work of our sanctification, we have many enemies to encounter within us, without us, and around us; the flesh with its evil lusts and passions, the world with its seductive example, and its delusive pomps and vanities, and the Devil, with whatever power he has to tempt and to try us. Some, perhaps, may have greater obstacles to surmount than others: a disposition naturally more prone to evil may have been their lot; or by long and habitual indulgence in sins of some kind or other, even their natural propensities may have been rendered more difficult to be regenerated and changed. But let not the awakened sinner be discouraged, nor let him be dismayed. Greater is he that is for him, than all those who are against him. God hath said (and He is faithful as well as powerful, who hath promised) that no greater trial shall be allowed to befall any one than what He himself, if properly invoked, and if the individual rightly uses the means of standing, which he possesses, will give the strength to bear. full reliance then upon these and similar assurances, which the word of God contains, whatever our peculiar spiritual circumstances may be, whether we have just been awakened from a long night of sin and darkness, or have never needed such illumination to the sense of our condition, let us each go on conquering and to conquer; adding to the respective measures of our faith their re

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quisite accessions in order to the full developement of the Christian character; in short, whatever may be the spiritual obligations more especially incumbent upon us, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord.

DISCOURSE THE SEVENTH.

On the times appointed in the Levitical calendar to be solemnized as sacred. Of the feast of the Passover.

HAVING in my former Discourses gone through those parts of the Jewish ceremonial Law which relate to its sacrifices, to its priesthood, and to the holiness required from the Hebrew worshipper; I proceed now to consider such of its institutions as belong to the times or seasons appointed to be solemnized as sacred. The number of the greater and more important occasions of this description we may collect from various passages to have been three thus, "Three times thou shalt keep a "feast unto me in the yeara" Three times in the

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year all thy males shall appear before the Lord "Godb." We learn also from the same passages the proper denominations of these three solemnities, when, as it seems, all the male population of Judæa was to assemble at the place which the Lord should choose, to put his name there; as well as the time fixed for the observance of each. The

a Exod. xxiii. 14.

b Verse 19; cf. Deuter. xvi. 10; Exod. xxxiv. 23.

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Chap. xxiii. 14-17; xxxiv. 18-23; Deuter. xvi. 1-16.

first was the feast of Passover, or, as it is often called, the feast of unleavened bread, because during the period of its celebration, the children of Israel were commanded to put away all leaven from their houses; and the time appointed for its commencement was the 14th day of the month Abib, or Nisan. "In the first month, on the "fourteenth day of the month at even," said the Law," ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the "one and twentieth day of the month at even;" so that for a period of eight successive days no leaven was to be found in their houses. This is that feast of the Jews, to which we have so frequent an allusion in the narratives of the four Evangelists, and which our Saviour is so often represented as going up to Jerusalem to attend, in conformity with the precept of the Law.

The second is the feast of Pentecost, or, as it is sometimes called, the feast of weeks, and the feast of harvest, because it happened at a period of the year, when the wheat harvest began in the country of Judæa; the time fixed for its observance being seven weeks, or as the term Pentecost implies, the fiftieth day, after the Passover: as it is written, "Seven weeks shalt thou number unto theef;" with respect to the date, whence they were to be numbered, the ritual in the same pas

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d Exod. xii. 18. Lev. xxiii. 15, 16.

e

Chap. xxiii. 16; Deut. xvi. 9; f Deut. xvi. 9.