blessings and their privileges are described in terms borrowed from the Law, for they are said to have

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come to Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."-We see, therefore, in these particulars, how the Tabernacle was a type of Christ's body, and its visible glory and its mode of service, shadowed out the divinity of Christ, and our access to God by him. But what shows the strictness of this analogy in the strongest light is the undoubted fact, that he who was with the Church in the wilderness in an angel's form, was the same person who attended it in subsequent ages in a human form. For if the Almighty Being was the same, well might the glory which he manifested to each dispensation be the same also. And who could that Angel be that appeared to Moses, guided the Israelites, and dwelt in glory between the Cherubims? Who was He that could say to Moses, "I am the God of thy father;"-that spake repeatedly out of the cloud as the Lord God of Israel;-whom they were commanded to beware of and obey, for he had the power to pardon and to punish;-and in whom was the name of Jehovah ?-It could be none other than the Lord our Righteousness; He who was in the

beginning with God, and who was God; Light of Light; very God of very God; the second person in the adorable Trinity; the head of every dispensation of God to man; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; who styles himself the Light of the world; and who appeared to St. Paul in that glorious manner in which he was wont to manifest himself in the days of old. He was the Angel who led the Israelites. He was the Divinity who sat between the Cherubims. His glory shone in the camp, and his train filled the Temple. The flaming sword, the burning bush, the pillar of fire, and the Shechinah, were all symbols of the presence of Him who was transfigured upon Mount Tabor, but is now gone into heaven, where he dwells in light inaccessible, having carried up his human body into the divine presence chamber, and resumed that glory which he had with the Father before the world

was.

III. In the last place, the Brazen Serpent was a wonderful type of Christ.

The Children of Israel having exceedingly provoked the Lord by their unconquerable and obstinate disobedience, he sent fiery flying serpents among them to sting them to death. On that memorable occasion, when death and despair had so wrought upon them as to work sincere contrition in their hearts,

and led them to cry out for mercy and deliverance, God was moved by their entreaty, and he commanded Moses, their mediator, to erect a brazen effigy of a flying serpent, and direct the people to look up by faith to that instrument of reconciliation, and they should be healed.

Now, our blessed Lord makes the application of this transaction to himself, and, by consequence, the efficacy of that act of faith by which the Israelites were healed, to his disciples and followers, in three separate places. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And again, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he." And again, on another occasion, referring to his death, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men after me." The serpent, therefore, through which the wounded Israelites were saved, was a type and figure of Christ, and both they and we are healed by the same instrumentality. For salvation was not by the dead serpent, but by the living Christ. "He died for all." He is "the true and living way" for all. He is the one Mediator and Advocate for all, "neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be

saved."

We see, then, what an analogy there subsists between the transactions of old and the events of

modern times, and that the one is in truth a key to the other. God has manifested himself under both dispensations in methods equally gracious and benignant, and the stream of his providence, like the waters of Jordan, fertilises the whole space through which it flows. If the Israelites were fed with manna and water miraculously supplied to support them in the barren wilderness, we have the bread of life, our blessed Lord's doctrine, and the water of life, the graces of his Holy Spirit, to succour and sustain us. If they had the visible token of God's presence in the Tabernacle and in the Temple, and were conducted on their journey by the Angel of the Covenant, we have had the more transcendent witness of the visible descent of the Holy Ghost, and the actual residence of the incarnate God among us. If they obtained deliverance from death by a brazen instrument raised upon a pole, we have been rescued from a worse destruction by the anointed Son of God, who was lifted up upon the cross for our redemption. Whatever blessings they enjoyed, whatever privileges they could boast of, are far outstripped by ours, for we have lived to see the day of Christ, to welcome the Desire of all nations, and to taste, in the expressive language of the Apostle, the good things to come. Our lot has fallen in pleasant places, and our portion has been more sweet than theirs. They had to boast of their exclusive privileges, their adoption by God and his ready help, but we are taken into the closest affinity with him, are his sons and daughters, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ,

and have our inheritance among all them that are sanctified. Their names were registered among the twelve tribes in genealogical order to preserve them a posterity on the earth, but ours are written in the Book of Life, that divine record which is kept in the archives of heaven, and to be enrolled in which is a necessary step to bring us finally to God. How much greater, then, should be our gratitude, how much stricter our fidelity, than theirs, since we have thus experienced far higher manifestations of the divine presence, and more substantial proofs of his favour and regard. Well may we exclaim, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame."

us.

Let us dwell and feed on our Maker's love to

Let us compare our happy lot, not only with that of the Jews of old who received not the promises, but still more with the Heathen and the ignorant of our own time, on whom the glory of the Lord has not yet shone. Let us fall down and adore that almighty and most merciful Father, "who, at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets, but who has been pleased in these latter days to speak to us by his beloved Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things;" and let us, calling that Son our elder brother, the first-born from the dead, and uniting ourselves to him by the tenderest ties of