An impression, image, or representation of some model, which is termed the antitype. In this sense we often use the word to denote the prefiguration of the great events of man's redemption by persons or things in the Old Testament. Types are distinguished into,
1. Such as were directly appointed for that end; as the sacrifices.
2. Such as had only a providential ordination to that end; as the story of Jacob and Esau.
And
3. Things that fell out of old, so as to illustrate present things from a similitude between them; as the allegory of Hagar and Sarah. Some distinguish them into real and personal; by the former intending the tabernacles, temples, and religious institutions; and under the latter, including what are called providential and personal types. While we may justly consider the death of Christ, and his resurrection from the dead, as events that are typified in the Old Testament, we should be careful not to consider every thing mentioned in the Hebrew Scripture as a type, for this will expose the whole doctrine of types to ridicule: for instance, what can be a greater burlesque on the Scriptures to suppose, as some have done, that the extraction of Eve from the side of Adam, while he was in a deep sleep, was intended as a type of the Roman soldiers' piercing our Saviour's side while he slept the sleep of death? Such ideas as these, vented sometimes by novices, and sometimes by more aged divines, give a greater proof of the wildness of their fancies than the correctness of their judgments.
See Mather and Mc Ewen on the Types; Ridgley's Div. quest. 35.
Despite a stated reliance on the plain meaning of the Bible and the dictates of common sense, Buck's Theological Dictionary, first published in London in 1802, seeks to provide a textual basis for the evangelical community. By combining brief essays on orthodox belief and practice with historical entries on various denominations, Buck provided an interpretive lens that allowed antebellum Protestants to see Christianity's almost two millennia as their own history.Wikipedia
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