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rougher harp the uncouth rhymes which he himself had composed, in praise of departed gallantry and virtue. As arts were invented and improved, the wise, the brave, and the good were preserved from oblivion by monuments more elegant, more intelligible, and more lasting. A more correct style of poetry, and a sweeter melody were cultivated. Sculpture and painting conveyed to children's children an exact representation of the limbs and lineaments of the venerable men who adorned, who instructed, who saved their country. And thus, though dead, they continued to live and act in the animated canvass, in the breathing brass, or the speaking marble. At length, the pen of the historian took up the cause of merit, and diffused over the whole globe, and handed down to the very end of time the knowledge of the persons and of the actions which should never die.

We are this evening to bestow our attention upon an institution altogether of divine appointment, intended to record an event of singular importance to the nation immediately affected by it, and which, according to its intention and in its consequences, has involved a great part of mankind.

Moses and Aaron having, as the instruments in the hand of Providence, chastised Egypt with nine successive and severe plagues, inflicted in the view of procuring Israel's release, are at length dismissed by the unrelenting tyrant, with a threatening of certain death, should they ever again presume to come into his presence. Moses takes him at his word, and bids him a solemn, a long, and everlasting farewell. When men have finally banished from them their advisers and monitors, and when God has ceased to be a reprover to them, their destruction cannot be very distant. Better it is to have the law to alarm, to threaten, and to chastise us, than to have it in anger altogether withdrawn. Better is a conscience that disturbs and vexes than a conscience laid fast asleep, than a conscience "seared as with a hot iron."

now it is, "I will go out into the midst of Egypt." "And it came to pass that at midnight the LORD Smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle." As mercies coming immediately from the hand of our heavenly Father are sweeter and better than those which are communicated through the channel of the creature; so judgments, issuing directly from the stores of divine wrath, are more terrible and overwhelming. The sword of an invading foe is a dreadful thing, but infinitely more dreadful is the sword of a destroying angel, or the uplifted hand of God himself.

Secondly, The nature and quality of the calamity greatly increase the weight of it. It is a wound there, where the heart is most susceptible of pain; an evil which undermines hope; hope, our refuge and our remedy under other evils. The return of another favourable season, may repair the wastes and compensate the scarcity of that which preceded it. A body emaciated or ulcerated all over, may recover strength, and be restored to soundness; and there is hope that the light of the sun may return, even after a thick darkness of three days. But what kindness of nature, what happy concurrence of circumstances, can reanimate the breathless clay, can restore an only son, a firstborn, stricken with death?

The universality of this destruction is a third horrid aggravation of its woe. It fell with equal severity on all ranks and conditions; on the prince and the peasant; on the master and the slave. From every house the voice of misery bursts forth. No one is so much at leisure from his own distress as to pity, soothe, or relieve that of his wretched neighbour.

Fourthly, The blow was struck at the awful midnight hour, when every object assumes a more sable hue; when fear, aided by darkness, magnifies to a gigantic size, and clothes in a more hideous shape the real What solemn preparation is made for the and fantastical, the seen and the unseen distenth and last awful plague of Egypt! God turbers of silence and repose. To be preis about to reckon with Pharaoh and his sub-maturely awakened out of sleep by the dyjects, for the blood of the Israelitish male ing groans of a friend suddenly smitten, to children, doomed from the womb to death, be presented with the ghastly image of death by his cruel edict. His eye pitied not nor spared the anguish of thousands of wretched mothers, bereaved of their children the instant they were born; and a righteous God pities, spares him not in the day of visitation. The circumstances attending this tremen-nishment could equal this? dous calamity are strikingly calculated to The keen reflection that all this accumuexcite horror. First, God himself is the im-lated distress might have been prevented, inediate author of it. Hitherto He had was another cruel ingredient in the embit plagued Egypt by means and instruments; tered cup. How would they now accuse "Stretch out thy hand:" "Say unto Aaron, their desperate madness, in provoking a Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod." But power, which had so often and so forcibly

in a darling object lately seen and enjoyed in perfect health, to be forced to the acknowledgment of the great and holy Lord God, by such an awful demonstration of his presence and power! what terror and asto

warned them of their danger? If Pharaoh | ject kind, into freedom the most exalted and were not past feeling, how dreadful must perfect, even the glorious liberty of the sons have been the pangs which he felt, while he of GOD. They are distinctly informed of the reflected, that after attempting to destroy a stroke which Providence was meditating hapless, helpless race of strangers, who lay against Egypt, and of the precise time when at his mercy, by the most unheard of cruelty the blow was to be struck. They are acand oppression, he had now ruined his own cordingly directed to two things; first, to country, by an obstinate perseverance in provide for their own safety; and, secondly, folly and impiety; that he had become the to hold themselves in perfect readiness to curse and punishment of a nation, of which take advantage of the permission to depart, he was bound by his office to be the father which the panic occasioned by the death of and protector; and that his own hopes were the first-born should extort from Pharaoh. now blasted in their fairest, most flattering For the former of these purposes, every parobject, the heir of his throne and empire, be- ticular family, or the two adjoining, in procause he regarded not the rights of humanity portion to their number, the lowest, according and mercy in the treatment of his vassals. to the Jewish writers, being not under ten, nor the highest above twenty, were commanded to choose out, and to set apart, every household, a male lamb, or kid, of a particular description, on the tenth day of the month, and to kill it on the evening of the fourteenth. The flesh of the victim was commanded to be eaten by every several household apart, roasted with fire. They were all enjoined carefully to keep within their houses. And the blood of the sacrifice was to be taken and sprinkled on the two side-posts, and the upper door-post of every house where it was eaten. This sprinkling of the blood was to be the token of God's covenant, and a protection to the families so distinguished, from the sword of the avenging angel.

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Finally, if their anguish admitted of a still nigher aggravation, the distinction from first to last made between them and Israel, the blessed exemption which the oppressed Hebrews had enjoyed from all these calamities, especially from this last death, must have been peculiarly mortifying and afflictive. "But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." This partakes of the nature of that misery which the damned endure who are represented as having occasional, distant, and transitory glimpses of the blessedness of heaven, only for their punishment, only to heighten the pangs of their But, a positive institution so immediately own torments. Of the approach of their other from heaven, an institution so full of meanwoes, these unhappy persons had been re-ing and instruction, of such celebrity in the peatedly warned. But this, it would appear, came upon them suddenly and in a moment. They had gone to rest in security. The short respite which they enjoyed from suffering had stilled their apprehension; surely," said they, "the bitterness of death is past.' But ah! it is only the deceitful calm which precedes the hurricane or the earthquake. Let men never dream of repose from the righteous judgment of God, whatever they may have already endured, till they have forsaken their sins, and fled for refuge in the divine mercy.

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history of the world, and connected so closely with an ordinance of still greater notoriety, and of much more extensive influence, an ordinance of much longer duration, and which commemorates an event of infinitely greater importance, surely demands the most minute attention, and the most serious inquiry. We pretend not to comprehend, and therefore undertake not to explain every particular circumstance of this solemn, divine institution: but the moral and religious design is, in general, so obvious, that a reader of ordinary capacity has but to run over it with a common degree of seriousness and attention, in order to understand what the Spirit of God is saying in it, for the edification of mankind.

It is now worth while to consider the notice given to God's own people of this approaching evil, and the means which were appointed and employed to secure them from And first, GoD was about to distinguish being involved in the general ruin. The Israel by special marks of his favour. In orevent so destructive to Egypt, was intended der to this, they must carefully distinguish to be the era of their liberty, and the means themselves by a punctual observance of his of their deliverance. They had hitherto command. Is more expected of an Israelite reckoned the beginning of their year from than of an Egyptian? Undoubtedly. The the month Tisri, which answers to our Sep- blessings which come down from above, from tember; which, as they supposed, was the the Father of lights, are not mere arbitrary time when the creation was begun and com- and capricious effusions of liberality, falling pleted; but they are now positively enjoined upon one spot, and passing by another withto begin to reckon from the month Abib or out reason or design. No, they are the wise Nisan, that is, March, in memory of a new and gracious recompense of an intelligent, creation; whereby their condition was to- observing, and discriminating Parent, to tally changed, from servitude of the most ab-faithful, affectionate, and obedient children.

HISTORY OF MOSES.

Israel had been forewarned of the ensuing danger to no purpose, had one iota or tittle relating to the ordinance of the paschal lamb been neglected. Calamity is to be avoided, not by foreknowing that it draws nigh, but by running to a place of safety. Salvation by Christ, consists, not merely in head-knowledge of his person, doctrine, and work; but in a cordial receiving and resting upon him alone for salvation, as he is freely offered to us in the gospel, for "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." The careful selection, then, of a proper victim, and the exact application of it, according to the commandment, have a plain and an instructive meaning.

Secondly, as Israel was to depart in haste, the Spirit of God was pleased to enjoin a memorial of that haste, in the quality of the bread which they were to use, during the celebration of this festival. When liberty, dear liberty is in view, who so silly as to care whether the taste be gratified or not, for a few days, with a less palatable kind of food? Our most perfect enjoyments in this world, and our highest attainments have a mixture of bitterness or of insipidity attending them: like the flesh of lambs eaten with bitter herbs, and unfermented bread. The Jews, we know, were singularly diligent a curious, in searching out and removing from their houses every thing leavened, during this sacred season. With superstitious scrupulousness, they prepared unleavened bread for themselves, and the poor, for months before the solemn day arrived. A few days previous to the feast they cleansed all their vessels and furniture. What could stand the fire, they purified with fire; what could not, they dipped in or rinsed with water. tars they had hollowed anew. Their marble morpreceding the day of unleavened bread, they The night lighted wax tapers, and prepared for a general search after every remainder of leaven. The master of the family began the ceremony with this solemn address to God: "Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has commanded us to put away all that is leavened out of our houses." All the males of the household; master, children, domestics, assisted in searching the whole house over, and examined into the most secret corners, lest peradventure some lurking particle of leavened bread, or fermented dough, might have been overlooked, in order to its being destroyed. As if this had not been sufficient, that the family might be purged of at least all intentional violation of the commandment, the father of it concluded the search with this solemn execration: "Let all the leaven that is in my house, and which I have not been able to find out or to remove, be scattered, and become like the smallest dust of the earth." An inspired apostle is our interpreter of this part of the paschal observance; so

[LECT. XLIII.

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that we can be at no loss about the meaning of the Spirit in its institution. therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a Purge out new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven; neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."* pulous exactness of the Jews, in their literal obedience to the commandment, is a severe and just reproof of many, too many professing Christians, who rush to the celebration of the gospel passover with little preparation or seriousness; and some, alas! deliberately greedily feeding upon hoarding up in their hearts, and secretly, malice and wickedness." "the old leaven of

serious attention. "A male lamb, of the first Thirdly, the victim itself claims our most year,"-" without blemish," to be taken, on the tenth day of the month from his dam, kept apart for four days, and then killed?These are all tender and touching considerations. gentle of animals; in the idea and language "A lamb:" the most innocent and of all ages and nations, another name for gentleness, harmlessness, and simplicity; removed early from its only comfort and protection, its fond mother's side; deprived of liberty, and destined to bleed by the sacrificing knife. Who can think of his plaintive bleatings, during the days of separation, without being melted? What Israelitish heart so insensible as not to yearn at the thought, that his own life, and the comfort of his family were to be preserved, at the expense of the life of that inoffensive little creature, whom he had shut up for the slaughter, and which, in unsuspicious confidence, licked the hand lifted up to shed its blood?

and substance of this part of the institution:
We have not long to search for the spirit
for all Scripture presses upon our notice,
of the world;" slain, "in the eternal purpose,
"the LAMB OF GOD, who taketh away the sin
from and before the foundation of the world;
her'y, harmless, and undefiled;" "delivered.
1
ledge of God"-suffering "the just for the
the determinate counsel and foreknow-
unjust, that he might bring us to God."-
"Who was wounded for our transgressions,
who was bruised for our iniquities: the chas
tisement of our peace was upon him, and
with his stripes we are healed:" the Lord
laying on him "the iniquity of us all;" with
drawn, separated from the bosom of his Fa-
ther-delivered into the hands of men-pour-
ing out his soul unto death.

eight days old at the least; a year at the
It was to be "a lamb of the first year,"
most. Not less than eight days, say the Jews,
that there might intervene one Sabbath from
the birth of the victim; and that so the sa-
† Acts ii. 23.

* 1 Cor. v. 7, 8.

LECT. XLIII.]

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HISTORY OF MOSES.

credness of this holy festival might render accidentally presenting himself first of the it worthy of being offered unto God. More flock, or his superior beauty and strength, probably, because that, till then the animal or the determination of the lot, doom him, in was considered as too near a state of imper- preference to the slaughter? But one must fection or impurity. It was not to exceed one die. Here the choice is fixed; and pity must year; because to that age it retains its lamb- not spare what heaven has demanded. These like harmlessness and simplicity. Supersti- emotions of compassion must have been fretion, which is ever sinking the spirit in the quently excited during the four days of sepaletter, has asserted, that a single hour beyond ration. The plaintive bleating, issuing from the year vitiated the victim, and rendered it a tender, aching heart, robbed at once of its natural food, protection, and comfort; feeling profane. the bitterness of death in the deprivation of maternal care and tenderness; the mournfully pleasing employment of supplying the devoted victim with aliment, up to the appointed hour; the cherishing and sustaining with solicitude, that life to-day, which the strong hand of necessity must take away tomorrow; all these awaken a thousand undescribable feelings. How the heart is wrung, as often as the eye, or the ear, or the hand, is attracted to attend or to minister to the little trembling prisoner! At length the fatal moment is come: and the afflicting alternative presses, "This innocent, or my own firstborn must suffer. If my heart relent, lo, the flaming sword of the destroying angel is within my habitation. My resolution is formed. There is no room for deliberation. Die thou, that my son may live."

But the figure, without straining for a resemblance, presents unto us JESUS, "a Son born, and a Saviour given;" ours from the manger, ours to the tomb. His days cut off in the midst: at that period of life when men are coming to their prime of vigour, beauty, and usefulness. "A lamb without blemish." Those who love to fritter away the spirit and meaning of divine institutions in literal interpretation, have gone into a particular enumeration of the various kinds of blemishes which disqualified a sacrifice upon this occasion; and these they have multiplied to considerably above fifty. And what folly has taken pains to invent, superstition has been The later idle and weak enough to follow. Rabbins tell us, that the lamb was set apart four days before the sacrifice, in order to afford time and opportunity to inquire into its unobBut the paschal victim could have no presoundness and perfection; that if any served spot should appear, there might be sentiment of its approaching fate. Happy in time to reject it, and to substitute another in its ignorance, it could die but once. Chrisits room. The law itself is plain and simple; tians, need your eyes be directed to your and no good Israelite, of common sense, with great gospel passover? Behold your atonethe sacred charter in his hand, could possibly ment-deliberately chosen of GoD; fixed mistake its meaning; which is simply to sig- upon, in the maturity of eternal counsels; nify, that the good God is to be served with under the pressure of the great decree; vothe choicest and best of every thing. But luntarily presenting and surrendering himthe law evidently looked further than to the self!-Behold him continually admonished mere corporeal perfection or defects of a silly of his approaching sufferings and death; by lamb: and we should but ill understand both his own divine prescience; by the perpetual the text and the commentary, did we not insults and violence of wicked men; by the look through the whole type to HIM who is descent of Moses and Elias to the mount of "The decease which he "without spot and blemish;" who, though transfiguration. born of a sinful mother, "did no sin;" who should accomplish" at length, "at Jerusalived many years in the "midst of a sinful lem," was continually assuming a blacker and adulterous generation," without con- and a blacker complexion, from being foretracting any taint of moral pollution: in whom seen, foreknown, and more keenly felt, as the "the prince of this world, when he came, hour drew nigh. Lo, he "treads the winefound nothing;" and whom his agents, Judas press alone." The dreadful conflict is begun. and Pontius Pilate, the instruments of his What "strong crying with tears" do I hear? condemnation and death, were constrained" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass to acquit. "I have sinned and betrayed innocent blood;" said the one. "Take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in him," said the other. "And when the centurion saw what was done, he said, Surely this was the Son of God!"

from me.'

." What "great drops of blood" do I see, distilling from every pore, and "fall-· ing to the ground?" Ah! the unrelenting executioner has begun to perform his infernal task: and yet, the bleeding "Lamb opens not his mouth." What sigh is that which "My God! The very act of selecting the one victim pierces my soul? What strange accents from among many, must have been an affect- burst upon my astonished ear? ing office. Why should this innocent crea- my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" The ture bleed and die, rather than another?-conflict is at an end. He bows his head. "It Why should the notice of my eyc, or his is finished." The victim has "poured out

his soul unto death." He has given up the ghost. These things the angels desire to look into."

"O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and love of God! How unsearch

able are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Who "can comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height:" who" can know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge!"

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE XLIV.

And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean you by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.-EXODUS xii. 26, 27.

WITH

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, and see the reward of the wicked.-PSALM Xci. 5-8.

THE great JEHOVAH, in all the works of his hands, and in all the ways of his providence, is ever preparing still grander displays of his divine perfection than those which have been already submitted to our view. This visible creation, fair, and vast, and magnificent as it is, being composed of perishing materials, and destined, in the eternal plan, to a temporary duration, is passing away, to give place to "new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." He who made all things at first, saith, "Behold, I make all things new." The whole Jewish economy, "The adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises :" The patriarchs and the prophets, with all they said, acted, and wrote, were but "the preparation of the gospel of peace;" and all issue in Christ the Lord, "in whom all the promises are yea, and amen, to the glory of God the Father." And the kingdom of grace, under the great Redeemer, is only leading to the kingdom of glory.

It is both pleasant and useful, to observe the nature, the occasion, and the design, of sacred institutions. A closer inspection generally discovers much more than is apparent at first sight. The ordinance of the passover owes its institution to an event of considerable importance in the history of mankind; and its abrogation to a still greater. Its celebration commemorates the destruction of all the first-born in Egypt, and the redemption of Israel. Its abolition marks that most memorable era, the death of God's own eternal Son, and the redemption of a lost world, by the shedding of his precious blood. It is not

therefore to be wondered at, if, in an ordinance which was intended to expire in the sacrifice of the great "Lamb of Atonement," slain "from the foundation of the world," its divine Author should have thought proper to enjoin many particulars, which figuratively and symbolically pointed out "good things to come," as well as literally expressed good things present.

Several of these significant circumstances, we took occasion to point out to you in the last Lecture. The commencement of the year was changed. The memory of nature's birth was sunk as it were in the memory of the church's deliverance; and a joyful expectation was excited of the gradual approach of "the fulness of time," the day, the new year's day of the world's redemption. In that sacred festival was seen, God drawing nigh to his Israel, in loving kindness, tender mercy, and faithfulness; and Israel drawing nigh to their God, in gratitude, love, and obedience. The feast was prepared by the removal of all leaven, the emblem of "malice and wickedness;" and eaten with unleavened bread, the emblem of "sincerity and truth." The victim was appointed to be a "lamb of the first year, without blemish," chosen from among the flock, set apart and killed, to preserve the life of him who poured out, and sprinkled its blood; the figure of Him who was to come; "the Lamb of God, who beareth the sin of the world;" holy, harmless, gentle, patient; "delivered according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God:" "suffering, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." We are now to continue the subject.

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