LECT. This confideration, when we fee the force of it, will reconcile us to fome strange things, which might appear very unreafonable, if they were to be confidered only in themselves, not under the relation which they bear, and were intended to bear to higher and greater things. How monftrous would it seem in any other history, that a man fhould be buried in the body of a fish, and caft up alive again after three days upon the dry land! But if this ftrange thing happened, that it might afterwards be compared with the return of Jesus Christ from the dead, for the falvation of all mankind; then the preservation of Jonah becomes fit and reasonable; it being of infinite confequence to the world, that the fact of Christ's refurrection, when it should happen, fhould be admitted and believed; and fo the cafe was worthy of the di vine interpofition. Jonah was not preferved by a miracle for his own sake, but for a fign, to instruct the people of God in the truth of their falvation, and the peculiar means or mode of it. Two strange events of the fame kind are more credible than VIII. than one; because the objection is removed LECT. which might arise from, the fingularity of the cafe. The refurrection of Chrift is a true fact, and a credible fact: for why? it was forefhewn by the preservation of Jonah; another fact of the fame kind. And again, to take the matter the other way; the preservation of Jonah was a miracle, worthy of God, from its relation to the refurrection of Chrift; the most important fact in itself, and the most necessary to be believed, of all that should ever happen from the beginning of the world to the end of it. Jonah's deliverance was intended to do what the apoftles were fent over the world to do, viz. to witness the refurrection of Jesus Christ. Our Savi our himself hath directed us to make this ufe of Jonah's hiftory. The Jews required of him some miraculous fact as a testimony that he was the true Meffiah: and he gave them this as fonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; fo fhall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Here the perfon *Matthew xii. 39, 49. of VIII. LECT. of Jonah is a fign of the perfon of Chrift, and the belly of a devouring fifh a fign of the power of the grave, by which he should be detained for the fame time as Jonah was. The lives of the other prophets had a like relation to the times and tranf . actions of the gospel. From a paffage which is taken out of the 41ft Pfalm, and applied to the treafon of Judas; it appears that fome of the most remarkable circumstances in the life of the prophet David were prefigurative of other parallel circumftances in the life of Chrift. It is obferved by our Saviour himself, that in the treafon of Judas, that fcripture was fulfilled, which faith, he that eateth bread with me hath lift up his heel against me. The familiar friend of David, whofe treachery is here complained of, was Achitophel, to whom these words, in the letter of them, must be supposed to have referred: but if they were fulfilled, as our Saviour faith, in Judas, then they were prophetical; and the fuffering of David from VIII. from a traitor, forefhewed that the true LECT. David fhould be a fufferer from a perfon of the fame character. Achitophel, a man entrusted with the chief management of David's affairs, took part against his master, and betrayed him to those who fought his life and Judas in like manner, being first entrusted by his mafter, betrayed him to the chief priests, that he might be put to death. But now let us mark the fequel; for both thefe traitors came to the fame tragical end; they both hanged themselves, when they failed of the fuccess which their ambition aimed at: and if Judas had studied the scripture as much as he studied the world, he might have foreseen his own fate in that of his brother traitor. Achitophel. Unless the character of David, as a prophet, had a relation to the person of Christ, how can we account for it, that the name of David is applied to him by Ezechiel four hundred years after the natural David was dead? On what other principle could David speak fuch words in the 16th Pfalm, as could be verified only Ezechiel xxxvii. 25. * in VIII. LECT. in the person of Chrift? Thou wilt not leave my foul in hell, neither wilt thou fuffer thine boly one to see corruption. Concerning this paffage, St. Peter argued with the Jews, that it could not be meant of David himfelf, the memorials of whose death and burial were still remaining among them. That the Providence of God did exhibit in the person of David a character prefigurative of the Meffiah, can never be doubted if we compare their characters together: both were both were shepherds, prophets, kings and conquerors; both were despised and fet at nought by their brethren; oppreffed and perfecuted by the powerful; ungratefully reviled, mocked at, and betrayed, by rebels and traitors; and both were raised to the throne of Ifrael (called the throne of David) in oppofition to all the power and malice of their enemies. From this fimilitude of character, all men might infallibly diftinguish the true fon of David, when he fhould have fulfilled his course, and attained the kingdom on the holy hill of Sion. |