of the third month is forty six or forty seven days, when they came to the Mount of Sinai. Exod. xx. 1, 2. Then they purified themselves three days, ver. 11, 16, and God gave the law the fiftieth day and this feast was called pentecost, which in the Greek signifies fiftieth.

102 Q. What was the feast of trumpets?

A. The first day of the seventh month, blowing of trumpets was appointed with peculiar sacrifices, and an holy assembly. Lev. xxiii. 24. Numb. xxix. 1, &c.

103 Q. What are supposed to be the two chief designs of this feast of trumpets?

A. (1.) The seventh month having several holy days in it, it was a sort of sabbatical month, or month of sabbaths, and was to be begun with an extraordinary sound of trumpets. (2.) This was counted the first month, and first day of the year for civil matters, as the other was for things religious, and was to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet. See Pool's Annotat. on Lev. xxiii. 24, and

XXV. 9.

Note. As the seventh day was the sabbath, or day of rest from labour, so the seventh month was a sort of sabbatical month; the seventh year a sabbatical year, to let the land rest from tillage; and at or after the seventh sabbatical year, that is, once in fifty years, there was a year of jubilee, or release and rest from servitude or bondage. Lev. xxv. 2, &c. 8, &c.

104 Q. What was the great day of atonement?

A. The tenth day of the seventh month was appointed as a general day of public fasting and humiliation, repentance, and atonement, for all the people. Lev. xxiii. 27, and xvi. 29, and Numb. xxix.

105 Q. What was to be done on that day?

A. This was the day when the high priest, dressed in his richest garments, was to enter into the most holy place with the blood of a peculiar sacrifice, and sprinkle it upon the mercy-seat before the Lord, to make atonement for the sins of the whole nation, and to offer incense on the golden censer. See several more ceremonies belonging to this day, Lev. xvi. Let it be observed also, that in the year of jubilee, on this great day

of atonement, the trumpet of jubilee was to be sounded through the land, to proclaim liberty to all the inhabitants. Lev. xxv. 8-10.

106 Q. What was the feast of tabernacles?

A. On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, at the end of all their harvest, they begun this feast, and dwelt seven days in booths made of the boughs of trees. Deut. xvi. 13.

107 Q. What was the design of this ceremony?

A. To keep in memory their dwelling in booths in the wilderness, when they went out of the land of Egypt. Lev. xxiii. 39-44.

108 Q. How was this feast observed?

A. By peculiar sacrifices every day of the feast, and a holy assembly on the first day, and on the eighth day. Numb. xxix. 12.

109 Q. At what hour did their sabbaths, and all their feasts begin and end?

A. The Jews counted their days, and particularly their holy days, from the evening at sunset to the next evening. Gen. i. 5. Lev. xxiii. 5, 32.

110 Q. At what place were the feasts to be kept?

A. At the place which God should choose for the residence of the ark and tabernacle; which was first at Shiloh, afterwards at Jerusalem; though the blowing of trumpets to proclaim the beginning of the year was practised in all thè cities of Israel. See Deut. xvi. 16, and Pool's Annotat. on Lev. xxiii. 24. 2 Kings, xxi. 4.

111 Q. How then could all Israel keep these feasts? A. At the three chief feasts, namely, the pass-over, pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles, all the males were to appear before God in one place with some offering. Exod. xxiii. 14—17. Deut. xvi. 16.

112 Q. What was the offering they were to bring unto God when they appeared before him at these solemn feasts ?

A. The tithe or tenth part of their corn, wine, and oil, and the first born of their cattle; but they themselves were to partake in eating of it, Deut. xiv. 22, 23, though the bulk of it was to be given to the priests and Levites. See Chap. VI. Quest. 15, 16.

113 Q Was it not dangerous for them to leave their own dwellings, in towns and villages which bordered on their enemy's country?

A. God promised them, that when they should go up to appear before him thrice in the year, no man should desire their land, Exod. xxxiv. 23, 24, which was a standing miracle during that dispensation.

114 Q. Having heard this account of holy persons and places, things and times, let us now inquire what were the holy actions?

A. All those actions may be called holy, which were appointed to be a part of this ceremonial worship; but the actions relating to the natural worship of God, such as prayer and praise, are in themselves holy and religious.

SECT. VI. The Use of the Jewish Ceremonies.

115 Q. WHAT were the chief uses of all these ceremonial commands?

A. These three: (1.) To distinguish the Jews from all other people, as a holy people, and God's peculiar visible church, who eminently bore up his name and honour in the world. Lev. xx. 22—26.

(2.) To employ that people, who were so much given to idolatry, in many varieties of outward forms and rites of religion, lest they should be tempted to follow the superstition and idolatry of the nations round about them. Deut. vi. 1, 2, 14, 17. Deut. xxix. 1, 9-18.

(5.) To represent by types, figures and emblems, many of the offices of Christ, and the glories and blessings of his Gospel.

116 Q. How doth it appear that any of these Jewish ceremonies are emblems or types of Christ and his Gospel?

A. (1.) This appears from many places in the New Testament, where Jesus Christ and the blessing of the Gospel are called by the same names; so Christ is called

our High Priest. Heb. iii. 1, and iv. 14. He is the Lamb that was slain. Rev. v. 6. 1 Pet. i. 19, 20. Our Passover, 1 Cor. v. 7, and Sacrifice to take away sin. Heb. ix. 26. The atonement or Propitiation for sin. Rom. iii. 25. 1 John ii. 2. His body is called the Temple, because God dwelt in it as in the Jewish temple. John ii. 19, 21. Col. ii. 9.

(2.) This appears yet further from the evident and intended resemblance which the Scripture represents between several of the Jewish ceremonies, and the things of the Gospel. The blood of Christ obtained eternal redemption for us, as the blood of bulls and goats cleansed and freed the Jews from ceremonial defilements. Heb. ix. 12, &c. His blood is called the blood of sprinkling, Heb. xii. 24, to sprinkle or cleanse us from a guilty conscience, as the sprinkling of the blood of the Jewish sacrifices purified the people. Heb. ix. 20, and x. 22. The most holy place, where God dwelt of old on the mercyseat, is the figure of the true heaven, where God dwells on a throne of grace. Heb. ix. 8, 24, and iv. 16. The high priest's entrance with the blood of the sacrifice, and with the names of the tribes on his breast, into the most holy place, to appear before God there for the Jews, is a plain figure of Christ's entrance into heaven with his own blood, to appear before God for us. Heb. ix. 12, 25. The Jewish incense was a type or figure of prayer. Rev. v. 8, and viii. 3. The Jewish sabbath, or day of rest, as well as the land of Canaan, was a type of the rest and release of believers from sin and guilt, and from an uneasy conscience, under the Gospel, and the final rest of the saints in heaven. Heb. iv. 3, 4, 9, 10.

This might be proved more at large by some other scriptures, where the Jewish rights in general are called. figures or shadows of the good things of the Gospel. Col. ii. 16, 17. Heb. viii. 5, and iv. 1-14, 23, 24.

117 Q. Did the Jews themselves understand the spiritual meaning of these ceremonies?

A. Perhaps a few of them, who were more enlightened, might understand the meaning of some of the chiefest and most considerable types; but the bulk of the

people can hardly be supposed to have understood the spiritual meaning of them; at least the Bible gives us no intimation of it.

118 Q. How could they be appointed as types and figures of spiritual things, if the people, who were required to use them in their worship, did not understand the spiritual meaning of them?

A. (1.) The Jewish dispensation was the childish or infant state of the church of God, as it is described, Gal. iv. 1, 2, 3, &c. Now, children are sometimes employed in several things by their wiser parents, the chief design and meaning whereof they understand not till riper years.

(2.) If these ceremonies were not understood by the ancient Jews, to whom they were given, yet they might be designed as types and figures of Christ, and the blessings of the Gospel, in order to confirm the religion of Christ and the Gospel, when it should be afterwards published to the world, by seeing how happily it answers these ancient types.

119 Q. Where doth this appear

A. St. Paul does actually confirm Christianity this way, especially in his epistle to the Hebrews, by shewing how these ancient types and ceremonies are fulfilled in the Gospel of Christ.

Note. As a prophecy is the foretelling of things to come, in words, so a type is the foretelling of something to come, in some real emblem or figure or resemblance of it: now as there are many ancient prophecies which were not understood by the persons to whom they were first spoken, nor by the persons who spoke them, 1 Pet. i. 11, 12, yet when they are fulfilled they come to be better understood, and bear witness to the hand of God, both in the prophecy and in the accomplishment. So though types may be obscure, when they are first appointed, yet when they are accomplished or fulfilled, they are better understood, and shew the hand of God, both in appointing the sign, and bringing to pass the thing signified.

120 Q. Can these things be said therefore to be fulfilled or accomplished in Christ, since the meaning of all these ceremonies or types is not yet known even to Christians themselves?