disobedience; Moses erected, by divine command, a serpent of brass: numbers of the people had perished; but as many as looked up to this brazen figure, were healed of their wounds. To. this the crucifixion of Jesus is explicitly compared: "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up".

3. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt was attended with this remarkable circumstance. That they might avoid the fate with which the Egyptians were threatened, the Israelites were ordered, in every family, to kill a lamb, and sprinkle the doors of their houses with its blood, under a promise that the impending calamity should be averted from every house on which this token was displayed. The anniversary of this great event in their history, their departure from Egypt, was to be carefully celebrated; and their preservation commemorated in every family by the annual sacrifice of

Numbers, xxi. 8.—John, iii. 14.

a lamb slain in a manner particularly prescribed. This greatest of the Jewish festivals was termed the Passover, from the peculiar circumstances of its institution 3.

This custom is alluded to, when Jesus is designated as "the Lamb of God;" and he is specifically styled styled "our Passover, who is sacrificed for us 4."

4. The establishment of the law of Moses, which followed the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, is represented as a covenant; in which a rich and fruitful country is promised to that people, together with an abundant store of temporal blessings, if they continued obedient to the prescriptions of the law. The Gospel is also represented as a covenant, of which Jesus is the Mediator5; "a new and better covenant," sanctioned not by transitory or earthly rewards, but by the promise of eternal life to as many

3 Exod. xii. 27, &c.

John, i. 29. Revelation, passim. 1 Cor. v. 7. 5 Hebr. xii. 24; ix. 15.

as embrace that covenant through faith in its author.

5. By the Mosaic law a high priest was appointed, who should "offer gifts and sacrifices" in the name of the people. The teachers of the Gospel stated, that by this appointment the purpose of the incarnation of Jesus was prefigured: who was to appear as the great, and acceptable, and final Intercessor for mankind, and who,"by the sacrifice of himself," "the offering of his body once for all," should" put away sin"."

On

6. It was part of the ceremonial of the Jewish law, that the altar, and the vessels used in sacrifice, should be washed, and the people sprinkled, with the blood of the victim"." one occasion, the ratification of the covenant between God and that people, was solemnized in this way. And the reason of the original appointment is expressed in these words" the blood is the atonement for the soul 8."

Heb. ix. 26; x. 10.

7 Exod. xxiv. 6, &c.

8 Levit. xvii. 11.

This custom is declared in the New Testament to have been a type of the purpose of God, to sanctify for himself a people through the blood of Christ; which is said to have ratified an "everlasting covenant;" to be sprinkled upon the conscience; to be the " price of redemption and forgiveness of sins," the object of faith, and the medium of justification 9.

Now the question is, whether the authors of Christianity took advantage of these and other circumstances belonging to their history and law, and adapted them to their purpose, in order to make out a plausible explanation of their leader's death.

It was before mentioned, that no expectation of any such fulfilment of the law existed among the Jews. They observed the type, without looking towards the antitype. They considered their law to be perfect in itself; and it does not appear that they generally interpreted

9 Heb. xiii. 20; x. 22. Eph. i. 7. Rom. iii. 25; v. 9.

it in a figurative point of view. Jesus was not understood, when he made allusions to the historical types and applied them to himself. And the apostle, who explains, in an elaborate treatise, the prophetical institutions of the law, and their fulfilment in what Jesus had done and suffered, thinks it necessary to prove the agreement point by point, as if he was laying before his countrymen a novel and unexpected interpretation ".

We have, therefore, little reason to suppose that these men, in opposition to the current of public opinion, would recover from the dismay into which their leader's death had thrown them, to exhibit him in the new character of a sacrifice: would affirm, contrary to every received idea, that it was the object of the predicted Messiah's appearance to make that sacrifice: would have the ingenuity to support their fiction by appealing to the ceremonies of the national worship; and would ultimately suc

10 See the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. vii.-x. and passim.