palliate and apt to excuse, suppose you were standing at the judgment-feat of Christ, where all of us shall shortly be; and think, whether your excuses will then stand the test of his impartial search.

If our hearts condemn us not, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things. It is therefore the duty and interest of every finner, to take shame and confufion of face to himself, and apply to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.

:

SERMON IV.

THE SALVATION OF SINNERS, ONLY BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS.

BY

ALEXANDER MACWHORTER, D. D.

Paftor of the First Prefbyterian Church, at Newark,

New-Jersey.

T

I COR. v. 7.

For even Christ our Passover is facrificed for us.

HERE

is in this passage a direct allusion to the Jewish feaft or facrament called the passover, and to the method of observing it enjoined by God at its original inftitution. The institution itself, with the occafion and manner of obferving it, are particulary recorded in

C3

Exodus.

:

Exodus. The whole economy of Providence towards the Jewish nation, especially from the time they first came into Egypt, until their settlement in the land of Canaan, is typical. Their Egyptian bondage was perhaps intended by God to shadow forth the natural state of man with respect to spiritual things, and their miraculous deliverance by the hand of Mofes, clearly pointed to the recovery of fallen sinners by Jesus Christ. There is no conduct of Providence, wherein the wisdom of God shines with more glory and evidence that in the exactness in which the spirit of the New Testament answers to the letter of the Old, the shadows to the substance, the figures to the things prefigured, and the types to the antitypes. He, who will humbly and carefully compare them, will not fail of obtaining great conviction and information with regard to the divinity of the scriptures, and entire fatisfaction with respect to most of those points, about which the Christian world are so much divided. The Old and New Testaments do mutually illustrate each other. The Old would not be equally clear without the New, the New in many parts would be dark and unintelligible without the Old. Our text is an instance of the truth of this remark.

What should we be able to make of this New Testament doctrine, that Christ is our paffover, were it not for the light and affistance we have from the Old Testament? -But from both we easily learn, that the passover was a type of Jesus Christ; it was intended by God to be of this nature and use. The paschal lamb had a direct reference to Jesus as the lamb of God. It was observed by true believers under the Old Testament in this view: their faith beheld Christ in the institution. The epistle to the Hebrews tells us, that by faith Moses kept the paffover, and the sprinkling of blood.

The

The most easy method, therefore, of explaining the truth contained in the text, will be by contrasting the type and the antitype. We shall best understand what we are taught when Christ is called our passover, by attending to the original institution of this ordinance among the Jews; and pointing out the resemblance it bears to Jesus Chrift the Mediator. This I shall endeavour to do in the following particulars.

I. The passover was appointed when God was about to destroy all the first-born in the land of Egypt. They were all doomed to destruction by the divine decree, without exception. Moses declares to Pharaoh: Thus faith the Lord, About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaob that fitteth on the throne, even to the first-born of the maid-fervant that is bebind the mill, and all the first-born of beasts.

On this awful occafion was the passover instituted by God, and appointed to the Ifraelites.

In like manner Jesus Christ was appointed, when all the human race were, by the sentence of the divine law, doomed to everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and glory of his power. Eternal death was fixed as the demerit and punishment of man's violating that law under which God had placed him. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt furely die.

The head of the human race, with whom God transacted for himself and all his pofterity, violated the constitution established with him, and ruined himself; and the whole race was ruined in and with him. They all finned and became guilty in their head and representative. By one man fin entered into the world, and death by fin, and fo death paffed upon all men, for that all have finned.

On this occafion, the whole race of mankind, through all their generations, were doomed, by the sentence of God's righteous law, to everlasting perdition. The sen-tence was righteous, the doom was just, and it would have been infinitely fit in God to have executed the fame. If this had been done, each of us who are here present, would have been now in chains of eternal darkness and despair. That this would be the event of man's apoftacy, was no doubt expected by all the elect angels. They had seen the iffue of rebellion in the case of their fallen companions; and if they could argue only from fact, no other conclufion could be made by them, than the damnation of mankind.

In this loft and ruined condition of mankind, when they were all under the curse and exposed to everlasting deftruction, Jesus Christ became, in the appointment of God, our paffover. God conftituted Adam our first covenant head, and he conftituted Christ our second covenant head. Adam's headship was an image or type of Christ's. In regard to this appointment, Christ is called the Lamb flain from the foundation of the world.

II. The passover was originally appointed as the only method for the Ifraelites escaping the destruction God intended to execute on the Egyptians. The account of the institution renders the observation evident; for when God had ordained the folemnity, and the manner of observing it, he gives the following reason of the ordinance :-For 1 will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will jmite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt, I will exe-cute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are, and when I fee

the

i

!

the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you, when I fmite the land of Egypt.

This destruction of the Egyptians was figurative; the method appointed to the Ifraelites for escaping this deftruction, was also figurative. The former respected the effect of God's wrath for fin in the eternal damnation of finners; the latter, the only way of deliverance from this mifery. Accordingly Jesus Christ is our passover, as by him only can we escape the wrath and curse of God, due to us for fin. He is ordained of God for this purpose. He is the wisdom and power of God to salvation to every one that believeth. There is no name but Chrift's by which finners can be saved. There is no poffibility of escaping the wrath of God, but by him. In vain is salvation hoped or fought for in other ways; from the hills and from the mountains, from this or from that course; for Jesus Chrift is the true and only passover. Vain are the attempts of guilty affrighted mortals, to avert the impending vengeance. All the various inventions and practices of a mind distracted with the guilt of fin and dread of hell, are but as stubble before the devouring flame. And he who has never felt this truth, has never yet fled to the only ark of safety from divine vengeance. The wrath of God abideth on him, and his jealousy will smoke against that man. And unless the eyes of such a finner be foon opened to see himself, and God, and Chrift, in a manner that he never has, in a manner that shall shake down all bis present hopes and confidences to the foundation, the storms of God's unquenchable fury will quickly do it. The bail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters overflow the biding place. Hear this, ye that forget God; hear this, ye that compass yourselves about with sparks of your own kindling; ye shall have this at God's hands; ye shall lie down in forrow! Let no finner bless himself

in