Adam and Eve were clothed with the skins of those beasts, to shew them, in a typical manner, that as clothes cover the naked body, so sacrifices offered according to God's appointment, should protect them from the punishment which sin had deserved.

It appears that the prohibition of blood as an article of food, enjoined also on the gentile christian, (Acts xv. v.) by no means originated with the Mosiac dispensation, although then re-enacted. Why it was prohibited, no moral reason can be offered. The true reason was, no doubt, a sacrificial one, as appears from the explanation given on the re-enactment of the original prohibition among the Israelites, "I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls." (Lev. xvii. 11.) How far the obligation applies to christians now, or by what rule they disregard it more than gentile christians in apostolic days, we do not presume to speculate.

The important truth contained in this sentence, that "the life thereof, is the blood thereof;" or that the blood actually possesses a living principle from which the life of the whole body is derived, taught also in a figurative manner by Solomon, Eccles. xii. 6, lay long unappreciated in the philosophic world. It was first demonstrated by Dr. Harvey, in 1628, and afterwards established by the celebrated Dr. John Hunter, by a great variety of accurate experiments.

Render therefore unto Casar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Matt, xxii. 21.

This answer of our blessed Lord to the hypocritical

Herodians, appears at first sight, until we know the premises from which the conclusion is deduced, more like an evasion of the proposed question, than the consummate wisdom of him who "spake as never man spake." The mere inspection of the inscription on a piece of coin, and returning the answer of the text, does not immediately strike the reader, as it must have done his fawning tempters, when they "marvelled and went their way."

It was a maxim among the Jews, that wherever the money of any king is current, there the inhabitants acknowledge that king as their lord and governor. Now, by admitting that this piece of money was Cæsar's coin, and by consenting to receive it as the current coin of their country, they in fact acknowledged their subjection to his government, and consequently their obligation to pay the tribute demanded of them. This answer completely defeated the insidious designs of his enemies. He avoided exposing himself to the charge of sedition and disaffection to the Roman government, as well as rendering himself odious to the Jewish people by opposing their notions of liberty. And further, as they entertained the notion that the Messiah would deliver them from foreign servitude, if he who called himself Messiah recommended the paying of taxes to the Romans, this they might think inconsistent with his pretensions,nay, renouncing them altogether.

For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. Rom. viii. 15.

Abba is a Syriac word signifying father. In east

ern countries, slaves were not allowed to use the title "Abba" in addressing the master of the family to which they belonged. This may serve to illustrate the passage above quoted, as also (Gal. iv. 6,) shewing that through faith in Christ, christians pass into the relation of sons, are permitted to address God in prayer with filial confidence, and to regard themselves as heirs of the heavenly inheritance. St. Paul and St. Mark use the word Abba, because it was understood in the synagogues and primitive assemblies of christians; but when writing to foreigners they add the word father by way of explanation.

REMARKS ON THE JEWISH TYPES AND JOURNEYINGS OF THE ISRAELITES.

To the impartial christian who regards all scripture as "given by inspiration of God," and "profitable for instruction in righteousness," who can meditate on Moriah's sacrifice with delight, as he views the resemblance to that of Calvary, and, in the offering of the patriarch's son, perceive foreshadowed the sacrifice of him who "bare our sins in his own body on the tree," and in his restoration, "in a figure," from the dead, that triumphant resurrection, which brake the bands of death, and lead captivity captive, giving all the slumbering sons of Adam a pledge of their final resurrection, little apology need be offered for calling his attention to a portion of holy writ which, though it kills as the letter, yet, spiritually discerned, breathes forth a spiritual meaning from almost every syllable.

That the new covenant is an extension and completion of the old, the apostle of the gentiles has clearly shewn in his comprehensive epistle to the Romans. Whenever we behold a tree with foreign branches grafted into the natural stock, we have a striking illustration of the relation believing gentiles bear to Israel. Judaism was nothing more than christianity in its infancy; nay, Abraham himself may be regarded as a christian before he was a Jew; for his faith was counted unto him for righteousness before that he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the rightousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised. If then, as christians, we have attained our majority, let us not despise the days of our pupilage and the law, which was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; but rather let us, taking heed lest we fall through the same spirit of unbelief for which the natural branches were broken off, strive to improve in our retrospect of this, as it were, midway lesson between the book of nature, declaring Jehovah's eternal power and Godhead, and the revelation of the gospel, discerning "the better things to come," of which these were the types and shadows. The murmerings, lusts, and wickedness of a stiffnecked people will furnish us with a perfect picture of our own; and the dealings of God with the offspring of Jacob for forty years, will afford us no mean insight into his dealings with the spiritual Israel during their worldly pilgrimage, until they arrive through the Jordan of death to the heavenly Jerusalem, "which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God."

Of the whole religious economy of the Jewish

people, the most remarkable and important rite is the Passover. At the time of its institution, the beginning of the year was changed; the month Abib or Nisan, corresponding to our March and April, being made the commencement of their ecclesiastical year, doubtless for some wise purpose; perhaps to indicate the change of the sacred Sabbath of rest from the seventh to the first day of the week, after the death of the great and glorious antitype, Jesus Christ. The Israelites were divided into twelve tribes, these tribes into families, and the families into houses. On the tenth day of the month, each house was to slay a lamb or kid, one for every house: it was to be without spot or blemish; a beautiful type of our blessed Lord, of whom St. Paul, writing to the Corinthian christians, says, (1 Cor. v. 7.) "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast. And St. John, (St. John, i. 29.) "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Also St. Peter, (1 Peter, i. 19.) "Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Not a bone of it was to be broken; and St. John records, (St. John, xix. 33.) that when the soldiers came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs, as they usually did to those who were crucified. They ate the flesh of the lamb: (Exod. xii. 8.) we through faith eat the flesh of the Son of God, in the emblem, at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and many a christian can bear witness to the meaning of the Lord's own words, my flesh is meat indeed." They were to eat the flesh with their loins girded, their shoes on

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