264 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



of a twofold interpretation to get over the limitations of 

 the old Covenant. 



2. What the real nature of the question is becomes 

 clearer when we put the Prophecy and the Typic of the 

 Old Testament side by side. On this important point I 

 give at this stage only a hint. When we say that Old 

 Testament kings and priests were types of Christ, that 

 Old Testament institutions were types of heavenly things, 

 we mean this that what Christ does for His people the 

 king or priest really, though in a lower way, did for the 

 Old Testament nation that all these institutions played 

 in a measure the same part in the preservation of a people 

 for God s glory in the Old Testament, as Christianity and 

 New Testament institutions play in the New Testament 

 dispensation. Then it was the earthly kingdom of God ; 

 now it is the spiritual. But the functions necessary for 

 the maintenance of even an earthly theocracy must have 

 much not only analogous, but really common, to the 

 functions of the spiritual kingdom of God ; and this is 

 what we mean when we constitute between the two the 

 relation of type and antitype. Now surely the same 

 thing will apply to prophecy too. The prophetic hopes 

 rise above the mere historical type and stretch on towards 

 the spiritual fulfilment. But how far do they succeed in 

 doing this ? Do they not in many parts of their descrip 

 tions of things to come remain limited to the mere typical 

 sphere ? so that, just as the Old Testament institutions 

 have disappeared in the New Testament things which 

 contain all their true spiritual meaning without the 

 earthly husk ; so in some parts of prophecy the fulfilment, 

 while a real fulfilment of the spiritual idea of the prophecy, 

 may not carry out that idea in the form which was limited 

 by the prophet s Old Testament standpoint. 



3. Once more, and again in a single word, let me 

 indicate that it is only in this way that the idea of suc 

 cessive fulfilments of prophecy can receive an intelligible 

 form and a firm basis. The prophets are accustomed 



