nant, that shall inherit his holy mountain on the earth, we learn more fully the meaning and spiritual import of the three great annual festivals of the Jewish Church.

I. The design of the Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month, none can mistake,-Now "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us," "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world ;" and we have been taught to "keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

66

II. After the Passover followed the feast of First Fruits, which consisted of two parts. First, before they were permitted to touch the ripening harvest, even the very green ears," they were ordered to bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of their harvest. On the morrow after the sabbath the priest was to wave it before the Lord. Then were they to count from "the day that they brought the sheaf of the wave-offering seven sabbaths complete."

Then, on this day, "the day of Pentecost fully come," they were to offer “a new meat-offering unto the Lord,"- "Ye shall bring out of your habitations, two wave loaves of two tenth deals, they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the first-fruits unto the Lord."

But observe, "baken with leaven." Leaven is always, I believe without an exception, an emblem of the inworking of evil, and such was and still is the condition of that church, formed on the day of Pentecost, anointed with the Holy Ghost, as a kind of first-fruits of his creatures, "evil doth remain,

ay, in them that are regenerate." But when they wake up after his likeness, they will be a harvest, of which Christ is the sheaf of the first-fruits waved before the Lord. In the order of the blessed resurrection, we read, “ Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's," who are to rise "at his coming."

66

III. Lastly, after "the feast of trumpets," which was on the first day of the seventh month,—and after "the great day of atonement," which was on the tenth of the same month,-on the fifteenth was celebrated their THIRD GREAT ANNUAL FESTIVAL, to which the "feast of trumpets," and "day of atonement" may be considered as preludes, namely, "THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES." They were then to exhibit, with boughs of palms and other trees, this memorial of their happy escape from Egypt, and from the perils of the desert,—of that day when they entered the land of promise as pilgrims and strangers, and formed their habitation of the branches of its palms and the boughs of its goodly trees. This feast also, like that of the first-fruits, had a connection with the gathering of the fruits of the earth, not of the harvest, nor of the vintage, but of the later summer fruits: "when ye have gathered the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days."

But of these later crops of the earth no firstfruits are consecrated and waved before the Lord. There is no type of a third order in the resurrection of those who are a kind of first-fruits of His creatures, though the end is come.

The meaning of blowing the trumpets on the first day of the seventh month, is not explained to us by any sacred writer. It was, however, the first day of their civil year, in distinction from their ecclesiastical year, which commenced with the passover month.

Some have thought the feast of trumpets a memorial of the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, with its accompaniment of "thunder and earthquake, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud." It may be also intended to foreshew the dreadful season of terror, alarm, and tremendous judgment, that shall be at the time of the end, after that "the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb" shall be taken out of the earth: and that "time of Jacob's trouble" comes, and "tribulation, that is to try all the earth," of which we have spoken so much before.

Nine days after this, and five before the feast of tabernacles, was to be the great day of atonement : and it is much to be remarked, of the solemnities of this high day, which was the day when the high priest entered within the veil, that they have reference to the whole congregation, as a nation, to every order of their society, and to all the sacred things employed in the ritual of their worship. All were on this day reconciled to God, from year to year continually. It may, therefore, well be conceived to look forward to the day when Israel, as a people and nation, shall be brought, as we have seen they shall be, into the bonds of the new covenant; when "the worshippers, once purged, will have no more

conscience of sins." There will then be no more remembrance made of them every year: accordingly, although ceremonial sacrifices are still offered as memorials, yet, as we have seen, by the new ritual of Ezekiel, no great day of atonement is appointed.

And thus will Israel, and the nations of the earth that are saved out of "the great tribulation," having "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," lift up the voice of praise and thanksgiving "before the throne of God and the Lamb," or of God, even the Lamb, and bear their branches of palm-trees, to keep the feast of tabernacles before the Lord, with rejoicings that shall know no end.

SECTION THE SIXTEENTH.

SATAN'S ATTACK UPON THE HOLY CITY.

The more full developement of the enemy of God and his Christ-The throne of Messiah, and recovery of the lost dominion of the earth, and "of the air," or the ethereal regions, the object of his ambition -His final doom.

THIS holy city, the resort of worshippers in the flesh, with "the station of the saints," bearing rule over the nations on the earth, must be that, as we have noted, which the nations in the four corners of the earth, deceived by Satan on his release, are instigated to compass about. We may well exclaim, Is it possible that the evil spirit, by an attack from earth," for his place is found no more in heaven," -can hope to dispossess the beloved city and the risen saints, and again resume his once boasted dominion over the nations of the earth!

We well know, among men, what unreasonable achievements blinded ambition will sometimes attempt. "The father of lies" may himself be under a strong delusion," and stand up as the great antitype of Pharaoh, whose heart God had hardened.

99