rty should present offerings absolutely less valuable, but not
the less acceptable;--these offerings pointed out that the Covenant of
God should be laid hold upon when the shadows which preceded the
glorious reality of the "One Sacrifice" that had been foreordained would
have come to an end, and there should succeed sacrifices spiritual in
their stead, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And circumcision,
prefiguring Christ given for a covenant of the people, who, in the
nature of man shedding his blood, should ratify God's covenant; and
marking the people of God, sealing to them the Covenant of Grace, and
pointing out their newness of life, regeneration, and deliverance from
the vileness of sin, testified to the claims of obedience to the mandate
of God in Covenant, which none could, but at the greatest peril,
disregard. These types and others all pointed to the Redeemer. To the
work which he had, from the days of eternity, Covenanted to perform,
they gave prospective testimony. But of the effects of his mighty
working upon the hearts of men, in leading them to keep his Covenant,
they were not the less appointed symbols, nor were they less designed to
teach that, but for the arrangements of that Covenant which had been
made with him, there had not been made such manifestations of the power
of his grace.

Through miracles. These were wrought in order to declare how near the
chosen of God, as a people, were brought unto him, and how great was the
covenant provision that had been made for them. The flame of fire which
appeared on many solemn occasions, held a signal place among these. The
"flaming sword," or the flame that dries up, or that which burns,
displayed between the cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden; the
flame of fire in which the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses out of
the midst of a bush, when He made himself known to him as the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; the flame of fire which
appeared on the top of Mount Sinai when the Lord made a covenant with
Israel; the pillar of fire by night, which accompanied Israel during
their journeyings in the wilderness; the fire which was wont to descend
and consume, in token of the acceptance of them, the sacrifices laid on
God's altar--all testified to the gracious nearness of God to his
covenant people. The cherubim, emblems of the ministry of
reconciliation, first displayed immediately after the sin of man,
represented afterwards