pledge of our deliverance | mighty works, that for the from this world of sin and bondage; the service of which is perfect slavery, like that of the Hebrews under Pharaoh. Their temptations in the wilderness were like our trials in the passage through this mortal life. Their settlement in Canaan is an earnest to us, that if we commit ourselves in faith to the guidance of God, we shall in like manner obtain the promised inheritance; and that without faith, we shall fall short of it. Lastly, the actions of the prophets, and particularly of Christ Himself, were figurative and prophétical; they are therefore called signs as well miracles, because they carried an instructive signification, and pointed to something greater than themselves. The ways of divine wisdom are comprehensive, and answer many purposes at once. Our Saviour performed many sake of them men might believe Him to be the Saviour of the world: but then they were withal of such a sort, as to admit of an application to the state of all Christians. We do not hear His voice, bidding us leave our companions in the ship and walk towards Him upon the water: but all that will come to Him must have their faith exercised, as that of Peter was, upon the waves of this troublesome world; they must undertake a hazardous passage, in which nothing but the power of Christ can support them; and if they cry to Him, the same Right Hand, which saved the fearful Apostle, will be "stretched out to help them in all their dangers and necessities h;" and the same goodness will be tender toward their infirmity in the hour of trial; reproving and yet pardoning the deficiencies of their faith. g Matt. xiv. 28, &c. h See the Collect for the third Sunday after the Epiphany. All the miracles of Christ are after this pattern; they are signs of salvation in all ages, and admit of a general application to every member of the Church, with whom the same miraculous power is still present, and acting for the highest purposes, though invisible to mortal sight. To one or other of these five heads, the spiritual language of the Scripture may be reduced, and from them the matter of it is borrowed: 1. From the images of nature, or visible things as representations of things invisible. 2. From the insti tutions of the law, as prefiguring the things of the gospel. 3. From the persons of the prophets, as types of the great Prophet and Saviour that was to come. 4. From the history of the Church of Israel as an ensample to the Christian world. 5. From the miraculous acts of Moses, Christ, and others, as signs of the saving power of God towards the souls of men. All these things compose the figurative language of the Bible; and that interpretation which opens and applies them to the objects of faith, is called a spiritual interpretation; as being agreeable to that testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy. I have been thus particular in the division of my subject, that by understanding at the beginning what my design is in the whole, it may always be known, as I proceed in it, what part I am upon. Of this figurative language, the elements first to be understood are those which are borrowed from the images of nature. And here a vast field is open to us, as wide as the world itself. If we consider it in due order, we must begin with the creation; which as related in the book of Genesis, is a pattern of the new creation in Christ Jesus; and is so applied by the Apostle: "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christi." Till this light shines in the heart of man, he is in the same state as the unformed world was, when "darkness was upon the face of the deep :" and when the new creation takes place, he rises in baptism, as the new earth did from the waters, by the spirit of God moving upon them. The lights of heaven in their order are all applied to give us conceptions of God's power, and shew us the glory of His kingdom. In the 84th Psalm, the Lord is said to be a Sun and a Shield; a Sun to give light to His people, and a Shield to protect them from the power of darkness. Christ, in the language of the prophet, is the "Sun of righteousness', Who as the natural sun revives the grass, and renews the year, brings on "the acceptable year of the Lord"," and is the Great Restorer of all i 2 Cor. iv. 6. m Is. lxi. 2. P John viii. 12. things in the kingdom of grace; shining with the new light of life and immortality to those who once "sat in darkness and in the shadow of death"." And the Church has warning to receive Him under this glorious character: 66 Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." When He was manifested to the eyes of men, He called Himself the "Light of the world"," and promised to give the same light to those that follow Him. In the absence of Christ as the personal light of the world, His place is supplied by the light of the Scripture, which is still "a lamp to our feet and a light unto our paths 9." The word of pro emblem of the Church : which receives its light from Christ as the moon does from the sun therefore the renovation of the moon signifies the renovation of the Church; as a sign of which, the new moons were appointed to be observed as religious festivals under the law; and the Apostle tells us they were a shadow of things to comes ;" and the substance of that shadow is known from the nature of the case, and the relation which the moon bears to the sun. 66 The angels or ruling ministers in the seven Churches of Asia are signified in the book of Revelation by seven stars in the right hand of Christt; because His ministers hold forth the word of life, and their light shines before men in this mortal state, as the stars give light to the world in the night season: of which light Christians in general partake, and are therefore called "children of light"." 8 Heb. x. 1. This natural image of the light is applied to so many great purposes, that I must not dismiss it without making some farther use of it. You see, our God is Light; our Redeemer is Light; our Scripture is light; our whole religion is light; the ministers of it are light; all Christian people are children of the light, and have light within them. If so, what an obligation is laid upon us, not to walk as if we were in darkness, but to walk uprightly as in the day, shewing the people of this world, that we have a better rule to direct us than they have. If we who have the light walk as they do who are in darkness, the same darkness will assuredly come upon us; we shall understand nothing, we shall care for nothing; the light that is within us will be changed into darkness; and then, vanity and confusion will be the consequence, as to those who walk in the dark through a perplexed and dangerous path and better would it be not to have had the light, than to be answerable for the guilt of having extinguished it and turned it into darkness. This is the moral doctrine to be derived from the usage of light in the sacred language. are buried with their faces to the east and when we repeat the articles of our faith, we have a custom of turning ourselves to the east. The primitive Christians called their baptism their illumination; to denote which, a light was put Here I would also observe, into the hands of the perthat the figures of the Scrip- son after baptism, and they ture necessarily introduce were admitted to hear the something figurative into lectures of the catechists in our worship; of which I the Church, under the name could give you several in- of the illuminated. The stances; but I shall confine festival of Christ's baptism myself to the matter now was celebrated in the month before us. The primitive of January with the cereChristians signified their re- mony of a number of lighted lation to the true light, and torches. When the converts expressed a religious regard repeated the confession of to it, by the outward form their faith at baptism, they of worshipping with their turned themselves to the faces toward the east; be- east; and to the west when cause there the light first they renounced the powers arises out of darkness, and of darkness. In the modern there the day of true know- Church of Rome this cereledge arose, like the sun, mony of worshipping to the upon such as lay buried in east has been abused, and ignorance. To this day our turned into an act of adoraChurches, especially that tion to the altar; on account part which is appropriated of which, some Christians to the most solemn act of who have heard of the abuse Christian worship, is placed of this ceremony, without toward the east: our dead knowing the use of it, have |