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done towards this work, and a great advancement of this building, beyond what had preceded.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM MOSES TO DAVID.

I. The first thing that offers itself here is the redemption of the church of God out of Egypt ; the most remarkable of all the Old Testament redemptions, the greatest pledge and forerunner of the future redemption by Christ, and much more insisted on in Scripture than any other. It was the greatest type of Christ's redemption of any providential event whatsoever. This was by Jesus Christ, who appeared to Moses in the bush, and sent him to redeem that people, as is evident from his being called the Angel of the Lord, Exod. 3:2, 3. The bush represented the human nature of Christ, who is called the branch. This bush grew on Mount Sinai or Horeb, a word which signifies a dry place, as the human nature of Christ was a root out of dry ground. The bush burning with fire represented the sufferings of Christ in the fire of God's wrath. It burned, and was not consumed: so Christ, though he suffered extremely, yet perished not, but overcame at last, and rose from his sufferings. Because this great mystery of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ was here represented, therefore Moses says, "I will turn aside, and

behold this great sight." A great sight he might well call it, when there was represented God manifest in the flesh, suffering a dreadful death, and rising from the dead.

This was the glorious Redeemer who redeemed the church out of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh; as Christ, by his death and sufferings, redeemed his people from Satan, the spiritual Pharaoh. He redeemed them from hard service and cruel drudgery; so Christ redeems his people from the cruel slavery of sin and Satan. He redeemed them, as it is said, from the iron furnace; so Christ redeems his church from a furnace of fire and everlasting burnings. He redeemed them with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and great and terrible judgments on their enemies; so Christ with mighty power triumphs over principalities and powers, and executes terrible judgments on his church's enemies, bruising the serpent's head. He saved them when others were destroyed, by the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb; so God's church is saved from death by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, when the rest of the world is destroyed. God brought forth the people sorely against the will of the Egyptians, when they could not bear to let them go; so Christ rescues his people out of the hands of the devil, sorely against his will, when his proud heart cannot bear to be overcome.

In that redemption, Christ not only redeemed the people from the Egyptians, but from the devils, the gods of Egypt; for before they had been in a state of servitude to the gods of Egypt, as well as to the Egyptians. And Christ, the seed of the woman, now, in a very remarkable manner, fulfilled the

curse on the serpent, in bruising his head. Exod. 13: 12. "For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment." Hell was as much, nay more engaged in that affair than Egypt was. The pride and cruelty of Satan, that old serpent, was more concerned in it than Pharaoh's. He did his worst against the people, and to the utmost opposed their redemption. But it is said, that when God redeemed his people out of Egypt, he "broke the heads of the dragons in the waters, and broke the head of Leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat for the people inhabiting the wilderness." Psalm 74: 12-14. God forced their enemies to let them go, that they might serve him, as Zacharias observes with respect to the church under the Gospel. Luke, 1: 74, 75.

The people of Israel went out with a high hand, and Christ went before them in a pillar of cloud and fire. There was a glorious triumph over earth and hell in that deliverance. When Pharaoh and his hosts, and Satan by them, pursued the people, Christ overthrew them in the Red Sea: the Lord triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider he cast into the sea, and there they slept their last sleep, and never followed the children of Israel any more; as all Christ's enemies are overthrown in his blood, which by its abundant sufficiency, and the greatness of the sufferings with which it was shed, may well be represented by a sea. The Red Sea represented Christ's blood, for the apostle compares the children of Israel's passage through the Red Sea to baptism, (1 Cor. 10: 1, 2,) and we know

that the water of baptism represents Christ's blood. Thus Christ, the angel of God's presence, in his love and pity, redeemed his people, and carried them in the days of old as on eagle's wings, so that none of their proud and malicious enemies, neither Egyptians nor devils, could touch them.

This was another new thing that God did to wards this great work of redemption. God never had done any thing like it before. Deut. 4: 32, 34. This was a great advancement of the work that had been begun and carried on from the fall of man; a great step taken in divine providence towards a preparation for Christ's coming into the world, and working out his great and eternal redemption; for this was the people of whom Christ was to come. And now we may see how that plant flourished which God had planted in Abraham. Though the family of which Christ was to come had been in a degree separated from the rest of the world before, in the calling of Abraham; yet that separation appeared not to be sufficient. For though by that separation they were kept, as strangers and sojourners, from being united with other people in the same political societies; yet they remained mixed among them, by which means they had been in danger of wholly losing the true religion, and of being overrun with the idolatry of their neighbors. God now, therefore, by this redemption, separated them as a nation from all others, to subsist by themselves in their own political and ecclesiastical state, without having any concern with the heathen nations, that the church of Christ might be upheld, and might keep the oracles of God; that in them might be kept up those types and prophecies of

Christ, and those histories and other divine previous instructions, which were necessary to prepare the way for Christ's coming.

II. As this people were separated to be God's peculiar people, so all other people upon the face of the whole earth were wholly rejected and given over to heathenism. This was one thing that God ordered in his providence to prepare the way for Christ's coming, and the great salvation he was to accomplish; for it was only to prepare the way for the more glorious and signal victory and triumph of Christ's power and grace over the wicked and miserable world, and that Christ's salvation of mankind might become the more sensible. This is the account the Scripture itself gives of the matter. Rom. 11:30, 32. The apostle, speaking to the Gentiles that had formerly been heathens, says, "As ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they may also obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all:" that is, it was the will of God that the whole world, Jews and Gentiles, should be concluded in visible and professed unbelief, that so God's mercy and Christ's salvation to-' wards them all might be visible. For the apostle is not speaking only of that unbelief that is natural to all God's professing people as well as others, but that which is apparent and visible; such as the Jews fell into when they openly rejected Christ, and ceased to be a professing people. The apostle observes, how that first the Gentiles were included in a professed unbelief and open opposition to the

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