THE PASSOVER.

"CHRIST our Passover is sacrificed for us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened and truth."

FTER considering the characte Shepherd, and His calling for from the fold of Judaism, we may w take notice of the exodus of the Jewis selves from the bondage of Egypt. T herd is He "Who led His people in like a flock by the hand of Moses It may seem as if the two callings f different. And yet the later call is but the development of the earlier age, kindred to that of Egypt, ling

law of Sinai. "The law was a schoolmaster to bring the people unto CHRIST."* The bondage of a hostile oppressor, and the bondage of a burdensome ceremonial, were parts of the same Divine discipline by which the nation was to be prepared for "the obedience of faith." Both were of the world; although in one case, the world was rioting in its evil power; and in the other, the "elements of the world" were made to shadow forth "good things to come." The Jewish law pointed on to the MESSIAH. Itself was "weak and beggarly." It told of a glorious hope for Israel, but it could not anticipate the gifts of MESSIAH'S kingdom. The Spirit of the LORD was to rest upon the stem of Jesse, but until that Spirit was shed forth, the glorious liberty of GOD's children could not be accomplished. The bondage of Egypt, from which the children of Israel were delivered by the Covenant of the Passover, was a type of the bondage of nature, from which mankind, both Jew and Gentile, were to be delivered by the Covenant of the Lamb of GOD. The outward service of GOD, to which the people were called after they left Egypt, was a type of the nobler service fraught

sin-offering of the law, because the of eat of the sacrifice-a token of comm GOD,-whereas the sin-offering was restore the capacity for communion, the benefits of the Covenant. The B fice, however, has been supposed exceptional kind of sin-offering. wherein its differeuce from the prope really consisted.

The distinction of sacrifices belo altogether to a later date. We ought how we limit the acts of any period of a subsequent system. We may a idea of propitiation underlay every b fice. No satisfactory account can b taking away of animal life, unless it tion that the life of the offerer was The general idea then of propitiatio Paschal offering. Yet the offering for the sake of removing sin, but of privilege of a promise already give fore, was itself rather a peace-off Eucharistic. The Holy Eucharist o Church is its great antitype. I offering of CHRIST, not as "th for the sins of the whole world,"

Advocate with the FATHER," on behalf of "the Church which He has purchased with His own Blood."+

If, then, we would enter into the moral teaching designed for us by this offering, we must consider both the ransom implied, and the Covenant by which it was claimed.

We are expressly told by S. Stephen, that "GOD sent Moses to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel which appeared to him in the bush." The ransom by which Moses redeemed Israel must have been the Paschal Lamb. How then was it a ransom? It was a type setting forth before GOD the hope of Israel, the promised MESSIAH. As Moses in his own person symbolized the personal triumphant Majesty of the coming MESSIAH, so did the Paschal Lamb symbolize and exhibit, as we shall see in detailed similitude, the humiliation and passion attendant upon His redeeming work. CHRIST is the great Redeemer to Whom all ransom points. He was from the beginning, the hope of Israel. In every redemption of Israel, it was to Him they must look.

The redemption gathered its national

• 1 John ii., 1. † Acts xx., 28.

+ Ib. vii., 35.

importance in proportion as it bound the nation more closely to Him, by expressing in type or prophecy some feature of the final Advent. Indeed, all sacrifice pointed onward to His redemption in whatever nation it was offered, for He was to be the Redeemer of all mankind. The blood which was shed to make atonement, was ever significant of the life which He should give, the propitiation which He should make for the sins of the whole world. The phases of Jewish history, their great deliverances, from time to time, were steps leading to the great consummation whereby all mankind should be blessed through the seed of Abraham

The Passover, inasmuch as it was a sacrifice, implied that the redemption of the coming MESSIAH should be an atonement for sin, and itself was based upon that atonement. The sin-offering of CHRIST, however, was for all mankind.

The

Passover was only for the Israelites, as a peculiar people, inheritors of the promises of Abraham. It consequently failed to exhibit the extension of blessing beyond the race of Abraham, which the promised seed was to effect by His sacrifice. It was limited in its application, and was the means of applying His redemption to those who were