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Jews was overturned, and the rulers of both were destroyed.

19. The face of Moses shone, when he descended from the mountain: the same happened unto Christ at his transfiguration on the mountain. Moses and Elias appeared then with him, to shew that the law and the prophets bare witness to him; and the divine voice said, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him, alluding most evidently to the prediction of Moses,-unto him shall ye hearken.

20. Moses cleansed one leper: Christ many.

21. Moses foretold the calamities which would befal the nation for their disobedience: so did Christ.

22. Moses chose and appointed seventy elders to be over the people: Christ chose such a number of disciples.

23. The spirit which was in Moses was conferred in some degree upon the seventy elders, and they prophesied Christ conferred miraculous powers upon his seventy disciples.

24. Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land which was to be conquered: Christ sent his apostles into the world to subdue it by a more glorious and miraculous conquest,

25. Moses was victorious over powerful kings, and great nations: so was Christ, by the effects of his religion, and by the fall of those who persecuted his church.

26. Moses conquered Amalec by lifting and holding up both his hands all the day: Christ overcame his and our enemies when his hands were fastened to the cross. This resemblance has been observed by some of the ancient Christians, and ridiculed by some of the moderns: but without sufficient reason, I think.

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27. Moses interceded for transgressors and caused an atonement to be made for them, and stopped the wrath of God: so did Christ.

28. Moses ratified a covenant between God and the people, by sprinkling them with blood: Christ with his own blood.

29. Moses desired to die for the people, and prayed that God would forgive them, or blot him out of his book: Christ did more, he died for sinners.

30. Moses instituted the passover, when a lamb was sacrificed, none of whose bones were to be broken, and whose blood* protected the people from destruction: Christ was that paschal lamb.

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31. Moses lifted up the serpent, that they who looked upon him might be healed of their mortal wounds: Christ was that serpent. As Moses lifted up serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. The serpent being an em

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Levit. xvii. 11. 12. The life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, &c.

Here appears the reason of this strict, and often repeated prohibition; blood was appointed as the atonement for sin, it was set apart and sanctified for that purpose; and consequently when the use of the altar and sacrifices ceased at the death of Christ, the prohibition of eating blood should cease also, and the precept concerning it in the Acts of the Apostles seems to have been prudential and temporary.

Of clean animals, the blood was to be shed and thrown away; of unclean, no part was to be eaten: of clean fishes, the blood seems to be no where expressly forbidden, perhaps because their blood was never offered up in sacrifice.

The eating of a clean animal, that died of itself, is not forbidden with the same rigour; perhaps because the blood was coagulated, and not in a condition to be offered up to God. See Levit. xvii. 15. and Deut. xiv. 21.

blem of Satan, may be thought an unfit image to represent Christ: but the serpents which bit the people of Israel are called fiery serpents, Seraphim. Num. xxi. 6. Now, Sunt boni Angeli Seraphim, sunt mali Angeli Seraphim, quos nulla figura melius quam prestere exprimas. Et tali usum primum humani generis seductorem putat Bachai. Grotius. Therefore Christ, as he was the great and good angel, the angel of God's presence, the angel xal ox, might be represented as a kind of seraph, a beneficent healing serpent, who should abolish the evil introduced by the seducing lying serpent, and who, like the serpent of Moses, should destroy the serpents of the magicians; as one of those gentle serpents, who are friends to mankind :

Nunc quoque nec fugiunt hominem, nec vulnere lædunt, Quidque prius fuerint, placidi meminere dracones. Ovid. Metam. iv. 601. Εἰσὶ δὲ περὶ Θήβας ὁροὶ ὄφιες, ἀνθρώπων ὐδαμῶς δηλήμονες. Hem rodotus ii. 74.

Possemus hinc, says Le Clerc, incipere ostendere similitudinem Serpentis æenei, et Christi ipsius; nam ut nemo credidisset salutiferum futurum esse Israëlitis ab chersydris demorsis, conspectum cenei serpentis: ita nec quisquam poterat, eo tempore quo res contigit, sperare hominis crucifixi cognitionem unicam fore viam, qua homines ad fidem Deo habendam, parendumque Evangelio, ex omnibus gentibus brevi adducendi essent. Verum hoc aliaque id genus Theologis latius diducenda atque illustranda relinquimus. Vide eos ad Joan. iii. 14.

In Isaias vi. 2. &c. the seraphim are represented as praising God. Origen had a notion that these seraphim were two, and that they were the Son and the Spirit of God; a paradox, which, though scarcely to be maintained, yet deserved not the severe censures

which Jerom in his wrath was pleased to bestow upon it. See Vitringa. Eusebius says something very like it, Præp. Evang. vii. 15. where the notes of Vigerus may be consulted.

Esculapius, the God of physic, and of all the pagan deities supposed to be the most beneficent, appeared, according to pagan tradition, in the form of a serpent, and a serpent was sacred to him, and is described twisting round his rod.

32. All the affection which Moses shewed towards the people, all the cares and toils which he underwent on their account, were repaid by them with ingratitude, murmuring, and rebellion, and sometimes they threatened to stone him: the same returns the Jews made to Christ for all his benefits.

33. Moses was ill used by his own family; his brother and sister rebelled against him: there was a time when Christ's own brethren believed not in him.

34. Moses had a very wicked and perverse generation committed to his care and conduct, and to enable him to rule them, miraculous powers were given to him, and he used his utmost endeavours to make the people obedient to God, and to save them from ruin; but in vain in the space of forty years they all. fell in the wilderness, except two: Christ also was given to a generation not less wicked and perverse, his instructions and his miracles were lost upon them, and in about the same space of time, after they had rejected him, they were destroyed.

35. Moses was very meek above all the men that were on the face of the earth: so was Christ.

36. The people could not enter into the land of promise till Moses was dead: by the death of Christ the kingdom of heaven was open to believers.

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97. In the death of Moses and Christ there is also a resemblance of some circumstances. Moses died, in one sense, for the iniquities of the people; it was their rebellion which was the occasion of it, which drew down the displeasure of God upon them, and upon him. The Lord, says Moses to them, was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou shalt not go in thither, but thou shalt die. Deut. i. 37. Moses therefore went up, in the sight of the people, to the top of mount Nebo, and there he died, when he was in perfect vigour, when his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. Christ suffered for the sins of men, and was led up in the presence of the people, to mount Calvary, where he died in the flower of his age, and when he was in his full natural strength. Neither Moses nor Christ, as far as we may collect from sacred history, were ever sick, or felt any bodily decay or infirmity, which would have rendered them unfit for the toils they underwent: their sufferings were of another kind.

38. Moses was buried, and no man knew where his body lay: nor could the Jews find the body of Christ.

39. Lastly, as Moses a little before his death, promised the people, that God would raise them up a prophet like unto him; so Christ, taking leave of his afflicted disciples, told them, I will not leave you comfortless, I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter.

Is this similitude and correspondence in so many things between Moses and Christ the effect of mere chance? Let us search all the records of universal history, and see if we can find a man who was so like to Moses as Christ was, and so like to Christ as Moses was. If we cannot find such an one, then have we

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