shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people 1;" "I will cover the heavens, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light; all the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land"." As Egypt, then, represented the bondage of sin; so did the plagues, with which that land was visited, represent those spiritual plagues which attend such spiritual bondage. The noxious bloody waters; the frogs, emblems of impurity and uncleanness; the lice which defiled the garments of the Egyptians, and the flies which corrupted their land, rendering them "filthy and polluted";" the boils and blains which left no soundness in them; the thunder, and fire, and hail, those awful emblems of the wrath of God; the devouring locusts, with famine and desolation in their train; the gross palpable darkness, the strong figure of sin, ignorance, and despair, opposed to "the glorious light" of "the Sun of Righteousness," which yieldeth life, and joy, and hope; all these figurative plagues strikingly represent the gloomy, desolate, and hopeless condition of that bondage in which man would have remained, if Christ had not proclaimed liberty to the captiveo, if He had not brought them that sit in darkness, out of the prison-house P. When the deliverance of the Israelites was about to be accomplished, the feast of the Passover was instituted; and the beginning of the ecclesiastical year was altered, so as to make it take place on that day upon which their release from bondage was effected. Every house of the Israelites was directed to take a male lamb without blemish, the blood of which was to be sprinkled on the lintel and sideposts of the house in which the lamb was eaten. On the night in which this feast was celebrated, the Lord smote all the first-born of Egypt, both man and beast; but the blood of the lamb which was sprinkled on the door-posts of the houses of the Israelites, was regarded by the Lord as a token, so that when He saw it, He suffered not the destroyer to come in unto them, when He smote with the plague the land of Egypt 9. The feast of the Passover, and all the several circumstances which attended the first celebration of it, had a striking reference to the covenant of Christ. The "lamb without blemish," represented "the Lamb of GOD,” “a lamb with out blemish and without spots." As the blood of the Paschal lamb preserved the Israelites from "the destroyer;" so the blood of "Christ our Passovert" preserves mankind from the wrath of GOD; "the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus rescues man from spiritual death"," "we have redemption through his blood." Not a bone of the Paschal lamb was broken, nor was aught of it left until the morning; Christ was removed from the cross on the day upon which He was sacrificed, and not a bone of Him was broken*. The destroyer came at midnight; "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." The Israelites were redeemed through the death of the first-born of all the Egyptians, both of man and of beast; and mankind has redemption through the death of Christ, who is "the firstborn of every creature"." The Paschal lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread, and a feast of unleavened bread was instituted. Christ bade His disciples “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy ";" "He bade them not beware of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees d." "Purge out the old leavene." Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Leaven, then, was a figure of hypocrisy, malice, and wickedness, of the fleshly mind that vainly puffeth ups. The casting aside leaven, and eating unleavened bread, represented the laying aside sin, and the adoption of sincerity and truth. 66 The Passover was to be eaten according to the following directions: "Thus shall ye eat it; your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste." Thus also are we ordered to await the coming of our Lord: "Let your loins be girded about and your lights burningi;" " your loins girt about with truth-your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peacek." "Gird up the loins of your mind1." "Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals m." When the disciples of Christ were sent forth, they were to take nothing for their journey save a staff only", but they were to be shod with sandals. The mode in which the Israelites ate the Passover, then, was d Matt. xvi. 12. e 1 Cor. v. 7. f 1 Cor. v. 8. g Coloss. ii. 18. k Eph. vi. 14, 15. " Mark, vi. 8. h Exod. xii. 11. ค Mark, vi. 9. . a figure representing the preparation which man should make for his journey toward the heavenly Canaan; ; we are to have the loins of our minds girded up, so as not to be entangled with the affairs of this life; our feet are to rest on the Gospel of Christ, which we must bind firmly on, that it may ever attend our footsteps; and we are to take nothing for our journey save that "staff only," upon which alone we can trust for support, namely, our faith in Christ, who is our "rod and staff." Thus we find, that the feast of the Passover, the manner of eating it, and the putting away leaven, referred wholly to the covenant of salvation through Christ. The celebration of this feast, in succeeding years, renewed annually the figure which the first Passover presented, whilst it also commemorated the preservation of their first-born from the plague, and the deliverance of their race from Egyptian bondage: which deliverance was itself a figure of that greater deliverance which Christ effected for mankind. The offering of sacrifices of animals had been continued from the time of Adam', so that such sacrifices must have been instituted by the Deity himself. Abel offered of "the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof." Noah offered P 2 Tim. ii. 4. Gen. iii. 21. • Gen. iv. 4. |