defended from the perverse glosses of fallacious theorists, as well as from all mistakes of erroneous or incompetent translators. The Holy Spirit well knew that grievous wolves and false teachers should enter the flock of Christ, who would pervert or falsely apply the word of truth; it was then most important, that however perversely they might wrest Scripture to their own destruction; yet, that the Scriptures, the fountain of truth itself, should be incapable of adulteration; and that the written word of God without, as the living word within, should flow an unpolluted fountain of truth throughout all generations of men.

In order then to effect this, God has promulgated his revelation, not only in a language of words, but in a language of things; and the same truth, which is in one place laid down in the form of an abstract position, is, in twenty or an hundred more, rendered palpable or visible by substantial sensible symbols; so that if the abstract doctrine should be wrested, the multitude of parabolic types of the same thing point out with certainty the real sense: and thus the words, which in a short compass present the essence of the truth to the reflecting and discerning, received an exact limitation and definite exposition from the more cumbrous and

unwieldly, but palpable and substantial, apparatus of things by which they are exhibited to the unlearned. Hence it having pleased God in every case to exhibit a long series of types and symbols, before he unfolded any abstract truth itself; that doctrine became recognised, as soon as ever it was exhibited in express words, by his messengers: and thus the revelation of one age received its attestation, by giving the key to unlock the institutions of the preceding one. As for example, when John the Baptist explained the ritual of sacrifice, by declaring Christ to be the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Thus the types, symbols, figurative personages, histories, and institutions, and in general all the external sense of Scripture, is in fact, a perpetual comment, limit, and counter-check, fixing and defining the spiritual parts; and thus elucidating the theoretic part, by a constant translation into a language of palpable fact and sensible analogies, ever running parallel to it.

It may, moreover, be truly said, that as historic circumstances, persons, and characters are in their own nature transient; so they in their own nature can only acquire religious interest and dignity to us by the eternal truths they convey; and which thus makes the most minute

and apparently trivial circumstance really important. Thus, for example, we are informed in the book of Kings, that the doors and doorposts of the holy of holies, the chamber where the Shekinah dwelt, were of OLIVE-WOOD; which would appear a most trivial piece of information, and wholly unworthy of the Divine Spirit to record. Considering, however, that every word given by God must be important; that his word cannot be broken, nor a jot or tittle of it pass away till all be fulfilled, we examine yet farther, and we find that the Hebrew name for Olive is n't, ZAYEETH, or the tree of light.* Accordingly we find olive-oil useful to give light, or as a medicament for healing and softening wounds. As the tree then of light and of healing, we see why it is the type of the gracet imparted by the Holy Spirit, whose office it is, as a light, to lead us into all truth, and to take of the things of Christ, and show them to us; and we also see why it is also its type as an emollient and healer, whose office it is to change the heart of stone into the heart of flesh; and to mollify, with its healing unction, the wounds

From the root ", He was bright, or shone.

† Hence, too, amongst the Pagans, we find the double olive of wisdom and of peace, or allaying the inflammation of discord and hardness of hatred.

and bruises and putrefying sores which defile the natural man from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. This explanation being made, we now see why, as a type of the operation of the Holy Spirit, in its double office of wisdom, of healing, or peace, anointing with oil should have been used in the consecration of prophets, priests, and kings; and we now understand why olive-wood doors should form the entrance to the chambers where Shekinah dwells, and is revealed; showing that the light, the teaching, and softening of the Holy Spirit must form an access to the chamber of the heart, in which Christ dwells; and that it is only through the Spirit, and by his light and love, we can discern him, for no man can call him Lord but by the Spirit; or see the kingdom of heaven without being born again of water and of the Spirit.

We find precisely the same figure used in other parts of Scripture. We find in the patriarchal dispensation, the dove, the type of the Holy Spirit, bringing to Noah a leaf of the olivetree, as a type of Christ, the promised branch. The dove came in the evening, for that dispensation was the time of twilight and shadows, which had not yet been dispersed by the noonday beams of the Sun of Righteousness. He brought only a leaf of the olive; for under the

Old Testament dispensation, his full fatness was not poured forth; but the spot of the agony of our Saviour was on the oil press* of fatness; for his sufferings are the full pouring out of the oil of light and healing on his whole church. He is the High-priest on whose head the anointing oil was poured that ran down on his beard, and even down on the skirts of his garments, the church; for the anointing of the Spirit was poured out without measure upon him; and from him it streams over all the tribes of his church, that one beautiful coat, seamless though of many colours, worn by our Joseph, the chosen amongst many brethren, the minister of the great and universal Sovereign. And when our Lord ascended, he left his church, whom he found in the Wilderness, upon the Mount of Olives; for he had placed before her a feast of fat things, and opened the full treasures of light and health to her. She had experienced him to be the good Samaritan, who had healed her wounds by pouring in the wine of his blood, and the anointing oil of his softening and enlightening grace.

Of the suitability of the type of the olive, a most striking proof may be added from its

The word gethsemane means oil press.