Use. It is a comfortable iirii/ to stiidi/ Christ tJiis ivay ; to see him fore- told in the Old Testament, and to see the accomplishment in the New ; to parallel the Old and New Testament. It is an excellent way of studying the gospel. For we know men are delighted to know divers things at once. When a man's knowledge is enriched divers ways at once, it delights him, as when a man knows the history of a thing, and the truth with it ; when he knows a promise, and the truth ; a type, and the ti'uth, how doth it
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delight ! When a man sees tho typo in the Old, and the truth in the New, the history there, the promise and the accomplishment here, it is a wondrous delightful thing. For why doth proportion delight the eye, hut because it is an agreement of different things, a sweet harmony of ditlerent things ? Why doth music so please the ear ? Because it is a harmony of ditlerent things. When we see a type different from the truth performed, and a promise different from the performance, and yet a sweet agreement, from agreement a man is delighted. A man is not delighted with colours as colours, but as they hold proportion with the rest of the body ; he is not delighted with a limb as a limb, but as it holds proportion with the man; if there be no proportion and comeliness, it delights not. So in this case it is good to consider both together. God therefore for this end and pur- pose would have truths conveyed in the Old Testament, by way of types, and prophecies, and promises, that it might delight us now to hear them, and to study them the more ; for, as I said, when we know many things at once, it is delightful.
That is the reason why comparisons and allusions are so delightful, be- cause wo know the comparison, and the thing to which it is compared. And that is the reason why our Saviour Christ, besides types and figures, and promises and prophecies, is set out by whatsoever is excellent in nature in the Scriptures. There is nothing in nature that is excellent, but there is something taken from it to set forth the excellency of Christ. He is the 'Sun of righteousness;' he is the 'water,' he is the 'way,' he is the ' bread,' he is the ' vine,' he is the ' tree of life.' Whatsoever is excellent in nature, either in heaven or earth, it serves to set forth the excellency of Christ. Why ? To delight us, that we may be willing and cheerful to think of Christ ; that together with the consideration of the excellency of the creature, some sweet meditation of Christ, in whom all those excellencies are knit together, might be presented to the soul. When we see the sun, oft to think of that blessed Sun that quickens and enlivens all things, and scatters the mists of ignorance. When we look on a tree, to think of the Tree of righteousness ; on the way, to think of him the Way ; of life, of him that is the true Life. When we think of anything that is excellent, think of God's love in Scripture to set out Christ, that he would shadow him in all ; for he is the true Sun. All creatures must vanish ere long, and whatsoever is excellent in the creature ; and what will stand then ? Only he in whom all these excellencies are comprised in one. ' All the promises in him are yea and amen.'
If this be true then, that the promise of Christ himself, who is the chief good promised, is in the New Testament ' amen,' all of him is ' yea and amen,' then comes this as a deducted truth, all other promises must needs be ' yea and amen.' For God, ho that performed the grand promise in giving Christ in the fulness of time, will for Christ's sake perform all other promises. Therefore the incarnation, the life, the death, and resiuTOction of Christ our blessed Saviour, it is a pawn and pledge to us of the per- formance of all things to come.
God promised to the Jews that they should come out of Babylon, he pro- mised that he would deliver them from the enemy; and he usually prefixeth this promise, ' A virgin shall conceive and bear a son,' Isa. vii. 14 ; and ' to us a child is born, and a son is given,' Isa. ix. 6 ; to signify, that therefore they should have deliverance, because God would give them a better thing than that. He would give them Christ, in whom all the promises are ' yea and amen;' and because Christ should come of that people, they should not
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miscarry in captivity under their enemies ; for then how should Christ come of them ?
Therefore because ' a virgin should conceive,' and because * a Child shall bo boru, ami a Son given,' therefore you shall have outward deliverance. All other things are ' yea and amen ' for Christ, as Ht Paul divinely reasons, ' If he spared not his only begotten Son, but gave him to death for us all, how shall he not with him give us all things else ? ' Kom. viii. 32. All other promises are made in Cin-ist and performed for him. And since the grand promise itself is now ' amen,' that Cluist is come, it is a pledge of all other things that are to come. Is Christ come in the Hesh according to the promise '? Hath he done <all and sufl'ercd all according to the pro- phecies, as it was written of him ? Then why shall we not look for the accomplishment of all that are to come, on the same ground ? Have we not a pledge ? Why shall we not look for the resurrection of the body, for the day of judgment, for the second coming of Christ ? Is not his first coming a pledge of it '?