CHAPTER V. 4t5 the true heaven where God dwells on a throne of grace; Heb. ix. 8, 24. and iv. 16. The high- priest's entrance with the blood of the sacrifice and with the names ofthe tribes on his breast into the most holy place, to appear before God there for the Jews, is a plain figure of Christ's entrance into heaven with his own blood to appear before God for us; Heb. ix. 12, 25. The Jew- ish incense was a type or figure of prayer ; I2ev. v. 8. and viii. 3. The Jewish sabbath or day of rest, as well as the land of Canaan, was a type of the rest and release of believers from sin and guilt, and from an uneasy conscience under the gospel, and the final rest of thesaints in heaven ; Heb. iv. 3, 4, 9, 10. This might be proved more at large by some other scriptures, where the Jewish rites in general are called figures or shadows of the good things of the gospel ; Col. ii. 16, 17. Heb. viii. 5. and ix. 1 -14, 23, 24. 117. Q. Did the Jews themselves understand the spiritual meaning of these ceremonies? A. Perhaps a few of them who were more enlightened might understand the meaning of some of the chiefest and most considerable types ; but the bulk of the people can hardly be supposed to have understood the spiritual meaning of them : at least, the bible gives us no inti- mation of it. 118. Q. How could they be appointed as types and figures of spiritual thing , if the people whowere required to use them in their worship did not understand the spiritual meaning of them ? A. 1. The Jewish dispensation was the childish or in- fant-state of the church of God, as it is described ; Gal. iv. 1, 2, 3-11. Now children are sometimes employed in several things by their wiser parents, the chief design and meaning whereof they understand not till riper years. -2. If these cere- monies were not understood by the ancient Jews to whom they were given, yet they might be designed as types and figures of Christ and the blessings of the gospel in order to confirm the religion of Christ and the gospel, when it should be afterward published to the world, by seeing how happily it answers these ancient types. 119. Q. Wherein doth this appear? A. St. Paul does actually confirm christianity this way, especially in his epistle to the Hebrews, by shewing how these ancient types and ceremonies are fulfilled in the gospel of Christ. Note. As a prophecy is the foretelling of things to come in words, so a type is the foretelling of something to come in some real emblem or figure or resemblance of it : Now as there are many ancient prophecies which were not understood by the per- sons to whom they were first spoken, nor by the persons who spoke with them ; 1 Pet. i. 11, 12. yet when they are fulfilled, they come to be better understood, and bear {vitness to the hand of-God both in the prophecy and in the accomplishment: So
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