\_The types served to shew them what sort of a person their Messiah should be : he was to be a Prophet, like unto Moses, a Priest, like Aaron, a King, like David. He was to be a suffering no less than a reigning Messiah. They further kept up the expectation of him in the world. The first promise had been nearly forgotten ; and most probably the repetition of it would have made but a transient impression : but the mul- titude of observances, daily repeated, and continually directing the eyes of the worshippers to him, could not fail of exciting a general and increasing expectation of his advent. They moreover led the people to exercise faith on him. Every in- telligent worshipper must see that the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin ; and therefore (as we are sure Abraham, David, and others did) the devout Jews must look through the ordinances to Christ, and rely on him who was to come, just as we rely on him who is come.]
2 To us—
[The types are of signal use to us, in that they testify of Christ as the person promised from the foundation of the world, and prefigured in the whole of the Mosaic ritual. When we compare the account of Christ in the New Testament with the various ordinances of the Old, we see how impossible it was that such a coincidence of character should ever happen, but by the express ordination and appointment of God. But they are of further use to us also, in that they wonderfully illustrate the fulness and excellency of Christ. As there are myriads of stars, yet all of them together are no more than a taper in comparison of the sun ; so all the typical exhibitions of Christ are but a shadow in comparison of him : and " though they are exceeding glorious in themselves, yet have they no glory by reason of the glory that excellethV To this effect the Apostle says, " If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God s ! " This is the view which we are to take of the types, this the improvement we are to make of them. We could not have formed any adequate idea of Christ's work and offices, if we had not been assisted by the typical institutions : these serve to embody our notions, and to make them, like a picture, visible to the eyes of men, and therefore intelligible to the meanest capacity : whereas, if we could not thus invest them, as it were, with matter, we could only offer to our hearers some abstract ideas, which, after all, would convey but little meaning, and leave no abiding im- pression.]
' 2 Cor. iii. 9—11. « Heb. ix. 13, 14.