A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

This was a great dispensation of God, and a great step taken towards a further advancing of the work of redemption, according as the time drew near wherein Christ was to come. David, as he was the ancestor of Christ, so he was the greatest personal type of Christ of all under the Old Testament. The types of Christ were of three sorts; types of institution, or instituted types, and providential and personal types. The ordinance of sacrificing was the greatest of the instituted types; and the redemption out of Egypt was the greatest of the providential types; and David the greatest of the personal types. Hence Christ is often called David in the prophecies of scripture; as Ezek. xxxiv.23.24. "And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David;—My servant David a prince among them" and so in many other places: and he is very often spoken of as the seed of David, and the son of David.

David being the ancestor and great type of Christ, his being solemnly anointed by God to be king over his people, that the kingdom of his church might be continued in his family for ever, may in some respects be looked on as an anointing of Christ himself. ⟨p. 75⟩Christ was as it were anointed in him; and therefore Christ's anointing and David's anointing, are spoken of under one in scripture, as Psal. lxxxix.20. "I have found David my servant; wi•• my holy oil have I anointed him." And David's throne and Christ's are spoken of as one: Luke i▪ 32. "And the Lord shall give him the throne of his father David▪" Acts li, 30. "David—knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to set on his throne." Thus God's beginning of the kingdom of his church in the house of David, was, as it were, a new establishing of the kingdom of Christ; the beginning of it in a state of such visibility as it thenceforward continued in. It was as it were God's planting the root, whence that branch of righteousness was afterwards to spring up, that was to be the everlasting king of his church; and therefore this everlasting king is called the branch from the stem of Jesse. Is. xi.1. "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots."