It is a rule in divine operation that whatever God does in the highest spiritual realms, He furnishes types and shadows of such works down in the lower departments of life and nature, so that all His material creation seems to be molded in the same pattern of things in the heavens. We can find types of the new birth in the planting of seed, and types of the resurrection in the daily awakening from the sleep of the night, or the spring after winter, and types of sanctification in the cleansing process of nature. In a similar way we find types of that deeply spiritual company who are to constitute the Bride of the Lamb, in various things in creation, and also in the characters of Scripture. These prefigurings of the Bride agree with God's first thought of making Eve from the body of Adam, not from his feet, to be in slavish subjection, and not from his head, to have authority over him, but from a rib out of his side, to be his companion and helpmeet, the fitting counterpart of his life and functions. We may regard our solar system as one body among the planetary systems, and when God made the human race. He selected this earth as its home, which is one of the central planets in the system, as it were the rib in the solar body. He did not select Mercury, that flies rapidly around the sun, and so near the sun, or head of the system, nor did He select Neptune, at the extremity, or foot of the system, but the Earth, a central position. And this planet is made illustrious over all others by virtue of being the birthplace of the Son of God.

Again, this world forms one body of sea and land and air, but when God selected a special country to be the home and heritage of His chosen people, and the theater of His marvelous mercies and judgments and revelations and providences. He did not select Lapland, or a country near the North Pole, or South Africa, but the land of Canaan, near the center of the world, and in fact almost the exact center of the land that is in the world, as it were the rib of the earth.

Again, after separating to Himself the family of Abraham, and then the twelve sons of Jacob to be His peculiar people among the nations, from this selected people of Israel, He made a second selection of the tribe of Levi to be His priests, and serve at the altar, and to be especially His holy ones, to offer sacrifices, and to teach His law. In this double selection of a special tribe from a special nation. He did not take Reuben, the head of the tribes, nor Benjamin, the last born, but Levi, the third son of Jacob, as it were the rib from near the center of the tribes. He said the tribe of Levi should be unto Him for the firstborn, the tribe that should wear the Urim of light and the Thummim of perfection, and in this respect that tribe is a type of the Bridehood saints, the select ones from the select body. (Num. 3: 12.)

When we pass on to consider individual types, we see one in Rebekah, the wife of Isaac. It was after Isaac had been virtually offered up in sacrifice, and after his typical resurrection from the dead (referred to by Paul in Heb. 11:19), that his father Abraham sent forth his faithful steward, Eliezer, to select a wife for Isaac from among his relatives in a distant land. How this foreshadows that after Jesus had died and risen again, His Father sent forth the Holy Spirit, the divine Steward, into the earth to select the Bridehood saints from those who were the people of God, or members of the heavenly family.

Another type is Zipporah, the wife of Moses. You will notice that God called Moses to be the savior of His people in Egypt, and it was after his rejection by his own people that he went into the distant land of Horeb, where he met Zipporah at a well of water, and she subsequently became his wife. In like manner Jesus was rejected by His own people, and after leaving them He goes forth among the Gentiles, and finds a chosen people at the well of salvation, that are won to Him in a perfect consecration, and are to form His Bride.

Another typical woman is Rahab of Jericho. We have the account in Joshua of her receiving the spies, and of her faith in the God of Israel, and of being sheltered by the scarlet thread when judgment came on that city, and afterward she married Naashon, a prince of the house of Judah, and became ancestress of David and Jesus. Here we see it is a prince in Israel that takes a wife from the Gentiles, as Moses had done.

A most perfect figure for the Bride of Christ is found in Deuteronomy 21:10-13, where the Lord said that when the Hebrews went to war with the Gentiles, and captured them, that if the Hebrew warrior saw a beautiful woman among the captives, and wanted her for a wife, he should bring her into his home, and give her time to mourn over the loss of her father and mother and all her relatives, and when she had gotten over the grief, and as it were forgotten them in her new-found lover, she should then become the wife of the man that captured her in battle. This type is mentioned by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 45, where we have a perfect portrait of the King Messiah and His Bride enthroned together, dressed in the gold of Ophir, and the Psalm refers back expressly to this account of the captured maiden, as one that is to "forget her own people, and her father's house, that the king may desire her beauty."� (Ps. 45: 10.) Thus Jesus is the Prince of Israel that goes forth with the sword of His Word among the Gentiles, and captures great multitudes in spiritual warfare, and from among these captives there are those who are willing to meet the conditions of reproach and consecration adequate to render them candidates for a place in the front rank of God's people, and these are to compose His Bride.

Perhaps there is no sweeter or more beautiful type of the Bride than that of Ruth. She was a Gentile, but accepted the God of Naomi, her mother-in-law, and followed her to Canaan, where she married Boaz a prince of Judah, and became an ancestress of Christ. Naomi is a type of Israel, having the true knowledge of God, and Ruth is a type of the Gentile believers, whose faith is grafted upon that of Israel, and they thereby partake of the faith and promises and inheritance of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And thus we see in Ruth a foreshadowing of those Gentile believers who are to form the wife of the Messiah Prince.

Later on, after Solomon was crowned king of Israel, he took for his wife the daughter of Pharaoh, a Gentile woman, which gives us another figure of King Jesus gathering from the Gentiles His helpmeet.

From the New Testament we gather one striking type of the Bridehood saints in the case of the woman of Samaria. After Jesus had been rejected by the Jews, He was on a journey through Samaria, and they stopped at Jacob's well. While sitting there to rest, all the disciples left Him to purchase bread, a sort of prophecy that all the Jewish people would leave Jesus, and then came the woman of Samaria, a Gentile, to draw water. Jesus forgave her sins, and gave her a fountain of living water in her heart, and she became His enthusiastic missionary to the people of her own village. How this shadows forth that after Jesus was forsaken of His own people, He finds thirsty souls among the Gentiles, who receive the Holy Spirit, and become His most ardent co-workers in evangelizing the nations, and thereby take front rank as His copartners and His Bride. What a striking fact we see in so many instances, where men in the Bible found their wives at a well of water. Eliezer found a wife for Isaac at a well of water, and Jacob found Rachel at a well of water, and Moses found Zipporah at a well of water, and Jesus found the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well. Surely these things were not blind accidents, but providences pointing to the fact that Christ finds His Bridehood saints at the wells of salvation those thirsty souls that pant for the living God, and that are willing to drink deeply of the Holy Spirit.