quities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. For the transgression of my people was he stricken." "Christ suffer-. ed for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." "He himself bore our sins in his own body." "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.""*

With respect to the paschal lamb, the law directed. that on the tenth day of the month Abib, in which they left Egypt, every family should select a lamb, a male of the first year, without spot or blemish, and keep it up unto the fourteenth day, when the whole congregation should kill it in the evening. It was to be slain and eaten in a particular manner, so that no bone should be broken; and no part was to be suffered to remain unto the morning.t

Now the existence of an institution so singular is a remarkable fact; and its agreement with transactions. which happened so long after its appointment, is still more remarkable; a resemblance which the agents in those transactions did not intend or perceive; and depending upon circumstances which those who were interested in the resemblance could no way command.

Jesus, on the tenth day of the same month Abib, came up to Jerusalem, four days before the Passover. His judge was led to declare that he could "find no fault in him;" and thus affirmed him to be without

Isaiah, liii. 1 Pet. iii. 18. Heb. x. 10.

† Exod. xii.

blemish. It was contrary to all previous probability, that he should be executed under the Roman jurisdiction. Pilate even strove to prevail with the Jews, to deal with him after their own law. Had he succeeded, or had he refused to gratify their wishes, the death of Jesus would not have been crucifixion. Had it not been crucifixion, the resemblance would not have been made good, which required that the blood should be poured out; that "a bone of him should not be broken." Neither could there have been room for the application of the prophecy, "They shall look on him whom they pierced." Neither was it within the reach of anticipation, that the crucifixion should take place on that particular evening, which was the anniversary of the first sacrifice of the passover, at a distance of fifteen hundred and twenty-four years; or that as it was ordered that no part of the victim lamb should remain until the following morning, so the body of Jesus was buried, notwithstanding the circumstances of his death, without delay; or that he should be condemned by the whole assembly of the people.

We have it in our choice, either to believe that all this concurrence of circumstances was purely accidental; or to suppose that the Jewish history and the Mosaic law were connected from the beginning with the death of Jesus, which had been determined in the counsels of God. Had this been God's purpose, it cannot be considered unnatural that he should have given such gradual intimations of it, as are conveyed. in the Jewish law and history. The existence of such

intimations affords strong evidence to us at the present day, confirming other testimony, and proving the truth of what is implied throughout the Gospel, that the crucifixion of Jesus was the divine purpose from the earliest ages. It might have afforded in a higher degree this evidence to a Jew. When the teachers of the Gospel first claimed his attention, "the Jew should have reasoned thus with himself. Do they say that Jesus died for our redemption? So did the paschal lamb die to redeem our whole nation in Egypt. Did he ascend afterwards into heaven? So did our high priest go yearly into the most holy place, carrying thither the blood of a sacrifice slain in the worldly sanctuary. Is there no remission of sins without shedding of blood? There certainly was none under the law. Has Jesus appointed a baptism with water? So had our law its purifications for the washing away of uncleanness. Numberless other questions might be asked, which would bring their own answers with them out of the law of Moses; and such was the use which the Jew ought to have made of it."

I think, then, it must be allowed, that the existence of these points in the Jewish law and history, affords additional authority to the Christian religion, instead of diminishing any thing from it. That it did not grow naturally out of the Jewish religion, is clear as was before shown, because it opposed the existing opinions of those who professed that religion at the time of its promulgation. If I divert into a new channel

* Jones on Figurative Language of Scripture.

a stream which has been long flowing in its native bed, and so make it contribute to serve and aid some important purpose, that effect cannot be ascribed to the natural current of the stream, which, but for my interference, would have continued to flow on as before. My purpose may indeed receive great advantage from the stream originally existing. But the new direction has a cause independent of the original stream. So in the case we are considering: a party of adventurers, educated, as far as they were educated at all, in a bigoted attachment to the practice of their ancestors, rise up and oppose the current of the national belief: announce the termination of their law, and point out indications in their ancient history and institutions, which prove that such was the original purpose of its author. But whence came the impulse which urged them to this attempt? And how came they to meet with confirmation and collateral support from institutions and occurrences over which they could have no control?

These difficulties vanish, if we believe that the Christian religion really came from God. Allowing this, we should expect it to agree with his former revelation, and to belong to a connected plan. And it does so, in a remarkable degree. It gives to the leading features of the Jewish law a consistency which they are otherwise in want of, and it affixes a reasonable signification to facts which cannot otherwise be easily explained. It does not only fulfil prophetic words, but accomplishes prophetic facts. And this,

it must be acknowledged, greatly increases the difficulty of supposing that it was the invention of a body of Jews who had been deluded to follow a pretended Messiah.

II. It may be thought, further, that a design like that attributed to the followers of Jesus would be greatly assisted by the prophecies recorded in their national Scriptures, and pointing to some remarkable personage who was expected to appear.

1. For example: the time of this appearance was fixed by the prophet Daniel at about four hundred and ninety years from his own days; which so closely corresponded with the birth of Jesus, that such an event was looked for, by "devout persons," at the very period when it occurred. This would be, as was before observed, a circumstance greatly in their favour.

2. The next thing to be considered by the framers of this deceit, would be the place of their leader's birth. Jesus was born at Bethlehem. Upon consulting their Scriptures, they would find this passage respecting Bethlehem: "Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be a ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." This would prove, beyond what could be anticipated, an assistance to their design.

* Dan. ix. 24. Luke, ii. 25.

† Micah, v. 2.