The declarations of Scripture in respect to the typical nature of the prophetical office are not so numerous and decisive as those which relate to the kingly office.  There is, however, a remarkable passage in the book of Deuteronomy, from which we may legitimately infer that it was truly typical of Christ.  When God had addressed the people directly from the midst of the cloud and fire on Sinai, unable to endure this mode of communication between God and man, they besought God that he would henceforth address them through the ministry of Moses:  “Speak thou with us, and we will hear:  but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”  Exod. 20:19.  With reference to this request, God said to Moses:  “They have well spoken that which they have spoken.  I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth:  and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.  And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”  Deut. 18:17-19.  The essential points of this promise are, that the promised prophet shall be like Moses, one whose words shall be invested with supreme authority; and, especially, that he shall be raised up from among their brethren, and shall therefore be a man like themselves.  The promise was manifestly intended to meet the wants of the covenant people from that day and onward.  Yet the great Prophet in whom it was fulfilled did not appear till after the lapse of fifteen centuries or more.  But in the mean time the promise was truly fulfilled to God’s people in a typical way through the succession of prophets, who spake in God’s name, and who were men like their brethren to whom they were sent.  In these two essential particulars the prophetical office truly prefigured Christ, its great Antitype.

The Old Testament contains not only typical orders of men, but typical transactions also; that is, transactions which, while they had their own proper significance as a part of the history of God’s church, were yet so ordered by God as to shadow forth with remarkable clearness and force the higher truths of Christ’s kingdom.  Such are the transactions between Melchizedek and Abraham recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis.  Considered simply in itself, Melchizedek’s priesthood belongs to the class of ritual types.  But in the record of his intercourse with Abraham there is an accumulation of historic circumstances arranged by God’s providence to shadow forth the higher priesthood of Christ. (1.) He united in his person the kingly and priestly offices, as does the Messiah.  In the hundred and tenth Psalm it is, in like manner, a king invested by God with universal sovereignty, to whom the declaration is made:  “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.” (2.) In official dignity he was higher than