History of the Old Covenant. By J. H. Kurtz [pp. 451-486]

Kurtz on the Old Covenant.
referred to some other subject as indicated by the connexion, and
if it is applied to Christ, it can only be in the way of accommodation, and altogether apart from the real scope of the writer.
When they are confronted with the manifest incongruity of the
language with any other subject than Christ, they make a shift
to explain it away as a figure of speech, hyperbole, oriental
imagery, or something of the sort. Some have even pushed
their consistency to the still more absurd length of denying that
the Jewish people entertained any expectation of a Messiah's
coming. Our readers, however, would not thank us for proving
either that the Jews entertained expectations of a Messiah's
coming, or that such expectations were founded on their sacred
books. If then we are compelled to admit this, there is only
one other horn to the dilemma stated above, and it must be
acknowledged not only that Christ is to be found in the Old
Testament in its plain predictions and its evident types, but
that he is to be found in it elsewhere also.
It is not our design here to enumerate all the methods which
have been proposed of solving the question before us, nor to
enter upon the merits and demerits of each in detail. Several
of the early fathers and others assumed an allegorical sense of
Scripture different from its plain and obvious meaning, and
always underlying it, often indeed in their expositions superseding it. Others have employed every variety of method in
dealing with scripture types. One class in order to make out a
type everywhere has assumed the most fanciful and grotesque
analogies. Another has affirmed with positiveness that nothing
should be admitted to be a type, for which there cannot be
adduced the express warrant of the New Testament writers in
so many words. While another still has been willing to admit
a type there also, where it would be natural to conclude that
one was contained by proceeding on the same principles, which
the inspired writers of the New Testament appear to have followed. The fault of both the allegorical and the typical
methods just referred to, lies in assuming that there is either
everywhere or at least in certain parts of the Old Testament,
what has been called a double sense, one obvious, one con cealed; one designed by the writer, and lying within his imme diate scope, the other designed by the Holy Spirit to refer to
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[JULY