bered 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 families, 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 firstborn 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

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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.

Nothing less than the assurance of which we

*Rom. v. 11.

have spoken ought to satisfy us, for nothing less than that to which we have referred can save us. Under no other protection, can we sleep secure. The destroying 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 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 bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; 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 door, and will not suffer the destroyer to your houses to smite you.

pass over the come in unto

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 firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn 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.