3. The neglect of this duty shall be punished. It is a treasonable, rebellious contempt of God. You refuse to come to his footstool. Remember his throne is the centre, the very place, of heavenly blessedness. If you reject him, justly will he reject you.

And now, I seem to view you in three classes into which the text enables me to divide you.

1. The forgetful of God. Startle not when I tell you,—you are atheists. Your actual being is without God. The idea you have of him is as the foreign substance, floating on the surface. There is no incorporation of it with the actual working of your minds. The living, feeling, calculating creature has in it nothing of God. You refuse your sovereign Lord the homage he requires. You degrade yourself. See you no sin in this? It is rebellion. It was the charge against Belshazzar, "The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified." Every moment bringeth thee nearer to destruction;—unless thou seest and feelest this: then,

2. I see you as truly penitent. You feel your guilty estrangement. You are ashamed to draw nigh. You tremble at the holiness of God. See him in Christ,—a just God and a Saviour. Come, pleading the merit by which pardon may be yours, and free access, as of a child to the parent.

3. You are accepted in Christ. Be this your frequent and beloved employ. You have other duties. God calls you to them. Be faithful in them, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant. But, along with them, there is approach to God; and if this be properly maintained, if in the intervals between there be a due walking with him in humble, self-denying obedience, then will the approach, public or private, cheer, hallow, elevate, support you. Here you find the true rest of your soul. God shines on your spirit. You go to serve him in all to which his love and providence calls you. Ere long; you shall serve him day and night in his temple.

197

CHRIST OUR PASSOVER.

"For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." -1 CORINTHIANS V. 7, 8.

THE apostle refers to a subject which all those members of the church at Corinth who had been Jews would well understand, and which no Gentile convert could have overlooked in the perusal of the sacred books which they had received. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and the solemn circumstances connected with it, have always attracted notice wherever the word of God has been read. The allusion in the text shows us, that the event was not only important in itself, and in its relations to the Jews, but that it may be made, and was intended to be made, spiritually instructive.

I must recall to your recollection the leading facts of this history, that you may be prepared for their evangelical application.

There was Pharaoh, with his continued obstinacy. The last and heaviest plague was about to be inflicted. Previously, the Jews were commanded to observe a highly significant rite. The Lord was about to pass them over in mercy, whilst deserved judgment came on the Egyptians. In connexion with this deliverance, at the time of its occurrence, and in all future years, as commemorative of it, a religious and festive ordinance was to be observed. This was emphatically called, The Lord's Passover.

In the different families of Israel, a lamb-the animal of sacrifice was to be slain. On the great night of deliverance, the blood was to be sprinkled on the doorpost; and thus, they who were passed over, experienced safety in connexion with the applied blood of a sacrificial victim. The lamb itself was to be eaten, and with unleavened bread. And thus was the goodness of God to be received and commemorated.

All this the apostle applies to Christian character and duty. There were, it seems, in the Corinthian church worse than

irregularities, there were gross immoralities. By strange neglect, the offenders were allowed to continue in the church. The danger of this is shown. Such persons, by their example, would be as leaven. If the church would be safe, all such leaven must be put away.

The expression, “leaven,” led the mind of the apostle to the passover, and its lessons of abiding importance. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us," and we rejoice in this: but let us apply the other part, and think of the unleavened bread with which the feast was to be kept. Let us not only think of the safety in which Christ places us, but of the purity to which Christ calls us.

In investigating the subject somewhat more closely, let us notice,

I. The important fact on which the exhortation rests; and, II. The exhortation itself.

"For We are

I. The construction of the sentence is emphatic: even our Passover is sacrificed for us-Christ." Christians, but we have a passover; a passover with a sacrifice; and the Paschal lamb is Christ.

1. The lamb is Christ. Thus described as "the Lamb slain,"-" the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that he by the grace of God might taste death for every man.

2. He was sacrificed. By wicked hands, for teaching truth, and opposing wickedness and falsehood, he was put to death. But this, in the intention and purpose of God, was as real a sacrifice as any that had been, at the divine command, by the appointed priest, placed on the Jewish altar. His death was expiatory and atoning.

3. Hence, Christ is our Passover. His blood is the real price of our redemption; declaring God to be a just God, as well as a Saviour; and pointing out and establishing his righteousness, as well as his mercy.

4. And he is sacrificed for us. The objects which his love proposed were, our deliverance from the worse than Egyptian bondage of sin; our introduction into a better heritage than the land of Canaan.

It is, therefore, a Christian fact, never to be forgotten by us, and the recollection of which should suggest some of our durably binding obligations, "that Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us."

II. We come now to the exhortation: "Let us keep the feast."

There is a Christian ordinance, instituted by Christ himself, which is a festival commemoration of this once-offered and ever-availing sacrifice; and which is likewise one appointed means of renewed participation in its merits, and all resulting advantages. Even in this sense, therefore, it may be said, "Let us keep the feast:" availing ourselves of every opportunity of thus feeding on Christ, and showing forth the Lord's death; and, at the same time, most devoutly and gladly renewing our covenant engagements.

1. But it is not to this that the apostle adverts; certainly not chiefly. The sacrament of the Lord's supper is itself figurative, both of the sacrifice of Christ, and of the grand method of receiving and preserving our personal interest in his grace. In the passover the victim was to be slain, the blood sprinkled; and thus, the lamb itself eaten, with certain ceremonies clearly described.

All this refers to the great truths of the Gospel. Christ has shed his blood for us. By faith, the faith of the heart, the merit of Christ's death is appropriated, trusted in. And then, as the pardoned sinner needs spiritual nourishment, so must he feed on Christ: his thoughts, his affections, all spiritually supplied as with the light and power, the very life of grace, for the continued strength of the soul, whether for doing or bearing the will of the Lord. He who is trusted in for pardon, must be looked to for grace in all its aspects. The truth of Christ, the love of Christ, the spiritual influence of Christ, carefully received by the soul especially in the exercise of faith and prayer, are what material food is to the body. To keep the feast is to "feed on Christ in our hearts, by faith, with thanksgiving." The act is spiritual; the principal instrument is faith; it is to be associated with thanksgiving.

This, as to the individual Christian, is to be done regularly and frequently. His soul needs the daily bread. And as by

the merit and grace of Christ he is delivered from bondage and guilt, and entitled to a glorious inheritance, every such spiritual exercise should include holy, triumphant joy. Deep humility is not inconsistent with this. Let it supply the bitter herbs. But our pleasing duty is, so to live in all humble obedience to God, in simple, constant trust in Christ alone, that our daily exercise of devotion, be they more or less extended, may be a keeping the feast. Thus receiving new supplies of strength, we shall be enabled to renew our exercises of sacred joy in Christ, our Passover.

2. But there is a particular temper and state of mind with which these repeated exercises of faith in Christ are to be connected.

(i.) "Not with old leaven." The Jews were to put all unleavened bread from their houses, in preparing for the passover. He who comes to Christ must put away all sin. From his heart he must abhor it; and, as opportunity serves, in his life renounce it. Keep the feast, then, in the spirit of a continued abandonment of old sinful habits. Let none be restored to its place and power.

(ii.) "Neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness." The leavened bread-the actual developments of sin in sinful habits and practices-is put away. To admit malicious and unholy principles and tempers, is to bring in that which, as leaven, begins directly to influence, and will, if unchecked, place the whole soul in similitude to itself. Admit not this, which by defiling will destroy you.

(iii.) "But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Former sins having been utterly abandoned, unholy and malicious principles and tempers being sedulously guarded against, "keep the feast;" thankfully rest on Christ, triumphing in his love, and seeking all your supplies of grace from his fulness. Keep the feast with " sincerity and truth.”

The first expression seems to refer principally to the intention. Our aim is always to be, God's honour, God's will. When the soul is governed by this decided and habitual reference, and then only, can it be said to live before God in moral purity.

The second appears to refer principally to the understand