1 Zech. xii. 10. m Ezek. xvi. 63. n 1 Cor. v. 7, 8.
their impending danger from the sword of the destroying angel: and let all endeavour to realize the unavailing cries of God's enemies, and the joyful exultations of his redeemed people. O terrible judgment ! O glorious deliverance ! May God keep us all from hardening our own hearts, and stir us up to an im- mediate compliance with the directions given us in the Gospel!]
Exod. xii. 21 — 23. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out, and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the j^ssover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians : and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side-posts, the Lord will pass over the door ; and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.
THE office of a Minister is to declare to the people what he himself has received from God to deliver to them3. Nothing should be added by him; nothing should be withheld b. The direction given to Moses, " See thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount0," is that to which all the servants of God should be conformed in all their ministrations. In this consists fidelity. " If we add any thing to the word of God, the plagues contained in it shall be added unto us: if we take away from it, our names shall be taken out of the book of lifed." It is spoken to the honour of Moses, that " he was faithful in all his house :" and we find invariably, that the messages which he delivered to the people, and the ordinances which he established among them, accorded with the commission which he himself had received from God. In the words before us, he de- livers to them a message of terror and of mercy: he informs them of the judgment about to be inflicted on the Egyptian first-born; and of the means which
alCor. xv. 3. b Acts xx. 27. c Heb. viii. 5. d Rev. xxii. 18, 19.