such an exposition of that glory as is in point of fact a magnificent apologetic for Christianity from the Jewish point of view.
The relation thus established between the former and the latter dispensation may tend to an undervaluing of the old, and lead to the idea that ‘‘the Jew was simply the keeper of a casket which he could not unlock, an actor in a symbolical representation which to him conveyed little or no meaning’’. It must be borne in mind, therefore, that the arrangements of the Old Testament were primarily for the religious use of the Jews themselves. Their religion was not devised for the intellectual employment or diversion of persons who can now look back upon it, nor altogether for the religious edification of such persons, but primarily for the religious edification of the Jews themselves. They needed a religion as muchas we do. They needed assurance of God and His favour, and some means of access to Him and this they found in their religion of type and symbol. To them as to us a gospel was preached (iv. 2). Through the symbolic arrangements of their earthly tabernacle they learned real truth and were brought into fellowship with the eternal. Not that they understood what the physical arrangements of their religion typified, but that they did understand what they symbolised. The Old Testament ritual was instructive not in so far as it was typical, but in so far as it was symbolical. A symbol is an embodied idea, or what we nowadays call an ‘object lesson’”’; an idea rendered visible in a material sign or in an external action. A type not only expresses an idea, but looks forward to a time when this idea shall receive its perfect expression. As Mr. Litton! defines it ‘a type is a prophetic symbol”. ‘“ Every true type is necessarily a symbol, that is, it embodies and represents the ideas which find their fulfil- ment in the antitype; but every symbol is not necessarily a type; a symbol may terminate in itself, and point to nothing future; it may even refer to something past.’’ Now it cannot be supposed that the contemporaries of Moses or Moses himself understood what was prefigured by their ritual. But if they did not understand their ritual as a collection of types, they certainly did understand it as a system of symbols. The tabernacle itself was both a symbol and a type. It was a symbol that God dwelt with men, ever in their midst, sharing their fortunes, forgiving their sin, and bestowing bless- ing. This symbol every child could read. But it was also a type, a symbol with a prophecy wrapped up in it, a symbol giving promise that the truth taught in it would one day find its perfect, eterna} manifestation. This could at the best be but imperfectly understood.
1 Bampton Lectures, p. 82. VOL. IV. 16