Every intelligent Christian will allow that the subject of types is of deep interest and importance. Notoriously, however, many shrink from it as if it were forbidden dangerous ground, shrouded in perpetual fog, through which at intervals some gleams of sunshine pierce with difficulty. Not that this tract of Scriptural study is not rich and varied and attractive. No line of things in the Bible abounds more in living instruction, in appeals to conscience, in comfort to the heart, in confirmation of faith so much the stronger in the end because indirect in appearance. All one's old knowledge of that blessed book abides, as far as it was real; but, with a true insight into the types, comes a fresh and super-added light, which attaches the affections and the mind with immensely increased tenacity to the word of God. Not merely is it sweet to ponder over the scenes, the beings, the circumstances of the past, and the ways of God displayed in them; all this is enhanced when their typical aspect is laid hold of. Like the bread which multiplied under the hands and word of Christ; whence, after the thousands had fed, more is left to be carefully gathered up at the end, than existed at the beginning when none had eaten. If then the types had been commonly neglected, it is because they have been ill understood.
To this neglect the Greek fathers, and even the graver Latins have largely contributed; not intentionally of course, but through their lack of spirituality and sound judgment. Under their labors, if we may judge from their remains in many and ponderous folios, the field produced a crop, large perhaps, but mingled with baneful and unsightly weeds. Scarcely less luxuriant and capricious in their fancies, though far more redolent of Christ, were the divines of the seventeenth century, such as Cocceius and Witsius abroad, or Mather and Keach at home. For instance, if we select from the writings of Augustine, the greatest light of patristic antiquity, we have in his work on the gospel of John (Tract. 24 cap. 6:5) the following typical view of the miraculous loaves. The five loaves are taken as the five books of Moses—not wheaten, but of barley, because they pertain to the Old Testament. As is barley, so is the letter of that Testament, with a rough and tenacious integument, but the marrow within. The lad that carried them and the two fishes, is conjectured to be Israel, bearing their burden with childish feeling, but not eating. The fishes are supposed to set forth the two anointed offices of Priest and King. This is certainly a match in extravagance, if not in the quantity of minute resemblances, to Guild, who, according to Dr. Fairbairn, reckons up no fewer than forty-nine typical links between Joseph and Christ, and seventeen between Jacob and Christ. Now while we assuredly gather that Joseph is, for reasons which may appear another time, an eminent figure of the Lord, we agree with our author that such, superficial analogies as these writers make much off are unworthy to be considered as types. “Thus Jacob's being a supplanter of his brother is made to represent Christ's supplanting death, sin, and Satan; his being obedient to his parents in all things, Christ's subjection to his heavenly Father and his earthly parents; his purchasing his birthright by red pottage, and obtaining the blessing by presenting savory venison to his father, clothed Esau's Garment Christ's purchasing the heavenly inheritance for us by his red blood, and obtaining the blessing by offering up the savory meat of his obedience, in the borrowed garment of our nature,” &c., (vol. 1 p. 30).
From those who in ancient or in modern times had thus slipped out of the place of safe and humble inquiry into that of hasty guess-work, the reaction was too easy into the cold rationalistic theology of the eighteenth century, which blighted, almost indiscriminately, “the precious” and “the vile” of their predecessors. Indeed, it was not the typical portions of Scripture merely which then suffered an eclipse. Christ Himself was most indistinctly, if at all, seen as the sun of the Bible system; and, very naturally, that which prefigured him and his work sank in like proportion. Hence it has almost come to be an axiom among the popular guides of the day, “that just so much of the Old Testament is to be accounted typical as the New Testament affirms to be so, and no more” (Prof. M. Stuart). “By what means,” says Bishop March, “shall we determine, in any given instance, that what is alleged as a type was really designed for a type? The only possible source of information on this subject is Scripture itself. The only possible means of knowing that two distant, though similar, historical facts were so connected in the general scheme of divine providence, that the one was designed to prefigure the other, is the authority of that book, in which the scheme of divine Providence is unfolded.” So too Mr. H. Home and many more. A principle narrower or more arbitrary can hardly be conceived. For it demands no profound research, nothing more than a careful reading of the New Testament, to observe that the way in which it mentions some Old Testament personages or events in no wise excludes others from a typical relation. Rather does it give us samples, some plain, and others more obscure. Far from discouraging, the New Testament stimulates the fullest and minutest investigation of the Old, the Holy Ghost using both as the perfect source and standard of revealed truth.
If it were merely meant that we must not, in our inference from a given type, overstep the teaching of dogmatic Scripture, none could object. If we were thereby exhorted to caution, where no express warrant labels the type, the counsel would be valuable. But it is plain, if one read Genesis without bias, that Adam and Eve have no marks there which so unequivocally distinguish them from Cain and Abel, that the former pair, and not the latter, had a typical design. One of the rigid school answers that Paul decides the question as to Adam in Rom. 5, and another ventures to think that he is nearly as plain about Eve in Eph. 5. Not at all, cries the voice of Mr. Lord across the Atlantic, the word τίπος only means a similitude,'“ not type properly, in Rom. 5, and nothing of the sort is said in Eph. 5. Thus the direct tendency of this demand for chapter and verse in the New Testament touching the Old is to limit us to a minimum of typical instruction, if not to rob us of it altogether.
The fact is, that Scripture differs from mere books of information and science, inasmuch as these are wholly irrespective of moral condition and may be mastered alike by the evil and the good, while that depends on our measure of subjection to the Spirit of God. And as the children of God are not equally spiritual, so they differ in the degree of their understanding of and relish for all that is of God. If all Christians had a single eye, every one would be full of light. But this is not so. Each has to contend with influences, prejudices, prepossessions, &c., which, as far as they work, obscure the judgment, and thus lead to differing views and practice. Hence it is that the evidence of the word which is irresistible to one is weak or null to another, rightly or wrongly, of course, as a man is led by the Spirit. To take the same example as before, a man better taught than Bishop Marsh would see ground, in Jude 1111Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. (Jude 11) and Heb. 12:2424And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:24), for interpreting Cain and Abel typically. And if they are to be so taken, why not Lainech and Seth, of whom serious and interesting facts are recorded in the same chapter? Again, the hardest exactor of express New Testament authority can scarcely deny a formally typical force to the deluge. (see 1 Peter 3) Has then the subsequent altar which Noah built no future bearing? Nor God's blessing of him and his sons, with His solemn committal of the sword of government and the covenant with the earth and all flesh? And the city and tower in the plain of Shinar, has it no language for our ears—that Babel, where language was confounded by the judgment of Jehovah, and the various tongues of men began? If Sarah and Hagar, if Isaac and Ishmael have the explicit sanction of Scripture, is it not implied as to Abraham and Lot? If Melchizedek cannot be disputed, what are we to infer about the combinations of the Kings and their conflicts, what about the intervention of the head of promise and the deliverance of his earthly-minded kinsman? Are all these great connected circumstances unmeaning, save as moral and historical? Is “the possessor of heaven and earth” an immaterial title there and then, because, “the most high God” merely is cited in Heb. 7.
In short, there might be reason in thus confining our investigation to those portions of the Old Testament which are employed unambiguously as figures in the New, if the New Testament either professed to be, or in reality was, an exposition of all the parts of the Old. But all must confess that this is not the case; which it ought to be, if types are to be sought nowhere in the Bible beyond the very limited horizon which is formed by the direct notices and explanations of the latest revelation. On the contrary, we have here either passing allusions, or large principles laid down, because God addresses his family as having an unction from the Holy One, and knowing all things. “I have not written unto you,” says John, “because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth... These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” Again, the Holy Ghost says by Paul (and this just after glancing rapidly over a number of typical transactions in the history of Israel)— “I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” That is, the New Testament pointedly addresses itself not to the ignorance of Christian men, but to their capacity to use the word of God aright in virtue of the Holy Ghost dwelling in them. This is so much the more remarkable as being said to the Corinthians, whom the same epistle had characterized as babes in Christ. “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. Nevertheless,” says the Apostle, “I would not have you ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,” followed by the statement that these things were our examples (literally, types, figures of us).
Now, is it possible for an unprejudiced man to read this last passage, and to gather from it that the Holy Ghost is laying down a systematic summary of all that was typical in the journeyings of Israel? Is it not rather true that we have simply an application here, as elsewhere, of so much as naturally bore on the question in hand, the danger of idolatry, &c., and of being content with ordinances without life? So, afterward, there is a striking use made of the fact, that Israel after the flesh ate of the sacrifices, and were partakers of the altar; as, in the preceding chapter, direct reference is made to the law of Moses. “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt, this is written that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and that he that thresheth should be partaker of his hope.” Spiritual husbandry was the grand idea in the mind of the revealing Spirit. Further on, in the same chapter, the Apostle applies the special provision which God enjoined in behalf of the priests and all the tribe of Levi; that, as they had no part nor inheritance with Israel, they should eat the offerings of the Lord, and his inheritance. Evidently, therefore, while there is nothing like or pretending to be, a catalog raisonnie of Old Testament figures, they are profusely used, in addressing believers (not Hebrews merely, but Gentiles also); and as clearly those used are cited not in the least degree as exceptional Cases, but rather as specimens of a vast class which pervades the Bible.
Is it then seriously contended that the brief direction respecting the ox in Deut. 25:44Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. (Deuteronomy 25:4) is picked out by the Apostle as the sole word in the chapter which has special application to Christians? Of course that was what the Spirit wanted in 1 Cor. 9, and what the saints who are exhorted needed to weigh. But if the occasion had demanded it, was there not typical instruction of the deepest moment in the same context? In the first verses, it is as to a brother, even if in the wrong, and justly to be punished; in the last verses it is touching the sworn enemies of the Lord and his people. Forbearance towards Amalek would be indifference to the honor of the one, and the wrongs of the other. The judge must see the faulty Israelites beaten according to his misdeeds, but with a fixed limit, lest “thy brother should seem vile to thee.” We are satisfied, also, that the central details of the chapter are equally written under the same prescient eye: the ordinance for perpetuating each family name in Israel; and the keeping up, under severe penalty, of purity and delicacy of feeling, even where those nearest to us are menaced or suffering; and the maintenance of the most thorough integrity in all dealings, small and great, in the sight and blessing of the Lord.
Take, again, the provision for the Levites in Num. 18, &c., alluded to in 1 Cor. 9:1313Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? (1 Corinthians 9:13). Is that to be dislocated from its connection, and to be regarded as the only food for the servants of the Lord found there? Is the priestly rod of Aaron, once dead, but now alive again for evermore, without fruit for us? Is its sole use as a token against the rebellious children of Israel? As to the red heifer in Num. 19, we presume that the most clamorous demand for apostolic endorsement must bow to Heb. 9:1313For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: (Hebrews 9:13). It was as appropriate in itself as in the circumstances and season where it occurs—the type of Christ sacrificed and brought home, by the Spirit of God, to the individual saints in the wilderness, where an unintentional defilement is contracted by contact with the things of death: in a word, the shadow of God's gracious way of restoring communion with himself, when interrupted in our wanderings here below. It is not redemption which is in question here, but priestly grace and the remembrance, in the Spirit, of Christ's suffering to meet those unwilling soils which might be too lightly slurred over in the desert. And is it conceivable that grave men should think the scene of Meribah (Num. 20) to be a mere historical fact? They are compelled to allow more in the serpent of brass in the following chapter, because of the Lord's word to Nicodemus in John 3. Is the land which lies between given up to bareness? Or is it only fallow ground, because men have been slow to take and till it in the name of the Lord? Strange indeed would it be, that God should have written his word as those deem who acknowledge that Num. 18 and 20 are eminently typical, but strip withal the intervening portion of all such claim, in the face of a narrative at least as full and as striking!
So in 1 Cor. 10:1-101Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. 5But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. 7Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. 8Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. 9Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. 10Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. (1 Corinthians 10:1‑10) a few leading facts are alluded to as having befallen the Israelites, and chiefly recorded in Exodus and Numbers: the passage through the Red Sea under Moses, the manna, the water from the rock, on God's part; the lust, idolatry, tempting Christ, and murmuring, on theirs. Are we then to exercise no spiritual judgment respecting the other displays of God and man, no less solemn and profitable? Are we not to inquire how they too bear on the future, using those which are infallibly determined as our help, with the general analogy of Scripture, to search into the rest; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God? If there is no dispute about the Red Sea, why should there be about the waters of Marah? If the manna was unquestionably typical, why doubt the Sabbath connected with it? If the smitten rock in Horeb is pregnant with lessons for us, why sever from it the subsequent conflict with Amalek? Why nullify the beautiful picture which follows in Ex. 18, where Gentiles and Jews eat bread before God, and the leader of the people lays down the order and means of right government? Again the worship of the golden calf be so full of warning, what of the judgment which Moses executes with the sons of Levi? (Ex. 32) Has the pitching of the tabernacle without the camp no voice for us, and the deepened fellowship which Moses enjoyed with the Lord there, and his earnest pleading before him? Here, again, the New Testament casts its unwavering light upon an incident which, without it, we might have made of no account; for at first sight, it might strike the careless reader as the least promising, in a typical point of view—the veil which Moses put on his face in speaking with the children of Israel, and took off in going in before the Lord to speak with him, 2 Cor. 3.
To deny a figurative force to these other circumstances in Exodus, because one or two only may have the direct stamp of Paul, is to deprive us of an incalculable amount of their value. To say that we cannot understand them clearly and certainly, according to our general intelligence of Scripture, is to reduce Christians to the alliteration of a former economy: it would justify that dullness of hearing which the Apostle censures in the Hebrew saints, Heb. 5. They were unskillful in the word of righteousness, and needed to be taught explicitly what they ought to have been teaching. He had many things to say respecting Melchizedek; but their senses were comparatively unexercised to discern both good and evil. And when he does open that remarkable story as a shadow of Christ, he in no way intimates that all was said which might be said, but only what they were able to bear. Sufficient is furnished to quicken, not to clog, their feeble spiritual digestion. Thus no use is made of the bread and wine which Melchizedek brought out to the victors, while there is considerable reasoning upon the dignity of his office and person, surpassed only in the real and eternal glory of Christ. The moment the argument of the epistle requires the actual exercise of Christ's priesthood to be treated of, the Apostle glides on to the Aaronic intercession within the veil, based upon sacrifice. (Heb. 7:25, 8-1025Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)
8And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. 9And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. 10For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him. (Hebrews 7:8‑10)) How arbitrary, then, to assume that we have more, in such New Testament expositions, than clear light cast upon certain landmarks, that, thus using what we have, more may be given?
This is entirely confirmed by what we read of the holy places, sacrifices, feasts, and other rites, stated or occasional. It were utterly unreasonable, if we may venture on the ground of the objectors, to hold that the mercy-seat, the candlestick, and the altar are the only vessels of the sanctuary which have a typical significance, because others are thinly, if at all, explained, while these are clearly alluded to in Rom. 3, Rev. 1, and Heb. 13 respectively. Is it merely the covering lid which had a meaning, and not the ark of the covenant itself?—that holy throne whereon God rested in moral judgment of his people, the law within, and the cherubim its external supporters? The table, too, with its twelve loaves, had this no far-reaching value, as well as the candlestick with its seven branches? And the two altars, with their suited spheres, is one blind, and has the other alone an eye that looks onward? Were the robes of glory and beauty, which the high priest wore, for mere passing show? Or if the curious girdle tells a tale of service, what are we to infer as to the ephod and robe, and broidered coat, and breastplate and miter? Their consecration, too, is surely something for us; for if Christ loves and has washed us from our sins in his own blood, he has also made us kings and priests. In short, all things are ours—the washing, the blood-sprinkling, and the anointing; and all the sacrifices too, the sin-offering, burnt-offering, ram of consecration, and meat-offering. There were, no doubt, reasons why the Apostle could not then speak particularly of the sanctuary and its vessels. There is no reason to deny the force of all as figures, though we may not have equal clearness of view about each. The same considerations apply to the feasts and other ordinances in Leviticus. It is most anomalous to own that the passover and its accompanying feast of unleavened bread had a prophetic bearing, and to disown it in the feast of trumpets. It were passing strange that Pentecost should have its fulfillment, and that Tabernacles should have none. How much more simple and harmonious to infer that, as a whole, not merely the Levitical system, but the historical facts and times, persons and things of Old Testament Scripture, were ordered, selected, and presented in the word of God, so as to teach a little to those of small faith, more to those of larger spiritual measure, with an ever-increasing fullness as the eye becomes more single to Christ, and the ear more attuned by the Spirit to his voice?
But if this last remark be admitted, as it is to us clear and certain, their fallacy is obvious who try to squeeze the types of Scripture into a human system. Every branch, indeed, of revealed truth has been stripped of its bloom and fragrance by a similar process. If there be any which more than others resist, and suffer from such violence, it appears to us to be the very twain which Dr. Fairbairn has chosen—the kindred themes of Scripture type and prophecy. His school has not been safe or happy. He is a good deal enamored of, and tinctured by, the novel speculations of German critics. He is keenly attached to the spiritualizing tendencies, which would blot out, if they could, the special hopes and inheritance of Israel from the chart of God's future counsels. He does not see that the church is but a little, though an exceedingly blessed and glorious, part of the purposes of God as to man. Accordingly, the work which God has now in operation, and which contemplates by grace ourselves as its objects, becomes in his view the all-absorbing idea. Every other of which the Bible speaks is as much as possible conformed to that standard. The state of things under the fathers and Israel is exalted somewhat, the characteristic points of the present economy are considerably depressed, the grand distinctions of the age to come are well-nigh ignored, so as to obliterate, as far as fancy can, those differences of dispensation in which God has been thoroughly testing man, and displaying his own righteousness and grace and glory, to the ultimate and abiding joy of all who trust in him.
We would not be understood as slighting much that is really good and valuable in Dr. F.'s book. A good deal of what we have been insisting on in this paper is truth common to him and to us. Nor do we mean that Dr. F. is singular in making the church, so-called, the great center of movement in his system: for theologians in general are in the same way disciples of Ptolemy, rather than of Copernicus. But Dr. F. has the unhappy distinction of working out this fundamental error more systematically, as far as regards his two subjects, than perhaps any one who has gone before him. How this vitiates his work will appear abundantly. Thus in chap. 2, in showing how the relation of type and antitype implies that the realities of the gospel were contemplated from the beginning, he says that on this account “the gospel dispensation is called the dispensation of the fullness of times"; whereas it is as plain as can be that Eph. 1 so speaks of the future administration of the universe, when God shall gather together in one, under Christ's headship, all things both which are in heaven and which are on earth. And this is so far from being confounded with the aim and objects of the gospel dispensation, that the following verses pursue the latter topic in relation to those who are being gathered out from both Jews and Gentiles. If Dr. F. deny the justice of our accusation on the plea that, in this same vol. 1, page 61, he speaks of the Redeemer as “Himself the beginning and end of the scheme of God's dispensations,” we answer that he means the Redeemer solely in relation to his church, as far as human blessing is concerned. His various glories are merged in this one. Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of man—all these and more are exclusively limited to him as head of the church. Thus, no space is left for the various circles which have him for their common center.
Dr. F. cannot prove that which is the very substratum of all his writings. We have shown more than once in The Bible Treasury, that the church of God, properly so designated, is peculiar to the present dispensation: Dr. F. affirms, without even attempting to demonstrate, its identity throughout all dispensations. Hence, to take in all the redeemed, he is compelled to reduce the idea of the church to “a nursery for training souls to a meetness for immortal life and blessedness.” Were this an adequate definition, his conclusion doubtless follows; for nobody questions that God has always been saving souls by his word and Spirit. But we deny his premises, and submit that he overlooks the doctrine of Scripture. It is not a question of words merely, as some would say, but of things. The New Testament is explicit, that the church is based upon redemption, not promised only but accomplished, and demands the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven as its formative power, uniting all, whether Jew or Gentile, in one body, of which Christ in heavenly glory is the head—a condition which was not true of the times anterior to the cross, and is not nor can be predicated of the saints who are to be called on earth during the millennium. Clearly, then, it is not a question of being saved only, but of other and higher privileges, ordered in the sovereignty of God and super-added to salvation. Dr. F., we repeat, cannot prove his thesis. He takes it for granted and continually asserts it because it is absolutely necessary to his system. He will hardly take advantage of a mistake in the common version of Acts 7:3838This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: (Acts 7:38), where “the church in the wilderness” means simply, really, and nothing but the Israelitish congregation there. Almost as rationally might it be argued from the mere term that “the church” is intended by “the assembly” in Acts 19. Neither the one nor the other, in the foundation or in the form, was the church of God as presented in the Scriptures which develop it. Dr. F. may flatter himself with being spiritual (as contrasted with Jewish or semi-Jewish interpreters), because he sees not Israel only but the church under the tutelage of the law and the rudiments of the world. He may reproach us with being Jewish, because we affirm that the Jews and not the church had to say to the Babylonish captivity. To us, we avow, it seems distressing confusion, to apply what is said of Israel to the church, as if it were all the same thing organically, though now improved and enlarged. To use it, as he does, without proofs, is to build without a foundation.
Dr. F. objects, with justice, to the vagueness of the rules laid down by such as Glassius, and offers his own specific directions, which are a decided improvement. But the fact is, that the most important pre-requisite for rightly interpreting the types is an adequate knowledge of the truth of which they are the forms. Thus, if a person confounded the character of two different acts, offices, dispensation, &c., he would in similar ratio make a jumble of their pre-figurations. Another element of seine weight is the nature of the surrounding context. This, duly applied, would cut off many popular turns, (e. g., the appearance of Esau borrowed by Jacob, which some make to figure the imputed righteousness of Christ!) Here, however, are Dr. F.'s five canons:
“Nothing is to be regarded as typical of the good things under the gospel, which was itself of a forbidden and sinful nature.” (I. 1:38.)
We must be guided not so much by any knowledge possessed, or supposed to be possessed, by the ancient worshippers concerning their prospective fulfillment, as from the light furnished by their realization in the great facts and revelations of the gospel. “(I. 143.)
We must “be careful to make ourselves acquainted with the truths or ideas exhibited in the types, considered merely as providential transactions or religious institutions.” (I. 143.)
“The type has properly but one radical meaning, yet the fundamental idea or principle exhibited in it may often be capable of more than one application to the realities of the gospel.” (I. 152.)
“Due regard must be had to the essential difference between the nature of type and antitype.".(I. 157.)
It is the practical application which is the main difficulty. God and his word will never admit of rules which can save us from the need of being spiritual, whether in intelligence or in walk. Such rules, like creeds and articles, have scarcely any positive value, though they maybe of use negatively for checking and correcting men in a path of error.