volume 4

34 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [<JHAP. III.
to pass. For instance, Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. 15,
sets out the la
mentation of Rachel, that is, the women of the tribe of Benjamin,
upon the captivity of the land: "A voice was heard in Ramah,
lamentation, and bitter weeping ; Rachel weeping for her children,
refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not."
It is evident from chap. xl. 1, that after the destruction of Jerusalem
by the Babylonians, Nebuzar-adan gathered the people together
that were to go into captivity at Ramah. There the women, con
sidering how many of their children were slain, and the rest now to
be carried away, brake out into woful and unspeakable lamentation.
And this was ordered, in the providence of God, to prefigure the
sorrow of the women of Bethlehem upon the destruction of their
children by Herod, when he sought the life of our Saviour; as the
words are applied, Matt. ii. 17, 18. And we may distinguish things
of this kind into two sorts,
unto the
(1.) Such as have received a particular application
things of the new testament, or unto spiritual things belonging to
the grace and kingdom of Christ, by the Holy Ghost himself in the
writings of the Gospel. Thus, the whole business of Rebekah s con
ceiving Jacob and Esau, their birth, the oracle of God concerning
them, the preference of one above the other, is declared by our
apostle to have been ordained in the providence of God to teach his
sovereignty in choosing and rejecting whom he pleaseth, Rom. ix.
So he treateth at large concerning what befell that people in the
wilderness, making application of it to the churches of the gospel,
1 Cor. x. ;
and other instances of the like kind may be insisted on,
almost innumerable.
(2.) This infallible application of one thing and season unto an
other, extends not unto the least part of those teaching examples
which are recorded in the Old Testament. Many other things
were ordained in the providence of God to be instructive unto
us, and may, by the example of the apostles, be in like manner
applied; for concerning them all we have this general rule, that
they were ordained and ordered in the providence of God for this
end, that they might be examples, documents, and means of instruc
tion unto us. Again, we are succeeded into the same place in the
covenant unto them who were originally concerned in them, and so
may expect answerable dispensations of God towards ourselves; and
they were all written for our sakes.
3. There are things that fell out of old which are meet to
illustrate present things, from a proportion or similitude between
them. And thus where a place of Scripture directly treats of one
thing, it may, in the interpretation of it, be applied to illustrate
another which hath some likeness unto it. These expositions the
Jews call D tmD, and say they are made hflD THS, "parabolical"