which were to be made in the week of the feast of the Passover. We saw the institution of that festival in the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus, on that night in which the Lord passed over the houses of the children of Israel, while he destroyed the first-born in every house of the Egyptians, a night to be much remembered unto the Lord by an ordinance throughout all their generations. On the annual return of that night every family was to kill and eat the Passover Lamb by itself, but here the offerings are to be made. publicly by the nation at the tabernacle and afterwards at the temple, during the week of the days of unleavened bread, which were to be the same on each of the seven days as the offerings made on the day of the new moon. At the twenty-sixth verse, we find the offerings prescribed for the feast of the first fruits of wheat-harvest. On that day similar offerings were also to be presented. In the beginning of the next chapter we find Moses entering on an account of the offerings and other ceremonies of the seventh month of More feasts were held in this

their year.

month than in any of the others, perhaps in allusion to the greater sanctity of the hallowed seventh day, the holy sabbath; and perhaps also because there was the interval between the harvest and the seed time, when they could rest from labour with less inconvenience. The first day of that month was the feast of trumpets. The offerings upon it were one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year without blemish, with a meat-offering and a drink-offering proportioned to the size of each, and also one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for them. On the tenth day was the Day of Atonement. We saw the institution of this very impressive and solemn ceremony when we expounded the sixteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus. On that day various sacrifices were to be offered peculiar to itself, and the remarkable ceremony respecting the scape-goat to be observed, and besides these, the same offerings as on the first day of the month were also to be made. Then on the fifteenth day of that month, on which the feast of tabernacles commenced, more numerous and

costly sacrifices began to be presented. As I noticed these, when I expounded the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus, I need not here give any particular account of them. But, in connection with the subject of this sermon, let it be observed that on all these particular festivals, besides the offerings peculiar to them, the Israelites were still to keep up the daily sacrifices, and the usual monthly ones. These were never to be omitted, but presented with constant uninterrupted regularity, notwithstanding the additional offerings required on the special occasions. It has been calculated that the number of animals offered, as national sacrifices, during the year, amounted to one thousand one hundred and one lambs, one hundred and thirty-two bullocks, seventy-two rams, twenty-one kids, and two goats. These were annually offered at the public cost, besides a vast number presented by persons in their private capacity, as sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, freewill-offerings, and in fulfilment of vows, which swelled the whole to a much greater amount.

I now proceed to an application of these services of the Jewish church. They have all been abrogated, together with the other parts of the ceremonial law, by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whose sacrifice and redemption they were typical, and by the introduction of that new and better covenant, of which he is the great priest and head, and of that more spiritual worship and law which he has introduced. But as we enquired in the preceding parts of this sermon what these ceremonial observancies taught the Jews, let us now in conclusion endeavour to gather what we ourselves may learn from the consideration of them under the gospel.

1. We may learn, in the first place, that God requires service from us. If he has ceased to demand these offerings of our flocks and herds, he has not therefore given up his claims upon us. He looks for a spiritual service. He expects the devotion of our hearts and lives. This is powerfully expressed by St. Paul in the epistle to the Romans, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of

God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which

is

your reasonable service." The great mercy of redemption by the death of Christ, so clearly made known to us, has laid us under this obligation by the strongest of all claims. "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are his." And besides this spiritual devotion of ourselves to the service of God, we are also called on as much as ever to honour God with our substance, for the support of his worship, and the maintenance and extension of his gospel, though the manner and quantity of our offerings are not prescribed, but each Christian is left to the prompting of his own piety and charity.

2. We may learn, in the second place, our own need of a continual sacrifice for sin. This is as indispensable as ever; and the sacrifices of slain beasts was only set aside by the offering up of that perfect atonement in the person of the Lord Jesus, to which they all looked, and by which they were perfected.