now arrived, proceeds to give Moses the necessary directions for their departure. But previous to this, "the one plague more," threatened to Pharaoh, was to take effect; the last and most terrible of the ten, the destruction of the first-born throughout the land of Egypt. This fearful judgment was to be attended with circumstances of horror to God's enemies, and of mercy to his people, which are to be remembered to the end of time. With this great object, involving in it the still greater, of placing before the eyes of the Jewish church a perpetual type of the coming and sacrifice of the Messiah, the Almighty now instituted the Passover, the particulars of which we have just read.

That very night, the destroying angel was to go forth, and as he rapidly passed along upon his career of blood and vengeance, that he might at once distinguish friend from foe, every house in which an Israelite dwelt was to be sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb, which had been eaten in holy ceremony to the Lord. "Where I see the blood, I will pass over you," were the words of God himself. How fearful and horrible a judgment, how wonderful and merciful a deliverance! How striking and beautiful a type of the sinner's danger and the Christian's escape! Has the sentence of death, temporal and spiritual, gone forth upon all the children of Adam, and has "death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned?" Then blessed be God, that a way of escape is open, "the blood of sprinkling," offered to us as freely as to the Israelites, of whom we are reading, and with the same certain and merciful effect.

"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us," the "very Paschal Lamb," whose "blood cleanseth from all sin," and saveth from all destruction.

But in the portion of Scripture, upon which we are speaking, it was not enough that a lamb was slain for every family, or every little assemblage of fam ilies, in Israel, it was also to be eaten and its blood sprinkled upon the lintel and the door-posts, or every other portion of the ceremony would have been in vain; the destroying angel would have entered in, and the first-born would have perished. So is it with ourselves, the Lamb is slain, "yea, slain from the foundation of the world," but an unapplied Saviour is no Saviour; it remains for us, each for himself, to "feed by faith upon the Son of God, to be thus partakers of the Lamb, that we may be partakers of the exceeding great and precious privileges which his death has purchased. That precious blood is not to be merely looked at, thought of, talked of, it is to be practically and individually applied to the conscience, by a true, a living, an obeying faith. The Israelite might well have asked himself, ere he retired to rest upon that fatal night: On what does my security from the dreadful slaughter around me depend? I have no bolts and bars that can keep out this fearful spirit, who is, perhaps, even now winging his way towards my habitation? How can I sleep in peace? May not my eldest born perish in the general carnage? May not this minister of justice enter here? Thank God, I have his immutable word and his unfailing promise, that where he "sees the blood," he will not enter.

But am I sure that I have obeyed, strictly, literally obeyed the injunction of my God? that I have sprinkled the lintel and the door-posts? I will go down once more and make myself certain of this, upon which all depends, and then I shall sleep in peace. Christian, can you lie down on your bed this night without ascertaining the same fact? Will you be satisfied with thinking that you are safe, when it is in your power to be certain of this all-important fact? Are you sure that you have applied personally and individually the great sacrifice which Christ has offered? that you have, as the apostle to the Romans expresses it, "received the atonement?" "That you are partaker of the blood of sprinkling," and that it forms the safeguard of your spiritual house? If you have a good and scriptural reason to be assured of this, you also may sleep in peace, and if you awake not here to see to-morrow's dawn, you shall arise in a land where your sun shall no more go down, and where your peace and joy and happiness shall never end.

Under no The destroy

Nothing less than the assurance of which we have spoken ought to satisfy us, for nothing less than that to which we have referred can save us. other protection, can we sleep secure. ing angel will respect the sign of God's appointment, but nothing else; our bolts and bars of worldly honesty, or human virtue, or natural amiability, all useful in their places, will not keep him out a moment; he looks for "the blood," and for that alone, and where he finds it, all is safe; but where he finds it

* Rom. v. 11.

not, he enters, and where he enters, there is death, spiritual and eternal.

EXPOSITION XXX.

EXODUS xii. 21-34.

21. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover.

22. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.

23. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

24. And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee, and to thy sons for ever.

25. And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.

26. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?

27. That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.

28. And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

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.

30. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for

there was not a house where there was not one dead.

31. And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said.

32. Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.

33. And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.

34. And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

In the last portion of Scripture, we had the account of the institution of the passover by God himself. We have now the narrative of the first actual celebration of it, on that eventful night, when the last great judgment, of the death of the first-born, was inflicted upon the Egyptians, and when the Israelites were delivered from their long and cruel captivity. The only addition which Moses makes to the instructions that the Almighty had given, is, that when repeating them to the elders of Israel, he avails himself of the opportunity to impress upon them the necessity, when they should arrive at the land which the Lord should give them, that they should explain the nature and intent of this remarkable service to their children; by telling them, that it was the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, and recounting to them his wonderful and miraculous preservation of them. Surely, this conveys a very important and striking lesson to the Christian parent, carefully to instruct his children in all the great deliverances,