Exodus 30

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XXX.—In this golden altarsurely I discern Jesus, the God-man, crowned with glory and honour, and set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as the great intercessor for his people, and the mean of the acceptance of all their prayers, praises, and religious services! In this ransom-money was not Jesus pre-figured as giving himself equally for every one of his numbered, his chosen people, that no plague may be found among them! In this laver was not Jesus typified as the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, in which all his people and ministers ought to wash their conscience and heart before and after every approach to God! In this sacred oil, I behold the Holy Ghost in his precious and manifold, but well-connected, gifts and graces, with which Jesus, his people, his ordinances, and none else, are anointed of God! In this sacred incense I discern the precious and acceptable intercessions of my Redeemer, together with the cordial prayers, praises, and services of his people. Let me then, by faith, depend on his advocacy, since he presents his infinite merits before God, answerable to the circumstances of every particular member of his mystical body. Let all the Israel of God rest and rejoice in him as the redemption-price to the justice of God, while we daily wash in the fountain of his blood and Spirit, till we be without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing: and let the genuine spirit and grace of Christ dwell in us, and not the counterfeit appearance; for dreadful is the hazard of turning his grace into licentiousness, pretending the possession of the Spirit, or counterfeiting the work of God