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    instances without end . " ( P . 34 . ) We presume him to mean , that unless Scripture declares " this designed prefiguration" to exist , there is no proof of a type ; for if by connexion in the second passage he means any thing else than what he has called designed prefiguration in the first , we are thrown back into all that vagueness from which his definition seemed

    intended to rescue the subject . To the majority of writers on typical theology , it is not wonderful that the latitude of interpretation which their system allowed was no objection to it ; this unbounded licence has been its chief recommendation ; but we are surprised that it should not have occurred to such authors as Mr . Chevallier and Bishop Marsh , when seeking for a solid distinction between a real and an arbitrary type , that the rule laid down above affords no criterion at all . The actions of the type must " designedly ,

    by the providence of God , prefigure those of the antitype ; " does Mr . Chevallier then suppose , that there can be any degree of resemblance between the actions of two men ' s lives , which is not designed by the providence of God } It will hardly be said that in such and such a resemblance there is no type because there is no prefiguration ; this is the very question at issue , what constitutes prefiguration ; if it is meant to involve the idea of a type , Mr . Chevallier has given a bad specimen of his powers of definition . It

    cannot mean such a figuring as communicates a previous knowledge of the thing hereafter to exist ; for confessedl y many types communicated no such knowledge ; it comes to this , therefore , that every man is a type whose actions , by the design of Providence , resemble the real actions of another , while that other , in virtue of the same resemblance , is the antitype . Now we hold , and so , doubtless , does the Hulsean Lecturer , that " known unto God are all his works from the foundation of the world ; " that every quality and every

    action of every intelligent being is foreseen and foreordained by him ; and , consequently , that there is not between any two objects or any two persons any resemblance , which is not designed by his Providence . What then becomes of the distinction between typical resemblances and other resemblances , sipce all are alike foreseen and foreordained ? The difficulty cannot be got rid of by saying , that in the case of types the resemblance is ordained , in the case of other things the qualities and circumstances only are so ; for

    these things being what they are , they cannot but resemble . Mr . Chevallier elsewhere lays jt down , that the resemblance must be studied ( p . 3 ) and preconcerted ( p . 65 ) : setting aside the strange impropriety of such phrases , as applied to the Divine counsels , it comes to the same thing . Nor are we provided with any better criterion by the subsequent remark , that the existence of no type is to be assumed except on the express authority of Scripture ; Scripture knows nothing of accidental resemblances , or accidents of any kind in the dispensations of God , and therefore neither has made nor could make

    any such distinctions as those of modern theologians . If , indeed , it had been said , that the authority of Scripture must determine on what points of resemblance between persons and events under the old dispensation and the new it was profitable to insist for the purpose of instruction or argument , this would be an intelligible criterion , and by its application , the volumes of typology , which once threatened to multiply so much " that

    the world itself could not contain the books which were written , " will shrink into a nutshell . In the discourses of our Saviour himself , neither the word typenov any thing answering to it occurs , nor does he ever build any argument of his divine mission on the fulfilment in his person of those prefigurations , which , if we may believe uninspired teachers , existed in such abundance . If , however , our-Xord has not said this of himself , they have not scrupled to say

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    40 Review . — The Bamp ton and Hulsean Lectures .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1828, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2556/page/40/