Εἰσὶ δὲ περὶ Θήβας ἱροὶ ὄφιες, ἀνθρώπων οὐδαμῶς δηλήμονες. Herodotus ii. 74.

Possemus hinc,' says Le Clerc, 'incipere ostendere similitudinem serpentis ænei, et Christi ipsius; nam ut nemo credidisset salutiferum futurum esse Israëlitis ab chersydris demorsis, conspectum ænei serpentis: ita nec quisquam poterat, eo tempore quo res contigit, sperare hominis crucifixi cognitionem unicam fore viam, qua homines ad fidem Deo habendam, parendumque evangelio, ex omnibus gentibus brevi adducendi essent. Verum hoc aliaque id genus theologis latius diducenda atque illustranda relinquimus.' Vide eos ad Joan. iii. 14.

In Isaias vi. 2. &c. the seraphim are represented as praising God. Origen had a notion that these seraphim were two, and that they were the Son and the Spirit of God: a paradox, which, though scarcely to be maintained, yet deserved not the severe censures which Jerom in his wrath was pleased to bestow upon it. See Vitringa. Eusebius says something very like it, Præp. Evang. vii. 15., where the notes of Vigerus may be consulted.

Esculapius, the god of physic, and of all the Pagan deities supposed to be the most beneficent, appeared, according to Pagan tradition, in the form of a serpent; and a serpent was sacred to him, and is described twisting round his

rod.

32. All the affection which Moses showed towards the people, all the cares and toils which he underwent on their account, were repaid by them with ingratitude, murmuring, and rebellion, and sometimes they threatened to stone him: the same returns the Jews made to Christ for all his benefits.

33. Moses was ill-used by his own family; his brother and sister rebelled against him: there was a time when Christ's own brethren believed not in him.

34. Moses had a very wicked and perverse generation committed to his care and conduct; and to enable him to rule them, miraculous powers were given to him, and he used his utmost endeavour to make the people obedient to God, and to save them from ruin; but in vain; in the space forty years they all fell in the wilderness, except two: Christ also was given to a generation not less wicked and perverse; his instructions and his miracles were lost VOL. I.

U

of

upon

them; and in about the same space of time, after they had rejected him, they were destroyed.

35. Moses was very meek above all the men that were on the face of the earth: so was Christ.

36. The people could not enter into the land of promise till Moses was dead: by the death of Christ the kingdom of heaven was open to believers.

37. In the death of Moses and Christ there is also a resemblance of some circumstances. Moses died, in one sense, for the iniquities of the people; it was their rebellion which was the occasion of it, which drew down the displea

sure of God upon them and upon him. • The Lord,' says Moses to them, was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou shalt not go in thither, but thou shalt die.' Deut. i. 37. Moses therefore went up, in the sight of the people, to the top of mount Nebo, and there he died, when he was in perfect vigour, when his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.' Christ suffered for the sins of men; and was led up, in the presence of the people, to mount Calvary, where he died in the flower of his age, and when he was in his full natural strength. Neither Moses nor Christ, as far as we may collect from sacred history, was ever sick, or felt any bodily decay or infirmity, which would have rendered them unfit for the toils they underwent: their sufferings were of another kind.

38. Moses was buried, and no man knew where his body lay: nor could the Jews find the body of Christ.

39. Lastly, as Moses, a little before his death, promised the people that God would raise them up a prophet like. unto him:' so Christ, taking leave of his afflicted disciples, told them, 'I will not leave you comfortless; I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter.'

Is this similitude and correspondence in so many things between Moses and Christ the effect of mere chance? Let us search all the records of universal history, and see if we can find a man who was so like to Moses as Christ was, and so like to Christ as Moses was. If we cannot find such an one, then have we found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.

But this is not all: for Moses adds, And it shall come

to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words,which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.' The Jews rejected Christ, and God rejected them, and gave them up to destruction; and as their offence against the Messias, and their behaviour after his death, was wicked beyond measure and beyond example, so God fulfilled the prophecies of Moses concerning them, that he would require it of them, and that he would make their plagues wonderful, would bring upon them calamities beyond measure and beyond example.

It may be observed, that a person can be produced who was very like to Moses, namely, Bacchus, who was an Ægyptian god. Huetius, in his Demonstratio Evangelica”, has, with much accuracy and learning, drawn up the comparison; and the resemblance is so great in so many particulars, that it cannot be supposed accidental: but then, first, Bacchus is a poetical deity, and the accounts of him are taken from fabulous history; secondly, many of the actions of the Jewish legislator were, in all probability, ascribed to him, and he is Moses in disguise: so the parallel ceases.

The economy of the Jewish and of the Christian church is similar, in many respects, and upon the whole, though in smaller occurrences the resemblance ought not to be too much urged: for so any thing may be made of any thing.

The parallel between Moses and Christ has been ex

n A book which has its use and value, but is more remarkable for erudition than for reasoning; which made a French writer say of it, in the words of Terence,

-ut te, cum tua

Monstratione, magnus perdat Jupiter!"

• The Egyptians, as Herodotus tells us, ii. 42. had a story concerning their god Hercules : Ηρακλέα θελῆσαι πάντως ιδέσθαι τὸν Δία, και τὸν οὐκ ἐθέλειν ὀφθῆναι ὑπ' αὐτοῦ· τέλος δὲ, ἐπεί τε λιπαρέειν τὸν Ἡρα κλέα, τὸν Δία μηχανήσασθαι, κρίον ἐκδείραντα προέχεσθαί τε τὴν κεφαλὴν ἀποταμόντα τοῦ κριοῦ, καὶ ἐνδύντα τὸ νάκος, οὕτω οἱ ἑαυτὸν ἐπιδέξαι. Quod Jupiter, quum ab Hercule, eum cernere volente, cerni nollet, tandem, quia orando instabat Hercules, hoc commentus sit, ut, amputato arietis capite, pelleque villosa, quam illi detraxerat, induta sibi, ita sese Herculi ostenderit.'

This Hercules seems to have been Moses, who said to God, I be seech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, Thou canst not see my face,' &c. Exod. xxxiii.

amined, in which we are authorised to seek and to expect a strong resemblance, both from the Old Testament, which declares that a prophet should arise like unto Moses; and from the New, which declares that Christ was that prophet. It deserves consideration, whether this consequence may be deduced; that, if Moses were a type of Christ, the people whom he delivered and conducted may be a type of the people to whom Christ was sent, and of the church which he established.

If this should be admitted as a probability (and it should not be offered as any thing more than conjectural), we may say that the generation which fell in the wilderness represents the Jews who rejected Christ, and perished for their disobedience.

The land of promise and of rest was a symbol of the

church of Christ.

The idolatry and iniquities of the Jewish nation are too exactly paralleled by the corruption which overspread the Christian church.

Many other resemblances might be pointed out which shall be omitted, since we cannot make it sufficiently evident that they were not accidental.

The destruction of Jerusalem, and that second coming of the Son of man to take vengeance of his foes, may perhaps prefigure the destruction of antichristian tyranny, and the manifestation of Christ, that is, of his power and spirit; and then may commence a better and happier æra, and such a renovation as may be called New heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.'

'The correspondencies of types and antitypes, though they be not themselves proper proofs of the truth of a doctrine, yet they may be very reasonable confirmations of the foreknowledge of God; of the uniform view of Providence under different dispensations; of the analogy, harmony, and agreement between the Old Testament and the New. The words in the law concerning one particular kind of death, He that is hanged is accursed of God, can hardly be conceived to have been put in upon any other account than with a view and foresight of the application made of it by St. Paul. The analogies between the paschal lamb and the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world;

between the Egyptian bondage, and the tyranny of sin; between the baptism of the Israelites in the sea and in the cloud, and the baptism of Christians; between the passage through the wilderness, and through the present world; between Jesus [Joshua] bringing the people into the promised land, and Jesus Christ being the captain of salvation to believers; between the sabbath of rest promised to the people of God in the earthly Canaan, and the eternal rest promised in the heavenly Canaan; between the liberty granted from the time of the death of the high-priest, to him that had fled into a city of refuge, and the redemption purchased by the death of Christ; between the high-priest entering into the holy place every year with the blood of others, and Christ's once entering with his own blood into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us: these, I say, and innumerable other analogies, between the shadows of things to come, of good things to come, the shadows of heavenly things, the figures for the time then present, patterns of things in the heavens, and the heavenly things themselves; cannot, without the force of strong prejudice, be conceived to have happened by mere chance, without any foresight or design. There are no such analogies, much less such series of analogies, found in the books of mere enthusiastic writers living in such remote ages from each other. It is much more credible, and reasonable to suppose, what St. Paul affirms, that these things were our examples; and that, in the uniform course of God's government of the world, all these things happened unto them of old for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. And hence arises that aptness of similitude in the application of several legal performances to the morality of the Gospel, that it can very hardly be supposed not to have been originally intended.' Clarke's Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Relig.

THE remaining part of this book shall contain remarks on the Apostolical Constitutions and Canons, the Sibylline Oracles, and some passages from antient poets cited by the Fathers, the works of Barnabas and of Hermas, the Recognitions of Clemens, the Epistle to Diognetus, the Epistles of Ignatius, &c.