which can only be answered out of the Law of Mofes.

14, 15.

He fat down, and the twelve Apostles Luke xxii. with him. And he faid unto them, With defire I have defired to eat this Paffover with you, before I fuffer.

If our Lord, in his heavenly wisdom, fo paffionately longed for this Passover, that he defired only to live till he had kept it; will yoù not let us afk what this Paffover was, which he judged of fuch importance? Perhaps it had some relation to his death; perhaps to the holy rite he was going to appoint; poffibly, all the three are effentially connected.

The Jewish Paffover was one of the moft confiderable of the Sacrifices required in the old Teftament: and St. Paul calls our Lord himself by this very name; Christ our Passover is facrificed Cor. v.

for us.

7.

The great deliverance of the Jewish nation had been effected by means of Exod. xii. the first Paffover. Ye shall kill the Paff

22,23.

Matth. xxvi. 26, 27,28.

over, and strike the lintel and the two fide pofts with the blood; and the Lord will pass through and fmite the Egyptians; and when he feeth the blood, the Lord will pass over the door, and not fuffer the deftroyer to come into your houses to fmite you.

This event our Lord and his Apostles were now folemnly commemorating. When therefore as they were eating the facrifice of the Paffover, Jefus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the difciples and faid, Take, eat, this is my body; and the cup, saying, This is my blood; he refers to the occafion prefent, and the objects before them: which are not industriously to be removed out of fight, but all taken into the account, if we desire to comprehend the fulness of his meaning.

It is as if he had faid, You are eating

the

the flesh of this lamb: the blood of it has been shed at the altar to make atonement. But you must now know that these things are but shadows. I am the great facrifice, and my blood the true atonement. Here, eat this bread, drink of this cup, confidering them as reprefenting my body and blood; and you shall be partakers of what was always the end and meaning of the legal Paffover; of this Body which is just now going to be offered in facrifice to God for the fins of all men, of this Blood, without the Shedding of which there is no Hebr. ix. remission.

Can we avoid obferving here the remarkable disparity between the services required in the Law, and the rites appointed in the Gospel? How laborious the former, and still obfcure! how short, yet clear; how easy, yet how fignificant the latter! Our Lord makes his commands as light as poffible to us; and

takes

22.

takes the heavy and painful part of his religion upon himself. Inftead of the myfterious and bloody rite of circumcifion, he has appointed the plain and expreffive ceremony of washing his converts in pure water. In the place of all the coftly facrifices of the Law, he has offered indeed his own body upon the crofs; but he requires only of us to eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of him.

We can now ferve God, and be accepted by him, without bringing with us any other offering, befides that of a deJohn iv. vout and upright heart. The hour now is, when the true worshippers worship the Father in fpirit and in truth: for the Father feeketh fuch to worship him.

23.

If he required fuch a multiplicity of ceremonies, and expenfive offerings and services from the Jews, it was for wife reasons, no doubt, but not because he himself

himself delighted in them. God did ever esteem innocence before the most costly facrifices. Even when he demanded

those external performances, he would not accept them without a good life.

18.,

To what purpose is the multitude of your Ifai. i. II, facrifices unto me? faith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beafts. Wash ye, make you clean. Ceafe to do evil, learn to do well; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Thefe parts of the old covenant never decay; but are the great duties of Chriftians ftill under the Gofpel. How near is the resemblance between the Prophet and the Apostle! Pure James i. religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To vifit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unfpotted from the world.

27.

SER