which are directly averse to the spirit and to the other ordinances of their Faith. We can readily therefore in part see the object of the judgment which turned their venerated and blessed river into blood;—which above all things in existence was held in the greatest loathing and abhorrence by the Egyptians; and we can also see the powerful effect which such an expressive miracle would have on the Israelites (to whom water was always a sacred emblem of divine Truth) in inculcating with God's supremacy a warning, that they should not themselves idolize their streams in the land of promise; nor turn the outward emblem into the substance of their adoration.

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Thus also, and perhaps more strongly, we perceive the object of the plague of thick darkness over the land, which would convey, both to Egypt and to Israel, an obvious and impressive mystic meaning; to the one, the darkness of their souls in trusting to Deities and Powers which could not profit them in the time of their greatest need : to the other, the judicial darkness which God inflicted on the minds of those who had resisted his will, and persecuted his chosen. And in this point, there is still a further inference. It has its correspondence as an emblem, in the mystic darkness which overspread Judea at the Crucifixion; - the figurative character of which is, I believe, acknowledged by all Christians. And it has perhaps its full completion (though it is written in some degree of uncertainty) in the spiritual darkness which overspread the world during the three days in which Christ remained in the tomb. The world lay in darkness;

and those only had light, who, the true Israel of God, believed in his Son. "And Moses stretched forth his hand towards heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel" -the true Israel, who had faith in Christ" had light in their dwellings." *

The ulterior design of this plague strikes me forcibly, I confess, under this view, and the notion is greatly strengthened by the reference to Christ in one, which cannot be mistaken, the slaughter of the first-born; — and it seems, not only far from improbable, but highly consistent, if one is fulfilled so palpably in the person of Jesus, that others should also terminate in the same object. Christ is the ultimate aim of all revelation; - of all Scripture; of every mystery in Scripture; and the interpretation cannot be safe which, either by direct reference or by implication, does not centre in his attributes or person. In the destruction however of the firstborn for the sins of the land, and the release from servitude, of which, through their faith in God, that judgment was productive to the people, the application is absolute. The institution of the Passover, in token that the believers in Christ should be preserved by the sprinkling of blood, while the rebels against his will should be afflicted and overwhelmed, forbids any choice in its acceptation; while the singular rites and ceremonies with which the symbol Lamb was slain shows, that all things connected with that judgment, even down to the very minutest

*Exod. x. 22.

points were arranged with care by the prescience of the Almighty, and possessed each a special intent which, in an after age, was destined to receive a full accomplishment. It must be almost impossible, we should think, even for the most prejudiced and zealous Jew, to ponder these things; to join them with the multitudinous rites which bore an impress of the same design, and tended to the same end, with which his religious law abounded, and not feel that the substance of his faith was the hope and belief of a future Passover, and Redeemer of his nation.

But the judgment given; - the first-born slain in wrath to the Egyptians; - the lamb slain in mercy to God's people;—the children of Israel rose up and hastened their departure. "Rise up; and get you forth from among my people," is the voice of Pharaoh "both ye and the children of Israel; and go serve the Lord, as ye have said." The hated land is speedily placed behind them. The Passover had been slain, and they were at once freed from their soul's slavery. They stood again in their native strength, as when their forefathers had first made their dwelling in the land; and, the favored again of God, went on their way rejoicing. But how did they go? -Left to their own guidance? No, truly; They were once more the true servants of the living God, and they journeyed under his protection.

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The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and by night."* Light to guide them in darkness; - a thick cloud by day to sepa

* Exod. xiii. 21.

rate them from the land of the inhabitants of sin ! What an emblem is this! Christ leading them from their evil state, and at the same time confounding the devices of their enemies; which, checked and restrained for a time, will ever yet break forth again and rebel. They knew not the way. Emancipated from sin and evil, they would have wandered and have been lost without a guide. They would have been entangled in the land; and again have become subject to Pharaoh and his evil hosts. But they wandered not. They were not left in ignorance of the right way. The Soul redeemed was not abandoned to itself; ;- for CHRIST who had delivered, was still their guide and their protector, the cloud

by day and the pillar of fire by night.*

Israel then, the soul-under the guidance of Christ, to what point is it first led? Whither but to the Red Sea -- to spiritual baptism in its waters ? "I would not that ye should be ignorant, that all our

* It may seem perhaps at first sight, that some confusion exists in the adaptation of Moses as a type of Christ, and the introduction of Christ himself Personally under the emblem of the pillar of fire. In point of fact however, there is none. Christ is the real agent; - God protecting the Jewish nation. Moses is Christ under a figurative character; showing forth, in an inner representation, things which should come to pass in a future and distant age. While therefore Christ was the actual Deity to the people, he might still shadow forth a chain of correspondencies under the apparent guidance of Moses, without intermixture of metaphor or confusion. It is only, at the most, attributing to a person, those qualities which were at the same moment, attributed to an animal. Christ led the children of Israel personally; — and yet the Paschal Lamb was at the same time a type of his death. And thus Moses was the emblem of the Mediator, even while Christ himself superintended the Deliverance of the Jews.

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fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." The soul emancipated from Satan by the death of the Lamb, is baptized unto Christ. That is the first point of the Christian's In his natural and unregenerate state he is fallen from righteousness. He is the child of God's wrath; and subject to all the penalties of sin unredeemed. But Christ by his death having redeemed him from the curse, "being made a curse" for him, he is led to the waters of baptism, the initiatory rite of his obedience unto the Faith. The waters are divided, and the soul, like Israel, passes through the midst of them. They are "a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left." A wall!-a support —a stay ;—an impenetrable barrier which no power can break through to the detriment of God's people. Not that evil will not follow nor pursue. Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen will rise up against the soul, and still seek to overwhelm it. Baptism, if reliant on the pillar and the cloud, will save from injury and death; but not from persecution. The waters will return to their strength, and overthrow the oppressors. They will perish; they will sink "like lead in the mighty waters."- They will be cast on the mystic shore, wrecked and utterly destroyed; there shall remain "not so much as one of them." But think not, Christian soul, that they will not pursue, nor seek thy destruction! Think not that thou canst be assured from their persecution; - and far above all - think not, no, not by the most passing and se+ Exod. xiv. 22.

* Gal. iii. 13.