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to be broken, are the bones of the paschal lamb. But St. John teaches us, that this prophetic Scripture received its accomplishment, when the soldiers refrained from breaking the legs of Christ. Suchi however could not possibly have been the case, unless the death of Christ with its concomitant circumstances had been shadowed out by the death of the paschal lamb with its concomitant circumstances. But the one could not have been shadowed out by the other, unless Christ had been typified by the paschal lamb. Therefore the paschal lamb must have been a type of the promised Redeemer.

(2.) The matter however is put out of all doubt by the positive decision of St. Paul. Christ our Passover, says he, is sacrificed for us: let us therefore keep the feast. Here Christ is unreservedly declared to be the true paschal lamb: and his death, like that of his type, is pronounced to be a sacrifice.

4. Agreeably to this conclusion, we find a very exact correspondence between the type and the antitype.

The paschal lamb was ordered to be slain, and his blood was directed to be sprinkled upon the lintel and the door-posts of each dwelling occupied by God's chosen people; that, when the Angel

Exod. xii. 46. Numb. ix. 12. I think it very doubtful, whether Psalm xxxiv. 20. can be here alluded to; because that passage seems to contain only a general assertion of God's providence over the righteous.

21 Corinth, v. 7, 8.

smote the Egyptians, he might pass over the houses of the Israelites and leave them secure from danger: in a similar manner, by the blood of Christ alone, shed for many for a remission of sins, can the im pending wrath of heaven be averted from sinful man. Before the blood of our Lord was sprinkled upon his Church, we stood (as it were) without, exposed, like the Egyptians, to the vengeance of a justly incensed God: but now his precious bloodshedding, like the sprinkled blood of the paschal lamb, is our safety and defence, so that the anger of Jehovah may pass over us. The death of the paschal lamb was for the deliverance of the Levitical Church; yet, if any negligent or unbelieving Israelite availed not himself of the proffered refuge, he perished undistinguished with the Egyptians: thus likewise the death of the Lamb of God was for the deliverance of the Christian Church; but, if any one claims to be a Christian in name, while yet he renounces the doctrine of pardon and acceptance through the sprinkled blood of the Messiah, he then places himself without the doors of the Church, and will be strictly judged according to his works by a Law which pronounces that man accursed who observes not with undeviating punctuality all the commandments which it has enjoined." From the creation to the day of judgment, there have been, and are, and can be, no more than two covenants that of works, and that of grace. Under the one or the other of these compacts, every.

VOL. II.

Galat. iii. 10. .

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man must arrange himself. To the person therefore, who rejects the covenant of grace, nothing can possibly remain save a trial by the inflexible cove nant of works.

5. But the history of the Passover throws a strong light on the nature both of Christ's death and of the ordinance which he was pleased to ap point in commemoration of it.

(1.) The paschal lamb, as we have seen, is authoritatively declared to be a prophetic type of Christ. But the devotement of the paschal lamb is likewise authoritatively pronounced to be a SACRIFICE. Therefore, as the death of the lamb sha dows out the death of Christ, it will necessarily follow, that the slaughter of Christ must be a sacrifice of the very same nature as the slaughter of the lamb. The sacrifice however of the paschal lamb is clearly a piacular sacrifice, as contradis tinguished from an eucharistic sacrifice. Therefore the sacrifice of Christ must similarly be a piacular sacrifice, or a sacrifice by which the wrath of God is averted from his believing Church.

Now such a sacrifice plainly involves the idea of an atonement or expiation; and, as this its nature will lead us to a right understanding of the

Hence, as we have recently seen, the language of St. Paul is; Christ our Passover IS SACRIFICED for us. From these words nothing can be clearer, than that the death of Christ is a sacrifice of the very same nature as the death of the paschal lamb. Otherwise, with what propriety is he at once termed our Passover and said to be sacrificed for us?

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cognate nature of the commemorative ordinance; so, when the nature of that ordinance is ascertained, its strict concinnity will tend to establish the doctrine that the slaughter of Christ was a strictly piacular sacrifice.

(2.) Since the devotement of the paschal lamb is explicitly declared to be a sacrifice, and since the paschal lamb itself is not less explicitly pronounced to be a type of Christ: the feasting on the flesh of the lamb must inevitably correspond to that sacrament, in which we are said to eat the flesh and to drink the blood of the antitypical Lamb of God. But, as the devotement of the paschal lamb is a sacrifice, the eating of its flesh must plainly be a feast after a sacrifice; a feast, closely analogous to those post-sacrificial feasts of the Gentiles, by partaking of which they deemed themselves to partake of all the benefits procured by the oblation of the sacrifice.' Therefore, as

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In the ancient sacrifices, says Bp. Potter, both among Jews and Heathens, one part of the victim was offered upon the altar, and another reserved to be eaten of those persons in whose name the sacrifice was made. This was accounted a sort of partaking of God's table; and was a federal rite, whereby he owned his guests to be in his favour and under his protection, as they by offering sacrifices “acknowledged him to be their God. Bp. Potter on Church govern. p. 266. In a similar manner speaks Dr. Outram. Qui victimis vescebantur, aræ participes censebantur communique cum Deo mensa uti. Quippe ara mensa Dei dicitur, ejusque fructus Dei cibus (Malach. i. 12.); ita ut quos Deus aræ suæ participes faceret, hos sibi amicitia quadam conjunctos esse significabatur. Quæ eadem quoque ratio fuit (1 Cor. x. 20.), quare qui illa comedebant, quæ Dæmonibus immolata erant (qui mos profanarum gentium fuit), Dæmonum consortes censerentur. Outram. de sacrif. lib. i. c. xvii. § v.

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the devotement of the antitypical Lamb is also a sacrifice, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper must plainly be a feast upon a sacrifice because, in the due celebration of it, we are said to eat the flesh and to drink the blood of the slaughtered victim.

Such then is the nature of the Lord's Supper. It is indeed a commemorative ordinance; but it is not an exclusively commemorative ordinance, as Zuingle, in his horror of Popish transubstantiation, too hastily asserted. The rite comprehends the additional idea of feasting upon the sacrificed victim which feasting, agreeably to the opinion entertained of post-sacrificial banquets both by Jews and by Gentiles from the most remote patriarchal antiquity, represents and federally conveys to every worthy communicant the benefits of the sacrifice itself; namely, remission of sins, a mysterious union with Christ the head through sanctification by the Spirit, and a title to eternal life.'

(3.) In fact, the very reason of the case shews the necessity of this additional palmary idea.

If the sacrament of the Lord's Supper be merely commemorative, it differs in no material point from a sermon on the passion: for, in the one case, the death of Christ is commemorated by significant actions; and, in the other case, it is equally commemorated by significant words. But, throughout Holy Scripture, significant actions and significant words are used indifferently to communicate the mind of God: nor is any higher degree of import

I John vi. 48-58. xvii. 21. 12, 13, 27. Eph. i. 22, 23.

1 Corinth. vi. 15. xi. 3. xii.

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