n
consistently deny the existence in the Old Testament of such types, for
they interpret portions of its history in a typical way. But it is of
the highest importance that we understand, in respect to such history,
that it has _a true and proper significance_ of its own, without respect
to its typical import. It is not allegory, which has, literally taken,
no substance. It is not mere type, like the rites of the Mosaic law, the
meaning of which is exhausted in their office of foreshadowing the
antitype. It is veritable history, valid for the men of its own day,
fulfilling its office in the plan of God's providence, and containing,
when we look at it simply as history, its own lessons of instruction. We
call it typical history because, following the guidance of the New
Testament writers, we are constrained to regard it as so ordered and
shaped by God's providence as to prefigure something higher in the
Christian dispensation.

No careful student of the New Testament can for a moment doubt that
David's kingdom typified the kingdom of Christ. There is, indeed, a very
important sense in which David's kingdom was identical with that of
Christ; for its main element was the visible church of God, founded on
the covenant made with Abraham, and therefore in all ages one and
indivisible. Rom. 11:17-24; Gal. 3:14-18; Ephes. 2:20. But we now speak
of David's kingdom in its outward form, which was temporary and typical
of something higher. In this sense it is manifest that God appointed it
to foreshadow that of the Messiah. David's headship adumbrated the
higher headship of the Redeemer; his conflicts with the enemies of God's
people and his final triumph over them, Christ's conflicts and
victories. The same thing was true of Solomon, and in a measure of all
the kings of David's line, so far as they were true to their office as
the divinely appointed leaders of the covenant people. Unless we adopt
this principle, the view which the New Testament takes of a large number
of Psalms--the so-called _Messianic_ psalms--becomes utterly visionary.

But neither David's kingdom nor his headship over it was mere type. The
nation over which he presided was a historic reality, a true power among
the other nations of the earth. His leadership also, with its conflicts
and triumphs, belongs to true history. It brought to the people of his
own day true deliverance from the power of their enemies; and it
contains, when we study it without reference