' Nudatus tegmine vitse Pellibus ut tegeretur homo suspenditur Agnus.' — Teetul.
But I must more expressly make good the resemblance between Christ and the paschal lamb.
[1.] The lamb was taken from among the rest of the flock: Exod. xii. 5, ' Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats.' So Christ from his brethren : Deut. xviii. 15, ' I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren.' The paschal lamb was a lamb
SERMONS UPON JOHN I. 29. 479
as other lambs ; so Christ had the same common nature with other believers ; he was a man as we are : ' Forasmuch then as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same/ Heb. ii. 14 ; and ' in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren/ ver. 17 ; sin only excepted : Heb. iv. 15, ' He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.'
[2.] The lamb chosen was to be without blemish ; so was Christ * a lamb without spot and blemish,' 1 Peter i. 19 ; that is, free from sin, for sins are the spots and blemishes of the soul ; from these Christ was free : ' Which of you convinceth me of sin ? ' John viii. 46. Pilate, that con- demned him, pronounced him innocent, and professed before the Jews that ' he found no fault in him,' Luke xxiii. 14 ; Heb. vii. 26, 27, 'For such an high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners ; who needed not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the people's ; ' for then how could he satisfy for us who had sins of his own to expiate ? And then the Jews would not without reason have objected to him : Mark xxvii. 42, ' He saveth others, himself he cannot save.' No ; John joineth these two as inseparable : 1 John iii. 5, ' And we know that he was manifested to take away our sins ; and in him is no sin.'
[3.] This lamb also was to be a male ; as also Christ, that he might be the Son of God, and king, and priest, and prophet to the church. Therefore Luke ii. 23, that law is applied to Christ, that ' every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.'
[4.] The lamb was to be a year old, of competent age ; as yhrist also was to have some experience of human life before he died, that he might be acquainted with our griefs and sorrows, and tried in all points like us ; but in his flower, when he had most reason to love his life, then he laid it down for his people's sake.
[5.] The lamb, being separated, was to be kept four days, from the tenth day of the first month till the fourteenth of the same, JExod. xii. 6 ; which was a rite which had not only a moral use, but a mystical signification. A moral use : Fagius saith he was ad cuhitia ohligatus, tied to their bedposts, that, hearing the bleatings of the lamb, they might remember the sorrows of Egypt, and be the more thankful for their redemption. And it had a mystical use, for it signifieth the time between Christ's consecration at liis baptism and his death, after three years and a half spent in his ministry ; as also Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on the tenth day of the same month by the sheep-gate, which was the gate by which the sheep and lambs were led to be sacri- ficed in the temple, John xii. 1, 12.
2. His death on the cross was figured by the paschal lamb, for this lamb was to be slain, as the Messiah was to be cut off by a violent death : Dan. ix. 26, ' And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself.' The lamb was to be slain at the middle of the month Nisan, at the full moon, between the two evenings. Christ's death was just at the same time, when they were killing the paschal lamb ; for the paschal lamb was to be killed between the two evenings ; that is, as Josephus interpreteth it, aivo kvvdr7}<; Mpa<i fieKpi ivBeKdTr]<;, from the ninth hour unto the eleventh, that is, between three and five o'clock in our account ; and nbout that time Christ died : Mat. xxvii. 45, 46, ' Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all
480 SERMONS UPON JOHN I. 29.
the land till the ninth hour : and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice ; ' and ver. 50, ' Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, gave up the ghost.' And the place was the same ; for ever since David's time the paschal lambs were killed at Jerusalem in the porch of the temple, where Christ also suffered. And it is said, Exod. xii. 6, that ' the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it , in the evening ; ' which was in a manner fulfilled in Christ, against whom the scribes and pharisees, and all the people conspired : and therefore, when Pilate would have released him, ' they all said unto him, Let him be crucified,' Mat. xxvii. 22 ; and Luke xxiii. 18, ' They cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas ; ' iraixifK.TjOel, all the multitude to- gether. And the kind of the death agreeth ; for as the lamb's blood was shed, so was Christ's for the people of God. The blood of the paschal lamb was not spilt on the ground, but carried away in basins, Exod. xii. 22, because it signified the precious blood of the Son of Grod, as of a lamb without spot and blemish. God would not have it spilt upon the ground ; that blood is the true treasure of the church, which the Son of God still representeth unto the Father on our behalf. Again, the roasting of the lamb ; the lamb was not to be eaten raw, nor sodden, nor baked, nor boiled, but roasted by fire. The fire repre- sents the wrath of God : Mai. iv. 1, ' Behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven ; ' and Heb. xii. 29, ' Our God is a consuming fire.' In this fire it behoved the Lamb of God to be roasted, when he offeriji himself a surety for sinners, and was substituted into their room and place. This was that which made him sweat drops of blood, and for this cause did he complain, Ps. xxii. 14, 15, ' My heart is like wax ; it is melted in the midst of my bowels : my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.' And their manner of roasting it is very notable, which was (as Maimonides tell- eth us) not by a spit of iron turned round about, as we do, but by hanging the flesh on a broach of wood in the midst of the fire, which had some shadow of Christ's crucifixion ; especially if that be true which Justin Martyn in his dialogue with Tryphon the Jew telleth him, that their broach was fashioned to the shape of a cross, a trans- verse piece of wood thrust through the shoulders of the lamb. And why should we not believe this holy man, who was well acquainted with the Jewish affairs, being bOrn at Sychem ? Besides the notable providence of God that Christ's legs should not be broken.