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before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven." Let it appear by your unconditional submission to his will and your unreserved obedience to his commands in all things, that you fully allow that authority which he has over all his creatures. Make it to appear that he is the Lord your God, and that you have no will or wish which does not at once give way to his word.

SERMON XII.

THE PASSOVER.

EXODUS XII. 29.

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.

VERY wonderful and terrible were the plagues inflicted upon Egypt which we have already considered. We can scarcely conceive one more dreadful than the last, the plague of darkness; but lo, the Lord now prepares to do a greater thing in the land. Moses went in again to Pharaoh, and denounced to him that all the first-born both of men and of beasts should die about midnight in the land of Egypt, while the Israelites should be wholly spared, and that such would be the

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fear of the Egyptians that they would intreat him with urgency to be gone from the land with all his people. Having thus delivered his last message, "he went out from Pharaoh in great anger." The indignation of the servant of God was moved. He saw a proud audacious obstinate opposer of the God of heaven; he knew him to lie under judgment; he beheld him left, deserted, hardened of God; and his holy soul was moved with a righteous anger against his enormous sin. In this instance Moses was angry and sinned not.

But before the Lord inflicted this last heavy judgment on Pharaoh and Egypt, he was pleased to make a preparation for the safety of his people. He could have distinguished and separated them from the Egyptians without placing any visible sign upon them; but he saw fit to order them to take some measures by which his destroying angel might know them in that terrible night, and suffer them to escape while he slew the first-born of others.

I. Let this form the first head of our

sermon, namely, The preparation made for the safety of the Israelites.

The Israelites were commanded to take a lamb for each family, or small families might join together as one. It was to be a lamb without blemish, and a male of the first year; it might be taken from the sheep or the goats, and was to be kept up from the tenth to the fourteenth day of the month. Then they

were to kill it, and roast it, and eat it whole, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and in a manner and dress which should denote their readiness to depart. Moreover, they were to take the blood of the lamb, and they were to strike it on the two side-posts and on the upper door-post of their houses, and the blood should be to them for a token upon the houses where they were, and when the Lord saw the blood, he would pass over them, and not destroy them, when he smote the land of Egypt. The Lord moreover told them, that this feast, which he named "The Lord's Passover," should be henceforth kept by them annually by an ordinance for ever, in memorial of that great deliverance which he

was about to effect for them. And here we find the first institution of one of the most solemn and important festivals of the Jewish church.

But this preparation for the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt is representative of the manner in which our still greater deliverance from sin is effected through our redemption by the blood of Jesus, and the ceremonies of the Passover supper are, in spirit, the same as those of the Lord's supper. These were types in which the gospel was preached to the ancient church, and we will now proceed to consider them as such.

1. First then the lamb was typical of Christ. There is no description more frequently given of Christ in the word of God, than under this figure. He is pointed out to us by the Baptist as the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ;" he was seen in the vision of St. John (Rev. v.) as a Lamb that had been slain ;" and we are told by St. Peter, that we were "not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ,

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