All these sacrifices and ceremonies were then either types or nonsense. Now these are things too clear, and too lofty, to be thought nonsense.
To know if the prophets confined their view in the Old Testament, or saw therein other things.
_Typical._--The key of the cipher. _Veri adoratores._[258]--_Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi._[259]
Is. i, 21. Change of good into evil, and the vengeance of God. Is. x, I; xxvi, 20; xxviii, I. Miracles: Is. xxxiii, 9; xl, 17; xli, 26; xliii, 13.
Jer. xi, 21; xv, 12; xvii, 9. _Pravum est cor omnium et incrustabile; quis cognoscet illud?_ that is to say, Who can know all its evil? For it is already known to be wicked. _Ego dominus_, etc.--vii, 14, _Faciam domui huic_, etc. Trust in external sacrifices--vii, 22, _Quia non sum locutus_, etc. Outward sacrifice is not the essential point--xi, 13, _Secundum numerum_, etc. A multitude of doctrines.
Is. xliv, 20-24; liv, 8; lxiii, 12-17; lxvi, 17. Jer. ii, 35; iv, 22-24; v, 4, 29-31; vi, 16; xxiii, 15-17.
_Types_,--The letter kills. All happened in types. Here is the cipher which Saint Paul gives us. Christ must suffer. An humiliated God. Circumcision of the heart, true fasting, true sacrifice, a true temple. The prophets have shown that all these must be spiritual.
Not the meat which perishes, but that which does not perish.
"Ye shall be free indeed."[260] Then the other freedom was only a type of freedom.
_Contradiction._--We can only describe a good character by reconciling all contrary qualities, and it is not enough to keep up a series of harmonious qualities, without reconciling contradictory ones. To understand the meaning of an author, we must make all the contrary passages agree.
Thus, to understand Scripture, we must have a meaning in which all the contrary passages are reconciled. It is not enough to have one which suits many concurring passages; but it is necessary to have one which reconciles even contradictory passages.
Every author has a meaning in which all the contradictory passages agree, or he has no meaning at all. We cannot affirm the latter of Scripture and the prophets; they undoubtedly are full of good sense. We must then seek for a meaning which reconciles all discrepancies.