ported by food from Heaven, and had the promise of rest, in the Land of Canaan, to support them under their labours. In like manner, Christian Baptism is the token of God's receiving us under his peculiar care; of his delivering us from the power of our spiritual enemies, sin, and the devil. We then profess obedience to his commands; and our faith in the great Captain of our salvation, our Redeemer and Mediator, Christ. We are received into the number of God's peculiar people; are supported by the spiritual food of his grace from heaven: and we are cheered through our journeyings here, with the promise of that everlasting rest in heaven, which awaits all those who persevere to the end.

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By his own blood, He entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."-Heb. ix. 12.

Once a year, on the great Day of Atonement *, the High Priest, divested of his splendid robes of

* So called, because of the extraordinary expiatory sacrifices offered thereon; and because the rites which the law prescribed then to be used, were more eminently typical of the ministry and office of Jesus Christ, than those which appertained to any other Festival. It was held on the tenth day of the month Tisri, answering to our September.

office, and clothed in a plain dress of white linen, as a common priest, entered into the Most Holy Place, to make an atonement, first for himself and his house (probably the whole priesthood, or "house of Aaron"); and then for the sins of the people. Of the various victims on this occasion, the most remarkable were two goats, (both of them constituting one sin-offering,) which the High Priest was to receive of the congregation, and to 'present them before the Lord;' casting lots which of them should be immediately slain, as a sacrifice for sin, and which should be preserved alive as the scape-goat. With the blood of the sacrificed one, (slain on this occasion by the High Priest himself,) he entered into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled it with his finger before the mercy-seat, seven times, as an atonement for the people. Afterwards, the scapegoat was brought before him; and laying both his hands upon its head, he solemnly confessed over it "all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat." The victim being thus charged as it were with the guilt of the people, was dismissed into the wilderness, and bore away with it all their iniquities *.

See Levit. xvi.

All these particulars were manifestly typical of Christ. As the High Priest under the law, stripped off his robes, made "for glory and for beauty;" so Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, divested himself of his glory which he had with the Father, and humbled himself as a man. As the Aaronical Priest appeared once a year in the Most Holy Place, (where God vouchsafed to manifest his glorious presence, and which was thence considered emblematical of heaven,) with the blood of the victim, "chosen by the Lord," as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole congregation; so did Christ, once for all, appear in the real holy of holies, even in heaven itself, with his own blood, having offered himself as a lamb without spot, to God; as a chosen sacrifice, and a sufficient atonement for the sins of the whole world. And as the other part of the sin-offering, the scape-goat, was typically made sin for the Israelites; was charged with their iniquities, and bore them away: so was Christ in reality "made sin for us;" on Him was laid the load of the iniquities of us all; and "He hath put away sin;" hath removed and borne away from us the guilt of all our transgressions; and more. over hath obtained (not an annual respite, but) an eternal redemption for us.

CHAPTER IV.

1. ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 2. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND LITURGY.

It was the practice, in the early ages of the Gospel, to translate the Scriptures into the language of every country in which they were received. It cannot be ascertained, who introduced Christianity into Britain; but it has been thought St. Paul did. Neither is there any account of the first version of the Scriptures into the British tongue. The earliest we know of, is a translation of the Psalms into Saxon, by Adelm, Bishop of Sherborne, A. D. 706. Bishop Egbert translated the four Gospels into Saxon, A.D. 721; and soon after Bede, (commonly called the Venerable Bede,) translated the whole Bible into that language *. When, however, the Popes of Rome had gained the ascendancy, all translations were forbidden.

Wickliffe, who may be styled the harbinger of

* King Alfred also made a translation of the Psalms, about A.D. 880.

the Reformation, in the middle of the fourteenth century, or about 1360, made the first translation of the Bible into the English then spoken; being, however, only a translation from the Latin, it was not very correct. Some countenance being given to it, particularly by the Duke of Lancaster, (Richard the Second's uncle,) Wickliffe's followers published an improved one. But in 1408, they were both condemned by a convocation of Bishops; and a severe persecution took place against all, who even presumed to read the Scriptures in English.

In the beginning of the next century, appeared the first printed edition of any part of the Holy Scriptures in English; viz. a translation of the New Testament by William Tyndal. He followed it up by a translation of the Pentateuch; but whilst proceeding in the translation of the other books, he was seized and put to death near Brussels.

Soon afterwards, in 1535, Miles Coverdale published the first English translation of the whole Bible, and dedicated it to Henry the Eighth.— After it, a variety of translations were successively made, which were suppressed; or found faulty; or disused, from the superiority of the subsequent ones; until our present version was begun in 1607, and published in 1611, under the sanction of James the First.