HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 43-51.-The spirit of the Passover ordi-nance. The features to be specified reappe!lr in the Lord's Supper. The ordinance was- 1. ExcLUSIYE. (Vers. 43, 45, 48.) A stranger, an uncircumcised person, and a hired t!ervant, were not to be permitted to eat of it. Their relation to Israel was wholly external. Jn like manner, the Lord's Supper is exclusive. It excludes the stranger to the death of Christ, the uncircumcised in heart, and those who sustain a merely legal and hireling relation to the Church. These have "neither part nor lot" in the matter. Il. YET CATHOLIC. (Vers. 48, 49.) The sojourning stranger who wished to keep the passover had only to be circumcised-he and his males-to be admitted to the ordinance. He was then to be as one born in the land. This catholicity of spirit, nnd kindliness to foreigners, blending with a stem exclusiveness in religion, is characteristic of the whole Mosaic code. Cf. Vinet on the tolerance and intolerance of the Christian. religion (" Vital Christianity "). The Lord's Supper is the most catholic of ordinances. It overlea.ps all barriers of race, nationality, clime, and religion. At the Lord's tnble there is neither Greek, nor Jew, barba.ria.n, Scythian, bond nor free. III. EQUALISING. (Ver. 44.) The master and slave sat down at the same board. See last homily. Christianity is the great social equaliser. IV. U:t-"IFITNG. (Vers. 46, 47.) It taught the congregation to feel its unity. 1. The lamb was to be ea.ten in one house. 2. Not a bone of it was to be broken. "Through the unity and integrity of the lamb given them to eat, the participants were to be joined into an undivided unity and fellowship with the Lord, who had provided them with the meal " (Keil). 3. All the congregation were to eat it. The Lord's Supper, in like manner, is a social meal, in which the Church, eating " one bread," and drinking "one cup," declares itself to be "one body" ( cf. 1 Cor. x. 16, 17). "The preservation of Christ, so that not e. bone was broken, had the same signifi- cation ; and God ordained this that he might appear as the true Paschal Lamb, that was slain for the sins of the world."--J. 0. Vcrs. 43--51.-The Law of the Passover. L WR.AT Goo REQUIRES IN' ITS OBSER- VANCE. 1. God deoands purity of communion. No stranger is to eat of it. (1) Our holy things a.re not to be profaned. 'l'he life of Christ is lowered and endangered by indiscriminate admission to the Lord's table. (2) They are not to be degraded into superstitious rit.es. When they are given e.s if salvation resided in them, we are substituting idols for the unseen Saviour. The only safeguard for purity of worship is purity of communion. 2. It is not to be carried out from the midst of the house- hold of faith. The peace and fellowship of the Gospel are only for the circumcised in heart. 3. Communion with Christ to be charact.erised by reverence and holy awe: not a bone of him is to be broken. 4. Every we.ll of partition is removed. All who believe have a right to join in the feast (vers. 41--49); but they must come with the mark of God's people,-a circumcised heart. ll. 'l'HE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH IS BLESSED NOT O:t-'L Y WITH SAFETY BUT ALSO WITH DELIVERANCE. •• Thus did all the children of Israel . . . and on the self-sa.me day" they passed out of Egypt (50, 51). Fellowship with Christ is deliverance from the bondage of c\'il-U.
EXPOSITION. cl.a.re all the firstbom of Israel for all future CHAPTER XIII time, and all the firstbom of their domesti- Vers. 1-16.-SA..~CTIFICATIO?IOF THE FDIBl'· cated animals "holy to the Lord." There BO!lll.In connection with the deliverance from was, perhaps, alree.dy in the minds of men death of the Israelite firot-bom by the blood of a feeling that peculiar dignity attached to the le.mb, and still further to fix the remem- the first-born in each family; and this feel- brance of the historical fads in the mind of ing was now strengthened by the OBsignment the n.o.tion, Moses wo.s comm.iasioned to de- to them of a sacred character. God claimed on. xm. 1-16.] 'l'HE BOOK Ol!' EXODUS. 2!)9