The instructiveness and utility of types and symbols consist in an appreciable analogy between them and the spiritual things which they are appointed to symbolize. In the case of the Old Testament self-washings, I suppose it has never entered the imagination of any one that they were types of the burial of the Lord Jesus. Of such an interpretation there is not a trace anywhere in the Scriptures. On the contrary, such meaning is there attributed to them that, in order to a sustained analogy, the subject of the rite should, by a voluntary and active exercise of his own powers take and apply the water to his members and person, for their cleansing. In this respect, they stand in emphatic contrast with the sprinkled water of purifying. That was designed to concentrate the attention of Israel upon the active agency of the Mediator, in bestowing the baptism of his blood and Spirit, for the renewing and quickening of dead souls. In it, therefore, the subject was the passive recipient of rites dispensed by the hands of another. But the activity of the Christian life and warfare were symbolized by the self-washings. Christ’s grace is given his people, not to sanction supineness and indolence; but to stimulate to activity in the pursuit of holiness. As the Spirit is now to them an opened fountain, they are to have recourse to it, to seek and obtain, day by day, more grace, for the purging of the flesh, for overcoming the world, for bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, for fighting the good fight of faith and laying hold on eternal life.