rally received opinion is, that they were em- to praise and serve Him who is the author blematical representations of the angelic or of their being, and the source of all their heavenly host: and the attributes here as-happiness. signed to them, their attitude, and their The cherubim are represented as furnished employment in the tabernacle service, cor- with wings. This denotes the alacrity, respond exactly to the idea given us in other parts of scripture of those flaming ministers who stand continually before God, execute his pleasure, adore his divine perfections, minister to the heirs of salvation. promptitude, and instantaneousness, with which angels obey the divine will. Thus, the angel who appeared to Zacharias at the hour of incense, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God;" and hence, else. where, in scripture, the activity of angels is compared to the velocity of the wind, and the rapid, irresistible force of fire. "He rode upon a cherub, and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind." 66 • He maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire." "Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure."* The ark may be considered as the throne of God. The cherubim encompassed that throne, as the attendants in earthly courts surround the throne and person of their prince. This is the precise idea suggested by the prophet Isaiah, of the nature and office of these blessed spirits, in the sixth chapter of his prophesy. "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings; with twain Once more; the faces of the cherubim he covered his face, and with twain he cover- were not only turned one to another, but ed his feet, and with twain he did fly. And bended together toward the mercy-seat, and one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, their looks were attentively fixed upon the holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is ark. This expresses the holy admiration, with full of his glory." ."* Thus, also, Daniel re- which angels are filled, of those mysteries presents the same glorious object; "The of redemption which the ark prefigured. To Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was this remarkable circumstance the apostle white as snow, and the hair of his head like Peter alludes in his first epistle, when speakthe pure wool: his throne was like the fiery |ing of salvation through "the sufferings of flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A Christ, and the glory that should follow," he fiery stream issued and came forth from adds, “which things the angels desire to look before him thousand thousands ministered into." The words literally translated import, unto him, and ten thousand times ten thou-" which things, angels stoop down to contemsand stood before him."t Micah saw in vision, "the Eternal sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven standing before him, and on the right hand and the left." "The chariots of God," says the psalmist, are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place." And in several other passages he addresses the Deity as sitting and dwelling among the cherubim. 66 66 The cherubim had their faces turned one toward another. This might be intended to represent the perfect union of sentiment and co-operation which subsists among these sons of light. In other places of scripture, we hear their voices in concert, raising one song of praise, as in the passage just now quoted from Isaiah, and Revelations, chapter fourth: They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." These glorious beings, differing in degree, infinite in number, have nevertheless but one heart, one desire, one will, one aim, plate." It conveys a beautiful and striking idea of the gospel dispensation. Angels are exalted to the height of glory and felicity. They behold God face to face, and drink of the river of pleasure at its very source. They see his uncreated splendour shining before their eyes. They see his goodness in the blessings which they enjoy. They see his justice in the punishment of angels "which left their first estate." They see his wisdom in the government of this vast universe. In a word, every thing that is capable of filling the enlarged comprehension, of satisfying the inquiring spirit, is set before these pure and exalted intelligences. Nevertheless, amidst so many objects of wonder and delight, in the midst of all this felicity and glory, angels desire to be more and more acquainted with "the things which belong to our peace." They discover a God rich in mercy to men upon earth, as wonderful, as incomprehensible as a God abundant in loving kindness to angels in heaven: and forgetting, if it be lawful to say so, the lustre and happiness of the church triumphant, descend and mingle with the church militant, and find fuel to divine love, find materials for pleasing, advancing, endless investigation, in the work of redemption of Jesus Christ. "These things * Psalm ciii. 20, 21. the angels," from the heights of heaven, ' bend down" with humble earnestness, with holy desire "to look into." golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his princes, his I conclude with quoting a passage of the wives and his concubines drank in them. Rabbi Maimonides on the subject. "God They drank wine, and praised the gods of commanded Moses," says he, "to make two gold, and silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and cherubim, in order to impress upon the human of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers mind the doctrine of the existence of angels. of a man's hand, and wrote over against the Had there been but one cherub placed over candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the mercy-seat, the Israelites might have the king's palace; and the king saw part of fallen into a grievous error, they might have the hand that wrote. Then the king's counimagined, with idolatrous nations, that it was tenance was changed, and his thoughts trouthe image of God himself, which they were bled him, so that the joints of his loins were required to worship under that form. Or loosed, and his knees smote one against they might have been led to believe, on the another." Read the writing, with the interother hand, that there was but one angel.pretation of it. "This is the writing that But the command given to make two cheru- was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPbim, joined to this declaration, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Jehovah, settles both articles beyond the power of disputation. It proves that there is an angelic order, and that it consists of more than one: it prevents our confounding the idea of God with that of angels; seeing there is but one God who created the cherubim, and created more than one. HARSIN., This is the interpretation of the thing; MENE, God hath numbered thy king. dom, and finished it. TEKEL, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES, thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."* Read the issue. "In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom."t begun and perfected within the compass of little more than six months. Every thing was executed according to the pattern showed to Moses in the mount. At length it was set up in all its splendour, with a mixture of holy joy and godly fear: and the divine Inhabitant took solemn possession in the eyes of all Israel. "A cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." 66 In this sacred repository were laid up, for Such was the wonderful structure erected perpetual preservation, the awful monuments to the honour of God, and by his special diof the Sinai covenant, of the church esta-rection, in the wilderness of Sinai. It was blished in the wilderness; the memorials of mercies past, the pledges of good things to come "the tables of the covenant," the incorruptible manna, and Aaron's rod that budded: signifying to all future generations, the permanency and immutability of the divine law, the unremitting care and attention of the divine providence, the dignity, and stability of the Levitical priesthood. But the whole economy, and every instrument of it, in process of time passed away. All was at length carried to Babylon. But the dissolution of the empire which dared to violate their sacredness, was involved in their violation and dissolution. Read the history of it, Dan. v. "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein. Then they brought the * More Nevoch, part III. ch. xlv. † Dan. v. 1-6. 2 N Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: we have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. Who hath obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away."‡ *Dan. v. 25-28. Dan. v. 30, 31. 24* HISTORY OF AARON. LECTURE LXIII. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazer his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor: and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazer his son: and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And Moses did as the Lord commanded: and they went up into mount Hor, in sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazer his son: and Aaron died there in the top of the mount. And Moses and Eleazer came down from the mount. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel. NUMBERS XX. 23-29. THE lives of most men, from the womb to | to retail those ideal virtues, are notoriously the grave, pass away unobserved, unregard- among the most abandoned and profligate of ed, unknown. When their course is finish- our race. Those examples, therefore, are ed the whole history of it shrinks into two to be considered as the most useful, as I flatlittle articles; on such a day they were born, ter myself they are more frequent, which and after so many days they died. Of those exhibit a mixture in which goodness prewho emerge out of the general obscurity, dominates, and finally prevails; in which some begin their public career at an advanc- virtue is seen wading through difficulties, ed period of life, and of course it consists of struggling with temptation, recovering from a few shining, interesting, important events, error, gathering strength from weakness, and is confined within the compass of a very learning wisdom from experience, sustainfew fleeting years. While the progress of ing itself by dependence upon God; seeking a little selected band, whom an indulgent refuge from its own frailty and imperfection Providence has vouchsafed signally to nobili- in divine compassion, and crowned, at length, tate, and whom the historic pencil is fond to with victory over all opposition, and the delineate, is distinguished from the cradle to smiles of approving Heaven. the tomb, by an uninterrupted series of splendid incidents, exemplary virtues, and brilliant actions. Of this sort, is the history and character which the pen of inspiration, which the pencil of a brother has drawn for the instruction of this evening. The characters of men are mixed like their fortunes. The most perfect instruc- Aaron, the first high priest of the Hebrew tion, for the generality of mankind, which nation, and the only brother of Moses, their history furnishes, is perhaps supplied from celebrated legislator, was born in the year the exhibition of mixed, that is, of imperfect of the world two thousand three hundred characters. Unvarying scenes of fraud, vio- and seventy; before Christ one thousand six lence, and blood; the representation of un-hundred and thirty-four; and before the birth deviating, unrelenting, unblushing profligacy, must, of necessity, create disgust, or diminish the horror of vice. The real annals of mankind present no model of pure and perfect virtue, but one: and from its singularity, it cannot, in all respects, serve as a pattern for imitation. We contemplate it at an awful distance; we feel ourselves every moment condemned by it: we turn from the divine excellency, which covers our faces with shame, and casts us down to the ground, toward the mercy which has sealed our pardon, and the grace which raises us up again. The fanciful representations of perfect virtue, which are supplied from the stores of fiction, can but amuse at most; edify they cannot. They want truth, they want nature, they come not home to the bosoms of ordinary men. I might more easily ape the state of a king, than imitate the affectedly sublime virtue of the heroes of romance. Many of the persons whose profession it is of his brother three years. It is probable he caine into the world before the edict of the king of Egypt was published, which commanded all the Israelitish male children to be put to death. For that edict seems to have been directed by a special interposition of Providence, precisely to mark, and eminently to signalize, the first appearance of the great prophet of the Jews. Exposed to no special danger of infancy, the subject of no interesting memoir in early life, distinguished by no memorable talents or exploits in manhood, we see him far declined into the vale of years before we see him at all; and, for all our knowledge of him, earlier or later, we are indebted to the labours of his younger brother. Another, among a cloud of witnesses, to prove that the birthright of nature, and the destination of Providence, are intended to confer distinctions of a very different kind. Moses has shone forty years in the court of Pharaoh, has formed an alliance by marriage with a foreign prince, and cultivated the virtues, and prosecuted the employments of private life for forty years more, before his elder brother is heard of And when he is at length brought upon the scene, at the advanced age of eighty-three, it is to occupy an inferior department to his brother, and the elder is yet again designed to serve the younger. powerful charm, not a single trace remains behind: while the productions of Moses's pen exist and shall exist till nature expire, to instruct, delight, and bless mankind. The various instruments which heaven employs are ever suited to their seasons, occasions, and ends. The interview between the brothers takes place according as infinite wisdom had contrived it; and it behoved, on many accounts, to be a pleasant one. Two be left destitute of all? The praise of eloquence certainly belongs to Aaron; for it is bestowed by him, who is best able to estimate his own gifts. "Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well." "* But O how different the nature, the importance, the effect, the duration of one talent compared to another! The tongue which overawed Pharaoh, which astonished His first introduction, however, to our all Egypt, and charmed the listening ear of acquaintance, places him in a most interest-Israel, speedily became mute; and of its ing, respectable, and honourable point of view. We behold a venerable man, fourscore and upwards, agitated with public cares, and moved with fraternal tenderness and affection, on his way through the wilderness, in quest of his long absent brother. In these our days of speedy conveyance and communication from pole to pole, from the east to west, by land, by water, through the air, we can form but a slender idea of the anxiety of friends, removed but a few leagues' dis-wise and good men, so nearly related, so tance from one another, and their consequent ignorance of each other's situation. Proportionally sweet must have been the delight of meeting together, after long separation. Scripture has described this, as it does every thing else, in its own inimitable manner. "Aaron thy brother, behold he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart."* Behold the interview of two brothers, not the result of previous concert, not the effect of human sagacity, not the fortuitous coincidence of blind, blundering, accidental circumstances; but planned and conducted of Heaven, and effected by Him, "who worketh all things after the counsel of his will," and for a great and noble purpose. fondly attached to each other, after a separation so tedious, to meet again in health, to confer together on matters of such high moment, to enter, under the assured protection of Heaven, upon the noblest and most generous enterprize that can engage great and lofty spirits, the deliverance of their country! What a field for the exercise of private friendship, of natural affection, of public spirit! On Aaron, according to the divine appointment, fell that most grateful of all tasks, to announce to the wretched the period of their misery, "to proclaim liberty to the captives," the truth and faithfulness of God to the desponding and dejected, and the possession of Canaan to the slaves of Pharaoh. Eloquence has an enchanting power, even The occasion of Aaron's first appearance over those who have no interest in the subin the sacred drama, is not less memorable.ject of it. How potent, then, the enchantMoses having received the divine commission to proceed to the deliverance of his nation from Egyptian bondage, repeatedly excuses himself from undertaking that honourable employment, particularly on the footing of his deficiency in the arts of eloquence and persuasion. Did this arise from timidity in Moses? was it a false modesty and humility or did he indeed labour under a defect of this kind? If the last, can we avoid reflecting on the wonderful equality with which nature distributes her gifts! In conception who so sublime, in composition who so elegant, in narration who so simple, in written language who so perspicuous, so forcible, so impressive as Moses? Can it be true, then, what he says of himself, “ O, my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." Who is so favoured of nature and Providence, as to possess every talent, every blessing? Who so hardly dealt with, as to ment of the heaven-taught eloquence of Aaron the Levite! What grace must have been poured into his lips, when delivering the message of love from the great "I AM," the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to their hapless offspring, assuring them, that the time to favour them was now come, that his covenant was sure! With what ravished ears must the elders of Israel have listened to such tidings, flowing from such lips! Happy Aaron, thus accomplished, thus commissioned, thus prospered! Happy people, thus remembered, thus addressed, thus persuaded! But wherefore envy his honour or their happiness? A greater than Aaron is with us; even He who says of himself, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound :"+ We announce to you, that Jesus "in whom all † Isai. Ixi. 1. Exod. iv. 14. fulness was pleased to dwell," whom admir- have accordingly been already adverted to, ing multitudes worshipped, saying, "never and shall not therefore now be repeated, our man spake like this man!" whose all-com-intention being to select those passages of manding voice checked the boisterous ele- his history, which are more personal and pements, put demons to flight, and pierced the ear of death. culiar; which more clearly mark a distinct character; and which represent him invested with an office which was to be hereditary in his family, and typical of the unchangeable priesthood of the Son of God. In the conclusion of the sixth chapter, Moses interrupts the thread of his narration, to deliver the genealogy of the family of Levi; a matter of no little moment in the settlement of that political and religious economy, which God was about to erect for the better government of his people Israel. From this it appears, that Aaron and himself were in the fourth generation, in a direct line, from Levi, Jacob's third son; being the sons of Amram, the eldest son of Kohath, the second son of Levi. Hence, they are in the fifth ge neration from Jacob, in the sixth from Isaac, and the seventh from Abraham. It farther appears, from this genealogical deduction, that Aaron had connected himself with the tribe of Judah, by marrying Elisheba, the daughter of Aminadab, and sister to Naashon, who became soon after the head of the prerogative tribe, the progenitor of its long succession of princes, and the root, according to the flesh, of the promised Messiah. By her he had four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazer, and Ithamar. On all which I have only to observe, that as the miseries of Egyptian bond Christians, we come not to you with the eloquence of an Aaron; but we bear a message infinitely more important than his. Our "speech and preaching is not with enticing words of man's wisdom:"* O that it might be "in demonstration of the spirit, and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." He proclaimed freedom from fetters of iron, and the oppression of an earthly tyrant: we proclaim liberty from the bondage of sin; from everlasting chains under darkness; from the cruel tyranny of the devil; from the dreadful curse of God's violated law, which arms Satan with his tremendous power, digs the vast recesses of the unfathomable abyss, and feeds the inextinguishable flame of the fiery lake. He published a covenant of a temporary effect, which conveyed temporal advantages, which was clogged with hard and hazardous conditions, which has passed away. We publish a covenant, "ordered in all things and sure," whose stability depends not on our fidelity, which possesses a commanding influence on eternity, which proposes everlasting benefits, which makes provision for human frailty, which outruns our utmost wishes, composes our justest apprehensions, trans-age deterred not Aaron from entering into cends our highest hopes. The message of Aaron issued in the prospect yet distant, of a land flowing with milk and honey, of a pure air, and a fruitful soil; but infested with enemies, influenced by, and exposed to, inclement seasons, and. liable to forfeiture. But our preaching, men and brethren, looks beyond time, and the flaming boundaries of this great universe: it holds out the distant, but not uncertain, prospect of a celestial paradise, stored with every delight that is suited to the nature of a rational and immortal being: which is exposed to no hostile incursion, to no elementary strife; and whose eternal possession is insured by the almighty power of God, and the purchase of a Saviour's blood. Aaron preached, alas! to men who could not enter in because of unbelief, and the tongue itself which announced Canaan to others, was silenced before Jordan divided. Avert, merciful Father, avert the dreadful omen. Let not the preacher, let none of the hearers of this night, be missing in the day when thou bringest home thy redeemed ones to thy heavenly rest, The events of Aaron's life are so blended with, and dependent upon those of his brother, that they cannot be separated. Many of them that state which Providence has established for improving the happiness and mitigating the sorrows of human life, so the God in whom he trusted, rendered this virtuous union productive of a race of high priests to minister unto the Lord, and to support the honours of their father's name and office, to the latest ages of the Jewish commonwealth, With what care has Providence watched over, and preserved entire, the royal and sacerdotal line, till the great purposes of Heaven were accomplished, till the descent of the promised seed was ascertained! From that period genealogy was, as it were, broken into ten thousand fragments, the connexion and succession of families were blotted out, as a thing of nought: and a new family was established on different principles, in endless succession, all claiming and holding of this "first-born among many brethren." As Aaron is represented in the possession of the most pleasing powers of speech, to soothe the woes of Israel, so we see him armed with a tongue, sharp as a two-edged sword, to smite and to break the pride of Pharaoh and of Egypt; and bearing a potent rod, endued with power to deliver or to destroy. And in this the world is taught to respect, to revere the weakest, meanest, most contemptible weapon, which the hand o. |