Lastly, upon this point; We may say of every thing that was present to David, the fathers, and all the prophets, though the revelations to them run in terms corresponding, indeed, to the language, and manners, and things present with them, as God said to Abraham concerning Ishmael, who was born after the flesh, and not by promise, This is not thy son; but in Isaac shall thy seed be called :'-which seed was Christ.

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Obj. 3. David was a type of Christ; and therefore, though we do not deny there may be something of a spiritual meaning in some of the Psalms relating to Christ, yet there is always a true literal sense which we must keep by; for our spiritual edification in Christ, no doubt!" And if at any time they are applied to Christ, it is only by way of accommodation, in a secondary kind of sense; while the genuine, original, primary sense, is only true of the type, and not of the antitype.

Ans. That David, being an anointed king and prophet, had appointed him by the Lord an official part to act, in which sense the priests, and all the other kings and prophets of that nation, as well as he, might be called the visible representatives, messengers, or officers of Christ, is freely allowed; but that David (or any of them) in any other sense was a type of Christ, so as to have states, frames, and experiences, similar to Christ's, which were typical of Christ's states, frames, experiences, remains to be proved. Shew wherein David is, and wherein not, a type of

Christ; for that he cannot be so always, is evident from Psalm xl. where it is said, I come

to do thy will, O God-A body hast thou pre'pared me-to wit, for a sacrifice or sin-offering. How did David typically offer up himself a sacrifice or sin-offering? or what greater likeness had David to the sufferings of Christ, and following glory, than thousands of other believers before or since his coming in the flesh? They' were all ordained to suffer with Christ in this world, and to reign with him in the next; nay, not only to be as he was, in tribulation while in the body, but also to glory, triumph, and reign, even in that tribulation itself: so that, when they glory, they glory not alone in the joy to come, but in those things also which concern their infirmities. Are the saints, therefore, because they have all their adversity and prosperity given them of God for their joy, and his own gloryare they therefore all types of Christ? But lest you say we mock, were all the Old-Testament saints types of Christ? How absurd the supposition! Why then single out David for a type, except you tell us where it is written? It is not supposed you would make him a type also in his murder and adultery, though you would do well to consider how far your argument would lead you. As to that scheme of applying quotations from the Old Testament to Christ only by way of accommodation, though all the doctors of the world were at it, as, alas! some of them are, it is such an outrageous insult and burlesque put

upon the Holy Ghost, that it ought not even to be once named among saints as a thing possible with God! It unhinges at one blow the whole Old Testament and the New! It rests the veracity of all the prophets and apostles, that is, of God, upon a mere moveable slip-board of dissimulation and deceit! So that, according to it, the gospel may be yet but a cunningly devised fable, and not the accomplishment of the promises made to the fathers! By the help of that same accommodation of yours, a sharp wit might have taught the apostles to have established their doctrine as the fulfilment of ancient prophecies, from the tradition of the elders, Æsop's fables, or even Mahomet's Alcoran, had it then existed, by taking suitable passages in those books, tearing them away from their original sense and connection, and framing them so as to express another quite different meaning in the same words; which is your famous accommodation! a business suited only to the genius and abilities of that father of lies, who is said to have solaced a congregation of witches, on the night before they were to be burnt, by preaching to them, from John xiv. 1.

Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in • GOD, believe also in ME;' meaning himself. But be that as it will, in his temptation of the Lord, and in all his temptations wherewith he tempts people by misrepresenting the Scriptures, he discovers, to those who are not ignorant of his devices, his abundant skill and address at accommodating!

Obj. 4. But many parts of the Psalms are such, that it is impossible to conceive how they can be interpreted, as spoken of, or in the person of Christ. Ans. This is such an objection as concludes with equal strength against what yourself must allow to be the apostolic application; all those things which you ignorantly boggle at, confessions of sin, heavy complaints, prayers and supplications for pardon and deliverance, thanksgivings and exultations for these, vehement expostulations with God, with men, weighty imprecations upon enemies, Jewish language and manners, (and do you scruple at them in the Psalms !), and the like, being all to be found in those very Psalms, incontestibly interpreted by the apostles of Christ: so that the objection lies, not against man, but the Holy Ghost himself: take Psalms xl. lxix. xvi. xxii. lxxxix. xxxv. for instances. This is such an observation as the whole weight of the cause might be made to rest upon it. But to be more particular: it can be no objection against our interpretation of the Psalms, though there may be some strong metaphorical expressions, spirited exclamations, and, to our appre hension, several other very strange things in them, which we cannot exactly shew the meaning of, being certain we have all the sense or spirit of them somewhere in the New Testament. For the illustration of this point, you may consider our true country proverb, Every hair casts its own shadow: which remains still true, though it be no easy affair to untwist the rope, and say,

which is the particular shadow of every individual hair. And we are the easier on this head when we hear the apostle, Heb. ix. in general discoursing of the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant, the golden pot that had manna, Aaron's rod that budded, the mercy-seat, &c. as shadows, the bodily substance whereof was Christ, and then saying, Of which things we cannot now speak particularly.' Thus, when the house was built, there was the less need of the pattern or model; unless you will say that, because a house is built after some plan, therefore we dwell in the house and in the plan together. Neither need we have insisted so much upon this point, if it had not been for the mischievous consequences following upon a misinterpretation of the Psalms; many things wherein, no doubt, as well as in all the other writings of ancient inspiration, may be like the snuffers, pans, shovels, basins, pins, loops, taches, knops, flowers, chapiters, and certain additions of thin-work over upon the altar of incense; which things, being part of the tabernacle and temple, were typical; yet who but a madman will offer to shew you their correspondent antitypes? you may take also into this account the almost universal prejudice arising from the false teaching of near three thousand years, since the Psalm's were delivered to the Jewish church from whence our translators, though perhaps the most unexceptionable in the world, having had David always running in their head, have given their whole translation of the Psalms