fruits unto the Lord, thou shall offer for the meat-offering of thy first fruits, green ears of corn dried by the fire."*
Christ is, we know, pre-eminently the first fruits. It is he, then, who is specially pre- figured by these green ears of corn dried by the fire. In this " corn," we discern the type of one who belongs to earth, partaker of our very nature. It springs up in our fields, it is nourished by our soil, it is watered by our showers, it is ripened by our sun. So was it with Jesus. lie was truly man, one of us, " the Word made flesh," the man who "drank of the brook by the way."
This corn was to be plucked when green, and then dried by the fire ; not in the ordinary
* Lev. ii. 14.
80 THE TY^'ES.
gradual way by the heat of the sun. It was to be prematurely ripened, and by what we would call unnatural means, the exposure to artificial heat. In this also, we see Jesus, the man of sorrows, subjected to the Father's wrath, the wrath of him who is a consuming fire, and withered into ripeness before his time. He did not come to his grave "in a full age, like a shock of corn in its season."* He did not grow up to manhood in the calm refreshing sunshine of Jehovah's smile. He was scorched with fiery heat, within and without, till age appeared upon his much-marred visage, while as yet the greenness of his strength was upon him ; so that the Jews, looking upon his wasted form, spoke of him as one who had well nigh reached his fiftieth year.t
Such is the view he gives of himself in the book of Psalms. In these we at once recog- nize the " green ears of corn dried by the fire." For thus he speaks, " My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleave th to my jaws, and thou hast brought me unto the dust of death."]: Again, he says, " Mine eye is con- sumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly ; for my life is spent with grief, and my years
* Job v. 26. t John viii. 57. t Ps. xxii. 15.
THE TYPES. 81
with sighing; my strength faileth, my bones are consumed."* Again, we hear him saying, " Mine eye is consumed because of grief, it waxeth old because of all mine enemies."! Such, then, was Jesus ; withered and dried up before his time by reason of the sorrow which he endured for us.
But these green ears dried up by the fire are no less a description of the saints than of their Lord. Certainly they apply to him, in a way such as they never can apply to us. Yet still they do stand forth as a type of the whole church, who are also called like Jesus, " the first fruits." All the members of his body, from the beginning, have been just such as these dried ears of green corn. Hear, for instance, one of them speaking ; " I am like a bottle in the smoke ;" or again, " My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long ; my mois- ture is turned into the drought of summer."*
By such an emblem as this, was the church's career of tribulation set before Israel. And it is most interesting for us to look at our trials in the light of so expressive a figure. Their object is to ripen us : it may be before the time ; it may be in a. way such as the flesh shrinks
* Ps. xxxi. 9. t Ps. vi. 7. t Ps. xxxii. 4.
82 THE TYPES.
from ; but still, their object is to ripen us. The sorrows that compass us about are all ripening our graces, as well as withering out of us the green, rank, unripe luxuriance of earth. The heat may be great, but it shall not consume us ; it will only make the ripening process a speedier one. It will shorten the way to per- fect holiness and eternal glory : and shall we shrink from that which makes the process shorter ?