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LECTURE IV.

ON THE ARTIFICIAL OR INSTITUTED FIGURES

OF THE LAW OF MOSES.

EXT in order to thofe figures of LECT. the fcripture which may be called

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natural, as being taken from nature, we are to examine thofe which are borrowed from the inftitutions of the law, and may be called artificial, as being ordained and accommodated to this purpose by the lawgiver himself.

The chief ordinances of the law are referred to in the prophets, the pfalms, and the new teftament, and many paffages are cited from thence and treated of by Christ and his apoftles, which will ferve as a key to the language of the law, and fhew us the intention of its ceremonies and precepts.

St. Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews, gives us this general idea of the law, that

IV.

IV.

LECT. it had a shadow of good things to come; by which he means to teach us, that it was in its ordinances a figure of the blefsings of the gospel. It was, as a shadow is, juft and defcriptive in its lineaments, but it had in itself neither fubftance nor life. When the gospel refers us to the law, it refers us to a fhadow of itfelf; and fuch references will neceffarily be figurative and want an interpretation; of which I fhall now proceed to give fome examples.

Among the inftitutions of the law, the first place is due to its facrifices and priesthood; and the first and greatest sacrifice of which we have any particular defcription is that of the paffover. From this the apostle inftructs us in the benefits of Chrift's death, together with the qualifications neceffary to a participation of them; and in fo doing he uses the terms of the institution itself; Chrift our passover is facrificed for ust. carries us back to the

This expreffion

cause and end for

which the paffover was inftituted; and it

* Heb. x. 19

+1 Cor. v. 7.

appears

IV.

appears from this reference of the apostle, LECT. 1. That Chrift is what the paffover was, a lamb taken from the flock of his people. 2. That he was a facrifice, put to death as an offering to God. 3. That this was done for us, for our redemption and deliverance from the divine wrath; as the paffover was facrificed for the redemption of the Hebrews, when the first born of Egypt were destroyed.

All this is comprehended in the use the apostle has made of those terms; and this will be still plainer, if we attend to the particulars. For the character of our bleffed Saviour was anfwerable in all respects to that of the paschal lamb: he was without blemish, innocent and perfect in his nature; and, as the prophet describes him, like the lamb when brought to the Slaughter, meek and unrefifting. When John the Baptift pointed out Jefus to the Jews as the Meffiah, he chose to do it in those words, behold the lamb of God; fee and acknowledge the true paffover which

*Ifaiah liii. 7.

† John i. 29,

God

IV.

LECT. God himself hath provided, not for the deliverance of a fingle nation, but to take away the fin of the world. Whatever the law had ordained concerning the offering of lambs in the paffover, and in the daily facrifices of the morning and evening, all is explained in this short reference of John the Baptist, applying the facrifices of the law to the true lamb of God. In the fame gofpel of St. John we find another remarkable allufion to the inftitution of the paffover. From the circumftance which happened at our Saviour's death, that his legs were not broken with those of the two malefactors, the evangelift obferves, these things were done that the fcripture should be fulfilled, a bone of him fhall not be broken; at which paffage the margin of our best editions of the bible refers us to Exodus xii. 46. where this direction is given concerning the paffover, neither shall ye break a bone thereof.

If we look to the design or occafion of his facrifice, we find it the fame in effect with that of the paffover: for as that was

IV.

flain for the Hebrews in Egypt, fo was He LECT The first born of Ifrael

facrificed for us.
would have been destroyed with those of
Egypt, but for the blood of the pafchal
lamb upon the doors of their houses; and
we also who are, as the Hebrews were, in
a land of bondage, among finful people
devoted to deftruction, fhall not escape the
divine wrath in that night when the de-
ftroyer shall be sent out, but in virtue of
the true paffover: therefore we are said to
have redemption through his blood. The
term redemption, as applied to the falva-
tion of finners by Jefus Chrift, is taken in
a figurative fenfe. It fignifies literally the
release of a captive or guilty person, in
confideration of fomething accepted in lieu
of him. All men are in a ftate of for-
feiture, fold under fin, and captives of fa-
tan: out of which condition, they are
not redeemed with filver and gold, as com-
mon captives, but with the precious blood of
Chrift, as of a lamb without blemish and
without fpot; that is, as the Hebrews were
in Egypt by the blood of the passover.

The

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