The Nativity of Christ was dignified by the appearance of a star, and celebrated by an host of angels; though its earthly appearance was in poverty and obscurity. And some unusual circumstances marked the birth of Moses, though the particulars are not related. He was born of a poor oppressed people, the child of a slave, and doomed to death by the circumstances of his birth. But his parents were aware of some distinction, which shewed that he was raised up for some great purpose. St. Paul says, "they saw he was a proper child;" St. Stephen, that he was "exceeding fair";" the original is, "fair to God;" from all which it is most reasonable to understand, that some marks of divine favour and distinction were visible about him at his birth. His qualifications and endowments come next under consideration. He is said to have been "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptiansh," and to have been "mighty in words and in deeds." This character is given of Christ as a Prophet, nearly in the same terms. The two disciples who walked with Him to Emmaus described Him as a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the peoplei.” When Moses was grown up, he went forth to vindicate the rights of his people, and gave them a sign of his power by slaying an Egyptian who did them wrong; casting out one of their strong men, to shew that a stronger than he was come upon him, and that God had visited His people. So did Christ give a sign of His power as a Redeemer, by rescuing the souls and bodies of men from the bondage of Satan; casting out devils by the finger of God, to shew that the kingdom of God was come upon them. The Egyptian wisdom, according to the accounts we have of it, delivered all f Heb. xi. 23. 8 Acts vii. 20. h Compare Luke ii. 52. i Luke xxiv. 19. : things under signs and figures; speaking to the mind rather by visible objects than by words, and conveying instruction under a hidden form which only the wise could understand. I do not stay to enquire into the reason of this; I only speak of the fact, which is well known to scholars. Moses must therefore have been accustomed early to this mode of delivering science by symbols and hieroglyphics and we have seen that his whole law is according to the same method, not speaking literally of any spiritual thing, not even of the immortality of the soul, (whence some have ignorantly supposed that it was not a doctrine of his law,) but delivering all things under signs, emblems, and descriptive ceremonies; which they who do not study, are miserably in the dark as to the wisdom of the Mosaic dispensation. The wisdom of our blessed Saviour was always con veyed under the same form: all His instructions were given in parables, where visible objects signify intellectual things; and "without a parable spake He not unto them:" which form of speech, they who do not study and delight in, as the medium of instruction which the wisdom of God hath preferred from the beginning of the world, will never see far either into the Old or New Testament. The mission of Moses bears witness, in the form of it, to the mission of Jesus Christ; and gives us the most worthy idea that can be conceived both of the dignity and design of it. Both these ministers of God were sent upon their | commissions by a voice from heaven. God appeared to Moses in a bush that burned with fire, and said, "I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them; and, now come, I will send thee Matt. xiii. 34; Mark iv. 34. 1 Exod. iii. SO So when ruption of manners: that Christ was wanted by the world of Jews and gentiles as much as Moses by the Hebrews in Egypt. into Egypt"." Jesus was appointed to His ministry, there came "a voice from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased"." The redemption of the people under Moses, at the Exodus from Egypt, having already been considered as a figure of the world's redemption under Jesus Christ, I need not dwell upon it here. I may however observe, that as the servitude of the Hebrews was extreme, and their oppression intolerable, when Moses was raised up to redeem them; so was the power of Satan at its utmost height, over Jews and gentiles, at the coming of Christ. He was permitted to bind and to oppress after a strange manner the sons and daughters of Abraham. And if we consider the state of the heathens at that time all over the world, we find them under the grossest darkness of idolatry, and the most abominable cor Acts vii. 34. On this occasion, we have before us a remarkable sign attending the mission of Moses; which being insisted upon by St. Stephen must (like all the other ways of God) have its sense and signification. God appeared to Moses in the desert, from a bush which was on fire and yet was not consumed. Which is a sign, first applying itself as an assurance of deliverance from the affliction of Egypt; and secondly as a pattern of the incarnation, when God should come down from heaven to redeem the whole world. The burning bush was an earnest and a pledge to assure Moses, that the people of God, though then in a low and miserable condition (aptly signified by a thorn growing on a desert) and under a fiery trial in a furnace of affliction, 2 Peter i. 17. should yet survive it all; | would be with us in a like sin the form for the salvation of the world from the bondage of that, as the thorn of desert is the lowest amongst the trees, so should He take upon Himself the form of a servant, the lowest condition of humanity; submitting to serve with us, and be afflicted in all our afflictions; that în and with Him we might be enabled to sustain and survive the sharpness of death. That, as the children in the furnace of fire felt no harm because the Son of God was with them in the midst of it; so should not we be as the bush, though in the midst of a flame of fire, was not consumed. According to this model, such should the event be; and such in fact it was, to the Hebrews in Egypt. As God was present in the bush which was not burned, so being present with His people in their fiery trial, and as it were partaking with them in their sufferings, they would certainly be delivered out of them: according to those words of the prophet Isaiah; "In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them":"consumed by the trials of which passage some of the this world or the fire of Jewish commentators them- judgment itself. Herein selves have properly ap- was it also signified, that plied to this exhibition of the manifestation of God the burning bush, as a sign to man should not be that that God was with His of a consuming fire, but of people in their afflictions, a benign light and glory to defend and preserve instead of it; "a light to them in the fiery trial. lighten the gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel P.” It was signified, that wrath was turned away; that God was reconciled, and And if this wonderful spectacle was a sign that God was with them; surely it was also a sign that He • Isaiah lxiii. 9. P Luke ii. 32. that there is "good will" | other case. This appearance of God to Moses is such a testimony to His appearance afterwards in the flesh, that if we lay the whole together as a figure of the poverty of His birth, like that of a root out of a dry ground; of the servility of His condition; of the thorns He bore at His crucifixion; of the glory and brightness of His transfiguration; of the misery of man; the condescension of God; the necessity of a Redeemer in all these things met together in this exhibition of the burning bush, I see a complication of wonders, which cannot worthily be spoken of: we must adore the subject as we can, and leave it to the more adequate contemplation of of angels. : The work of Moses in delivering his people was attended with a display of divine power, which shewed how it should be in the 9 Deut. xxxiii. 16. "He brought them out," saith St. Stephen, "after he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years"." So it may be said of Jesus Christ in words to the same effect, He brought them out after He had shewed wonders and signs; casting out devils, healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding a hungry multitude in a wilderness, and giving every possible demonstration of a Divine Power, exercised for the deliverance and salvation of the people of God. The power of Moses in Egypt, and at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, was as visible as the sun in the heavens ; and it was as plain and certain that he acted by the finger of God, as that he acted at all. But now the argument of St. Stephen leads us to observe, as one of the greatest of all wonders, how this man of might and wisdom, so miraculously preserved, r Acts vii. 36. |