millions now required, will have upon the Federal cause; and we are not without a hope that these two rude monitors will argue for peace with a voice which will be heard and felt throughout the whole of the Federal States. A great fight has already begun, but we cannot wait for the result.

Meanwhile, as we enter upon another year, let us not forget that the voice of praise and thanksgiving, as well as that of confession of national sin, and intercession for the world at large, well becomes us. The 'Loodiana week' seems to have become a settled institution; the second week of January, a season of special prayer. We cannot doubt that a blessing must follow, and therefore we gladly mention it.. At the same time, let it not be forgotten that the Church of England provides her members with special seasons for prayer on every subject which can interest a Christian church or family. Ember days, for the ministers of Christ. The Epiphany, for missions. Easter week, for the work and offices of the Lord Jesus, and the honour due unto His name. Whit-Sunday, for the outpouring of the Spirit; and so on throughout the year. How happy will the coming year be to all those of us who use its varied seasons thus, "with a true penitent heart and lively faith."

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Exaplov will perceive that he has been anticipated; otherwise we should have had much pleasure in making use of his contribution. Shall we return his papers?

We have several letters of importance which we are obliged to postpone; most of them will appear, we hope, in our next number.

THE three great annual Feasts form a prominent feature in the system of the Old Covenant; and no one who recognises the typical character of that system as a whole, will doubt that they bear their part in the office of symbolical prophecy. Indeed, there is no part of the system which has secured for its typology a more distinct recognition and a more detailed study, than the Feast of the Passover. The facts commemorated, and the ceremonies performed, combine to force their prophetic reference on the least attentive eye. Such striking resemblances in the outline, and such various coincidences in the details, would have been sufficient of themselves for the purpose, if the inspired writers of the New Testament had not expressly interpreted its symbols, and freely appropriated its terms, in their exposition of the mysteries of Redemption. The Feast of Pentecost, again, presents itself to our minds in not less clearly ascertained relations to the New Testament history; those relations being fixed by that Divine providence which suspended the outpouring of the Spirit till "the day of Pentecost was fully come."

Thus the two first Feasts of the typical economy, synchronising with the two events which respectively founded and constituted the kingdom of God, have had the key of their interpretation appended to them in our sight. It is not so with the third Feast. The key is not hung by its side; or, if it be there, it is like one which drapery conceals, and must be felt for because it is not seen. The Feast of Tabernacles is far from meeting the same degree of recognition which is secured to its predecessors. Its name is less familiarly blended with Christian ideas, and its correspondence with any great step in the history of the kingdom of God is seldom noticed, and doubtfully allowed. Yet a moment's reflection on the careful

symmetry of the typical system, and the precise bearings of its other parts, is sufficient to convince us that here also the reference can be no less precise; while the co-ordinate, or perhaps I should say, the superior dignity of this Feast asserts a corresponding grandeur for the event which it foreshadows. In offering a few considerations on this subject, I hope to assist some minds to a clearer and more settled view of this part of the typical teaching; and if of this part, then of the whole, since the whole is constituted by close and delicate relations between the several parts, so that when one is obscured the effect of all is diminished.

The birth of Christ is the event to which the Feast of Tabernacles has been most usually considered to refer. Mede is the chief author of this opinion, and his argument is as follows-1. That as the Passover and the Pentecost were promises of the death of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, so there must be some one event in the Gospel history corresponding to the Feast of Tabernacles; 2. That there is no other event of adequate dignity but the birth of Christ; 3. That there is strong ground for concluding that this event did take place, not at the time of year at which it has ever been celebrated, but about the time at which the Feast of Tabernacles was held; 4. That there is a correspondence in the idea as well as in the time; the Incarnation being the entrance into a human tabernacle, according to the saying of St. John, "The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us."*

In resisting this appropriation of the type, I would first observe that there is a fallacy in the alleged correspondence of idea. If the Feast had been ordained in remembrance of the Tabernacle being reared and occupied by the Divine Presence, the resemblance would have held; but that event occurred at another period of the year, and is nowhere mentioned in connexion with this Feast, which is, on the contrary, expressly stated to be a memorial of the tabernacle-life of the people themselves. "Ye shali dwell in booths seven days, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt." (Lev. xxiii. 42, 43.) But the real objection to Mede's view of the case lies in the position which this Feast occupies in relation to the others; for it is the last of the Feasts, being always spoken of in the Law of Moses as the concluding solemnity, and always regarded by the Jews themselves as being (in the words of Philo) "the last of the year, and a conclusion fixed and holy." It is inconceivable that the close of the typical

* Mede's Works. Book I., Disc. 47.

At the close of his book, De Septenario, he speaks of the last day. that great day of the Feast,”ἑπτὰ δ' ἡμέραις ὀγδόην ἐπισφραγίζεται καλέσας ἐξόδιον

celebrations should be meant to correspond with the commencement of the historical fulfilments, and that the relation of the types to one another should be precisely the reverse of that of the antitypes.

Considering this objection to be fatal to the opinion which has been mentioned, I proceed to a survey of the grounds on which a more true application of the type may be established.

The Jewish Feasts had a double character, historical and agricultural. They were acts of homage to God, first as the Author of their national existence and Director of the events by which it had been constituted, and then as the Lord of their land and the Giver of its yearly produce. It is apparent at a glance that these are not two sets of unconnected ideas accidentally conjoined by positive ordinance, but two sides of one idea-that, namely, of covenant relation to God, a relation which had been established in definite historical events, and which was recognised as underlying the foundations of life, and sanctifying the common means of its support. Each Feast celebrated one step in the historical progress, and at the same time acknowledged a fresh instalment of the gifts of nature; and an attentive eye will observe a correspondence between the historical and the physical advance in each of their several stages. This double reference of the Feasts as solemnities of the Old Covenant affords us a double advantage in determining their bearings on the New. The combination of their historical and agricultural meanings throws out their typical significance more clearly.

I. The historical reference of the Passover is undoubted. It celebrated the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, when at the same moment the oppressing power was struck to the heart, and the chosen people started into life, broke with the past and commenced its march towards the promised land: "It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing them out of the land of Egypt." The particular ceremonies recalled many particulars of the event; but the reason of the institution was not in the marvellous nature of those particulars, but in the relations of the event as a whole to the existence of Israel as a covenant nation. That event was the crisis of their national redemption, the beginning of their independent life as the people of God.

The Feast of Pentecost was fixed for the fiftieth day after the Passover, completing its week of weeks. Thus attached to a former Feast, and itself consisting but of a single day (unlike the other two, which were each continued for a week),

αὐτὴν, οὐκ ἐκείνης, ὡς ἔοικε, μόνον τῆς ἑορτῆς, ἀλλὰ πασῶν τῶν ἐτησίων ὅσας κατηριθμήσαμεν. Τελευταία γάρ ἐστι τοῦ ἐνιαύτου, καὶ συμπέρασμα σταθερώτερον καὶ ἁγιώτερον.

it seems rather to indicate the completion of what went before, and may be the less required to commemorate any distinct historical event. Yet it does synchronise with the event which completed the redemption from Egypt; for it appears by careful calculation to have fallen on the same day on which the Law was given from Mount Sinai, and is asserted by some of the chief Rabbinical authorities to have had that reference in the mind of the people, and to have borne the name of the Feast of the Giving of the Law. Yet in the silence of Scripture, and of Philo and Josephus, as to any such reference, I can only mention the simple fact, that Passover and Pentecost coincided as to time with the departure from Egypt and the Covenant at Sinai.

By those two events the nation was constituted. It wanted nothing but its home. The entrance on the purchased possession was the next great step by which the Divine intention was completed; for the state of transition was ended, and the promise was all fulfilled, when the chosen people were placed in possession of their liberty, their law, and their land. I cannot doubt that the historical reference of the Feast of Tabernacles is to this last great change.

This Festival was to be celebrated after they had settled in their land, as a memorial, not of a single event, but of a whole past state of life (Lev. xxiii. 43), "as a remembrance (to use the words of Philo) of the long travel in the deep wilderness, where, as they moved from one station to another, they dwelt in tents for many a year." Now, in the mere fact of having once lived in tents, taken by itself, there is no ground for a perpetual ordinance of national thanksgiving, especially one signalized by repeated commands to make it a time of rejoicing. But when the people are directed to record this fact for ever in the midst of their land, their cities, and their homes, we see that there is abundant cause for such thankful gladness, in the contrast between the pilgrim state of the wilderness and the rest and possession to which it had conducted them. Their joy was not that they had once lived in tabernacles, but that they had ceased

* Υπόμνησις τῆς τῶν προγόνων μακρᾶς ὁδοιπορίας, ἣν δι' ἐρήμης ποιούμενοι βαθείας, σκηναῖς πολυετούς χρόνου καθ' ἕκαστον σταθμὸν ἐνδιαιτῶντο. De Sept. Vol. I. p. 297.

Prof. Stanley (on the name Succoth) says:-"always habitations of man or beast made of leafy boughs. The Feast of Tabernacles' so called was celebrated in such huts, and is always designated by this word, thus showing that it did not commemorate the tents in the wilderness, but probably the booths of the first start (Succoth, Lev. xxiii. 43;

Exod. xiii. 20), the point of transition between the settled and nomadic life." Sinai, appendix.

Doubtless the first halting place derived its name from the novelty of the temporary habitations, these perhaps variously contrived, but certainly not all of leafy boughs. Yet these first methods of shelter could only have a permanent interest as the beginning of the life which followed; and we have the consistent evidence of those who kept the Feast, that they did therein commemorate the tents of the wilderness.