ness, "for the forgiveness of all our sins, | the tabernacle with the pillar of cloud restaccording to the riches of thy grace.”

But though death was to Moses a mark of the divine displeasure, and the punishment of sin; like all the chastenings of fatherly wisdom, like all the punishments of Heaven, it was in the issue, and upon the whole, a real benefit, it was unspeakably great gain: it relieved him of a burden sometimes ready to prove intolerable, it introduced him to communion with God more intimate and endearing than ever he had hitherto enjoyed; it placed him among the spirits of just men made perfect. Moses died in sight of the promised land, was permitted to measure it with his eye, and to judge of its fertility from specimens of its produce; and all that the labours and light of those who are fellowworkers with Moses can do, is to repeat the promise, to point with the finger and to say, "This is the way, walk ye in it." It belongs to another power to subdue corruption, to divide Jordan, to level the walls of proud Jericho.

We know the offence, we have heard the doom, the reprieve is expired, the warrant of death is signed, the day of execution is come. But the bitterness of death is over already, the sting of death is plucked out, and even the word that condemns and kills the body, is a word of love. A worldly mind cannot discern the reason why the cross is the way, why death is in the cup, why the entrance into the kingdom of God is through the thorny road of much tribulation; but the child of God, the disciple of Jesus, has ceased from himself and from his own will and understanding: "He knows whom he has believed," and who has said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten:" he sees death in the list of his privileges and possessions, and is assured that all shall work together for his good.

Moses has fulfilled like a hireling his day, has written, has spoken, has judged, has prayed, has blessed; the business of life is ended; he has glorified God on earth, it only remains that he glorify him, by submission to his soverign will in dying. Behold him then solitarily and solemnly advancing to encounter the last enemy: he has passed through the plain, and again he begins to climb up into the mount to meet God. The eyes of all Israel are riveted to his footsteps. Who is not ready to cry out, "Would to God I could die for thee." Every step he advances plants a dagger in the heart. The distance begins to render vision indistinct, his person is diminished to a speck, they fondly imagine they see him still, the eyes strain for another and another glimpse, they are suffused with tears, they can behold him no more. But he still beholds their goodly tents, he sees all Israel collected into one point of view: Jehovah dwelling in the midst of his people,

ing upon it: his affection with his sight is concentred on the happy spot, his whole soul goes out in one general departing blessing. As he ascends, the prospect expands and brightens to his ravished eye. He can trace Jordan from its source, till it falls into the sea; he wanders with delight from hill to hill, from plain to plain. He sees on this side mount Lebanon losing its lofty head in the clouds; on that, the ocean and the sky meeting together to terminate his view. Beneath his feet, as it were, the city of palmtrees, and the happy fields which the posterity of Joseph were destined to inhabit. The land which Abraham had measured with his foot in the length and in the breadth of it; in which Isaac and Jacob had sojourned as strangers; which God had fenced, and cultivated, and planted, and enriched by the hand of the Canaanite for his beloved people; which the sun irradiated with milder beams, the dew of heaven refreshed with sweeter moisture, and the early and the latter rain fattened in more copious showers. "And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither."*

But what is the glory of this world? It passeth away.-What is the felicity of man, who must die, and of the son of man, who is a worm? It cometh quickly to a period. The eye which age had not made dim, must nevertheless be closed in death at length: the strength which a hundred and twenty years had not been able to impair, is in a moment, by one touch of the finger of God, dissolved; the heart which God and Israel had so long divided, is now wholly occupied with God. In the midst of a vision so divine, Moses gently falls asleep: and he who falls asleep in the bosom of a father, needs be under no anxiety about his awakening. "So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord."+ Moses died with Canaan full in view, enjoying every thing but possession; and the utmost that his dispensation can do, is to ascertain the existence of the heavenly country; to describe its boundaries, nature, and situation; to conduct to its limits, and to put us under the conduct of the great Captain of salvation.

When we see the prophet of the law so far from having power to introduce others into their promised rest, that he himself could not enter in because of unbelief; we are admonished to court the protection and assistance of a more potent arm; to cleave to Him, who, by dying, has overcome death, and Him who has the power of death; "who openeth

and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth.

But oh, what a blessed transition from the fairest earthly prospect that eye ever beheld, to the enjoyment of a faire: inheritance, eternal in the heavens; from the tents of Jacob, to the encampment of angels under Michael their prince: from a glory confined and transitory, to glory unbounded, unchangeable; from the symbol of the divine presence, in a pillar of fire and cloud, to his real presence, where there is "fulness of joy," and where "there are pleasures for evermore;"* to see him as he is, and to be transformed into the same image, from glory to glory. Behold Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, rushing from their thrones to welcome to the realms of light the shepherd of Israel, who had led the chosen seed from strength to strength, from triumph to triumph, while the voice of the Eternal himself proclaims, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord."

use to disappear, and were absent for several days together; and that upon their return to the flock, their hair was perfumed with something that smelled extremely sweet. This excited their curiosity and determined them to investigate the affair with the utmost accuracy. They accordingly traced their goats, and were led by them through rugged and rocky places to a little vale, where, upon examination, they discovered a kind of cave, out of which proceeded a very agreeable smell, resembling that which the goats conveyed on their fleeces, and had first suggested the inquiry. In the middle of the cave they found a tomb of stone, on which certain characters were engraven, which, being illiterate, they could not decypher; but they soon perceived that the sweet smell was communicated to their persons and garments. Upon this they went immediately to Mataxat, patriarch of the Maronites, who resided at the monastery of St. Mary, on mount Lebanon, and related to him the particulars of their discovery. The fragrance that still adhered to their clothes confirming their testimony, he sent two of his monks with them; one of them, a man of profound erudition, named Aben-Useph, who found, in the place pointed out to them a monument inscribed with these words in Hebrew, MOSES THE SERVANT OF THE LORD. The patriarch, transported with joy at a discovery so marvellous, besought Morat, Pacha of Damascus, to constitute him sole guardian of the sepulchre. But the Greeks and Arminians, as well as the Franciscan friars, and after them the Jews, violently opposed it, and unable to agree, tried The reason commonly assigned for con- by dint of interest at court, by presents to the cealing the place where Moses was interred, Mufti and Grand Vizier, to appropriate each was to prevent a superstitious use of his tomb to themselves the superintendence of this and relics, which a people so prone to idola- tomb, which they equally believed to be that try might readily have adopted, and with as of Moses, and which the Jews, with peculiar good a colour of reason at least as the votaries earnestness, insisted must belong to them. of any hero, prince, or saint that ever was They represented that, among all the possesdeified, could ever allege for their conduct. sions of the Grand Seignior, none could be The scripture saith expressly, that, at the more valuable and illustrious than the protime this conclusion of the book of Deutero-perty of three sepulchres so renowned as that nomy was written, whether by Joshua, his immediate successor, by Samuel, three hundred and fifty years afterwards, or by Ezra, after the dissolution of the monarchy, and the Babylonish captivity, that then the place of Moses's burial was unknown to any man, and had been so from the beginning; and yet such is the wickedness of imposture on the one hand, and the fondness of credulity on the other, that so late as the year of our Lord 1655, a pretended discovery of the spot was made, and attempted to be imposed upon the

But we must descend from this exceeding high mountain, and inquire after the breathless clay of the servant of the Lord. It is precious in the sight of God; not a particle of it shall be lost in the grave, and it shall be raised up at the last day. In every other instance he leaves the dead to bury their dead; but he charges himself with the body of Moses, performs himself the rites of sepulture, conveys it by the ministration of angels, from the top of Nebo to a tomb of his own providing, "in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-Peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."

of Mahomet at Mecca, of Jesus Christ at Jerusalem, and of Moses in mount Nebo. But the Jesuits had the address, by presents happily applied, to defeat the claims of all these pretenders, and to obtain an order for shutting up the sepulchre, and obstructing the road that led to it; nay, for prohibiting all access to it, under pain of death. They were, meanwhile, forming a design of secretly conveying off the body of Moses, which they flattered themselves would prove a considerable accession of respectability, and a new source of wealth to their order. Having however, with much difficulty and danger, penetrated into the sepulchre, it was found entirely empty; no body, no relics appeared."* These pleasing chimeras vanished almost as * Hornius, Secul. xvii. Art. xxxii. p. 536.

HISTORY OF MOSES

LECTURE LXXXIII.

And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face: in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.-DEUTERONOMY XXXIV. 10–12.

THERE is in mankind a good-natured disposition to spare the dead. Without very high provocation, indeed, who could think of disturbing the peace and silence of the grave, and of dragging again before the tribunal of man those who have already undergone the more awful judgment of a righteous God?

But this generosity does not always proceed from pure benevolence. The dead no longer stand in our way; they are no longer our rivals in the pursuits of fame or of fortune. We can here earn the praise of magnanimity, without any danger of suffering in the interests of our reputation, our consequence, our self-love. From whatever source this lenity and forbearance proceed, we would not be thought altogether to condemn them; but good-nature in this, as in a few other cases, is apt sometimes to be carried too far. Through fear of being thought severe to those who have no power to defend themselves, extravagant and unmerited commendation has been often lavished on the worthless and the wicked. I will cheerfully engage not to violate the ashes of the dead by unjust censure, nor even by merited invective; but I must not be forced, on the other hand, to commemorate virtues that were never prac-| tised; to bring to light worth that never existed, except in the tropes of a funeral oration; to represent as right, what God, and truth, and reason pronounce to be wrong. My tongue shall be silent as the grave over the memory of the proudest, most selfish, hardhearted, unkind, uncomplying wretch that ever lived: but I must not be called in to prostitute my conscience by celebrating his humility, generosity, compassion, or sweetness of temper. I would correct the common adage a little, and then give it all the currency in my power. Instead of rendering it, "of the dead say that only which is good," I would translate it, "of the dead say that only which is true."

Indeed, the best thing that can befall most men, when they die, is to be forgotten as soon as possible. Few, very few characters are such as not to suffer by handling; and there is great danger of rousing and provoking slumbering resentments against our departed friends, by an officious zeal to trumpet their praise, and display their good qualities. The praise bestowed on the dead is generally contemptible adulation to the living; adulation, vilely bestowing the rewards of piety and goodness on mere greatness or affluence, and thereby strengthening the hands of vice, by lulling the conscience to rest, and deceiving men into the belief, that a good name may be purchased without possessing a spark of virtue.

noblest, because one of the most scriptural parts of it, with indiscriminating charity dispenses the kingdom of heaven to the evil and the good, to "him that sweareth as to him who feareth an oath." The wretch whose whole life has been a notorious violation of every law human and divine, who grew old in hatred and contempt of the gospel, falls asleep in the "sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life." What is this but to encourage men to continue in sin, that grace may abound; to live profligates, and yet hope to die in peace?

Happily, the character we are this evening to bring under your review will stand the test of the strictest examination, will shine with superior lustre from being touched and retouched, will discover new excellencies on every investigation, will furnish to the humble, the penitent, and the believing, perpetual ground of instruction and consolation. After a course of more than fourscore Lectures on the life, character, and writings of Moses, it may perhaps be thought superfluous, to employ the whole of another discourse in attempting to elucidate his character, to recommend his example, to embalm his memory. But it is this very circumstance which determined me to attempt a delineation of this wonderful man's portrait, to request that you would join me in meditating a few moments over one who has been honoured of God, to do more, in order to please and instruct mankind, than any mere man that ever existed. To say truth, I consider the person of Moses as a pledge of affection between you and myself. He brought us together at first, and he has kept us together a considerable part of these three years past; to part with him and his writings seems a kind of presentiment of our final dissolution likewise; and, in losing him, I feel as if I were losing a thousand friends at a stroke. But let us speak and think of Moses, not of ourselves.

It is impossible to think of Moses without first thinking of "his Father and our Father, of his God and our God." To be a chosen instrument in the hand of Heaven to carry on the plans of Providence, to promote the wisdom and happiness of mankind, is man's highest glory: as it is his truest felicity to do this voluntarily and from the heart, as an obedient, zealous, and cheerful fellow-worker with God. Now, Moses possessed this distinction and felicity in a very eminent degree. God raised up Pharaoh "in very deed for this cause, to show in him his power, that his great name might be declared throughout all the earth;" and Pharaoh, unhappily for himself, accomplished the designs of Heaven, by his pride, obstinacy, and rebellion. God The liturgy of our established church, in called "Cyrus his anointed, by name, and how many other respects soever useful and surnamed him who had not known him for excellent, is here faulty, and certainly does Jacob his servant's sake, and Israel his elect." mischief. The funeral service, one of the | Nebuchadnezzar he employed as the rod of