quainted. The prophets warned the people not to rest in the redemption that was past, but to look for another, and that so much more excellent in its nature, that the former should in a manner be forgotten in comparison of it: Remember not the former thing, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, saith the Lord, I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert *. He promised also in one of the psalms, that he would bring his own people again from the depths of the sea; which can signify nothing but that universal redemption from sin and death in which all the nations of the world have an equal interest because this Psalm is not addressed to the Jews, but to all the kingdoms of the earth; and is applied by the apostle to the victory of Jesus Christ over death, and to the miraculous gifts bestowed on the first preachers of the gospelt so there can be no doubt as to the intention of the expression in question: it must have the same signification in figure as is expressed in the letter at v. 20.-to the Lord our God belong the issues from death.

But the figurative application of the history of the Exodus is much plainer in the new tes

Isaiah xlii. 18.

tament.

+ Compare Psalm lxviii. 18. and Ephesians iv. 8.

tament. There we see Zacharias, in his

pro

phetical hymn on occasion of the birth of John Baptist, celebrating the blessings of the Christian redemption in terms borrowed from the past redemption of Israel out of Egypt *. God is said to have visited and redeemed his people by raising up a Saviour in the house of Davidto have performed the mercy promised to the fathers, which in the letter of it related to the deliverance from Egypt-to have saved us out of the hands of our enemies, that we might serve him without fear, as the Hebrews did, when they were no longer under the power of Pharaoh-and finally to guide our feet into the way of peace, as he had before guided his people to a peaceable settlement in the land of Canaan.

If we consider the history of the Exodus more particularly as an example of the circumstances of our redemption by Jesus Christ; the first thing that offers itself is the miserable. servitude of the Hebrews under Pharaoh. Such is the natural state of every man who is born a sojourner in the Egypt of this world. As they laboured in clay and mortar, so is every man by nature the slave of vile and earthly affections. As the Hebrews were under Pharaoh, man is · under

K 4

*See the hymn called Benedictus.

under Satan, the proud enemy of the true God, and the irreconcileable and merciless persecutor of his church. From this miserable state, Christ as the messenger and minister of God is sent from heaven to deliver man, as Moses was raised up for a like purpose, and sent to lead the people out of Egypt; of whose office we shall have a farther prospect when we come to the second sort of historical figures. Look at the order of the redemption from Egypt, and you will find it agree in every particular with the order of the Christian salvation. The people were conducted to the waters of the red sea, where the apostle instructs us they were all baptised unto Moses*: they were all saved by water, as the family of Noah had before been saved at the flood, and as we are saved now, It doth not appear to us how they could have been saved from Pharaoh, but by the interposition of the waters of the sea. Here their salvation began, and the power of their adversary ended and we know that Satan has not that sovereignty over baptized Christians as he has over men in the state of nature. After baptism a Christian is no longer the subject of that Tyrant, but the child of God, who undertakes thenceforth to conduct him through all the trials

* 1 Cor. X. 2..

and

and dangers of this life to the inheritance promised to the fathers.;

We see how man is to be supported in this life, and to what dangers he is exposed in the way of his salvation, if we observe what happened to the Hebrews in their way through the wilderness. No temptation befalls us but such as is common to man, and of which their case gives us an example. The things which befell them are not only apposite and applicable to our own case, but St. Paul affirms they were purposely ordained by the providence of God to answer this very end: Now all these things happened to them for ensamples; (or, as the margin calls them, types) and they are written for our admonition*. And here we are to note, as the apostle himself does next after their baptism, how they were fed and supported. They might have been carried a short way through a fruitful country to the land of Canaan; but it pleased God to lead them into a wilderness, where there was neither meat nor drink: which made some of them suspect he had carried them there to destroy them: but his design was to teach them the necessity of prayer and faith and dependence upon himself; and blessed are they to whom the Lord now teaches the same les

son under the want of many things. But, in the spirit, this is the case of every man; for we are all brought after our baptism into a barren world, where we find no more to support that life which God promised to his people, than the Hebrews found in the wilderness. Here we wander (as the Psalmist figuratively describes the state of man) hungry and thirsty, our souls fainting within us, and depending upon God for his daily grace. The people were taught this in the wilderness by receiving their meat from day to day in a miraculous manner from heaven. It was mere manna, such as Moses gave, to those who looked no farther than their bodies; and they were consequently soon tired of it; but to those who received it in faith, it was the bread of God which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. God in all ages has been the giver of that support which is necessary to all men, whether followers of Moses or followers of Christ *: and Hebrews, if they had souls to be saved, could no more live by bread alone, than Christians can. God therefore was pleased to take this way of teaching them that they could not: and the apostle seeing his intention, says, they did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual

* See John vi. 32.