LECT. LIII.]

HISTORY OF MOSES.

zling, threatening fire to promulgate his law; I shall we most admire, the greatness of the what must he be "coming in flaming fire to works which God performs, or the facility take vengeance on them that know not God, with which he brings them to pass? What and that obey not the gospel of our Lord a high value are we taught to put upon time, Jesus Christ?" If the sound of that trumpet, when we see to what valuable purposes, which proclaimed the approach of God to through the blessing and assistance of HeaIsrael, was ready to kill the living with fear, ven, a little time may be made subservient. what must be the trumpet which shall awake the dead? Whatever majesty and solemnity may appear in the giving of the law, every one shall in a little while behold it infinitely exceeded in the consummation of the gospel. God has hitherto declared his divine perfections by the effects which they produced. The plagues of Egypt awfully manifested his power and justice. The daily showers of manna, and water following them from the rock, bespeak his power and goodness. But he now opens his mouth, to proclaim in the ears of men, his name, his nature, and his will. Let us, with Israel, at a trembling distance contemplate this great sight, and listen with reverence to the Almighty uttering his voice.

The posterity of Abraham, according to the promise, is now become a great nation. But what are multitudes without government, and what government is a blessing without law? Happiness consists not in having such and such possessions, but in being fitted to enjoy what we have. The constitution of other states is the work of time, is the result of experience, arrives at maturity by degrees. Laws and restrictions, encouragements and restraints are suggested by events. But when the great Jehovah condescends to become a legislator, the ut most extent of possibility lying open to his view, provision is made from the beginning for every case that can happen. The rule of his government is laid down at once; and the civil and religious constitution of that nation over which he chose to preside, is established by a wisdom which cannot err.

It was not unpleasant, as we were contemplating the scene exhibited in the preceding chapter, to listen to a wise and good man giving advice with respect to the administration of public justice. But we now tread upon holy ground; and we listen not to a man like ourselves, but to the only wise God. The whole taken together unfolds an unparalleled display of mercy and majesty, of goodness and grandeur.

Forty-seven days have now elapsed, since that "night much to be remembered," when the destroying angel walked through the midst of Egypt, and slew all the first-born. And how many singular and interesting events have taken place in that short period? The Red Sea has been divided; the bitter waters of Marah sweetened; bread from heaven rained down; a living stream extracted from the flinty rock of Horeb; AmaWhether of the two lek discomfited!

Three days more are employed in making solemn preparation for this celestial visitation; so that the law was delivered exactly on the fiftieth day after the celebration of the feast of passover: and in commemoration of it, the Jewish feast of Pentecost was ever after observed and rendered illustrious in the annals of the Christian church, by a new dispensation, not of terror but of grace; the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles of our Lord, in the miraculous gift of tongues. Even the minute circumstances of times and places, may have a significancy and an importance of which we have at present no apprehension. And I am fully persuaded, when God shall be pleased to vouchsafe us clearer light, and fresh discoveries of his will, numberless instances of coincidence and resemblance between the legal and evangelical dispensations shall rush upon us, of which we can now form no conception. Why God has appointed the seventh day to be the weekly sabbath; why the law was proclaimed from Mount Sinai just after seven times seven days had elapsed from the going out of Egypt; why, in the possession of Canaan, the land was to be permitted to rest every seventh year; why the general release, or year of jubilee, was to be statedly observed, after a constant revolution of seven times seven years; and why the Holy Ghost was given "when the day of Pentecost was fully come," or after seven times seven days from the day that "Christ our passover was sacrificed for us?" These are questions which we pretend not to resolve. But certain it is these things have a meaning: "I know it not now, but I shall know it hereafter."

Sinai, the scene of this splendid exhibition, is the highest eminence of a vast ridge of mountains, which run from east to west through Arabia Petrea, as you go from the north-east coast of the Red Sea to Palestine. The adjoining eminence is called Horeb, and is rendered illustrious by the miracle of the water issuing from the rock. And from their propinquity, and their forming part of the same chain of mountains, they are often put the one for the other; and the adjacent desert country is called, indifferently, the wilderness of Horeb, or the wilderness of Sinai.

Moses was first called up into the mount alone, and thence sent back to the people with repeated messages full of tenderness and love. Preparation was made for the tremendous appearance of the glory of the Lord, by the most gracious and reiterated as20*

surances of favour and protection. This is solemn ratification of a covenant, performed the endearing language which the great God according to rites of God's own appointing; condescends to employ on the occasion; "Ye so the political existence and importance of have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, that nation were directed to take their rise in and how I bear you on eagle's wings, and the cutting or dividing a covenant, with simibrought you unto myself. Now therefore, if lar solemnities. And this was the tenor, these ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my were the conditions of it. On the part of covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure Israel, in one word, obedience to the voice unto me above all people; for all the earth of God; submission in all things to the will is mine. And ye shall be unto me a king of their best friend, and kindest benefactor, dom of priests, and an holy nation. These who could have nothing in view but their are the words which thou shalt speak unto happiness. On the part of God, the promise the children of Israel." The beautiful image of a profusion of blessings temporal, spiritual, of the eagle, and her young ones, is happy and everlasting; a rank among the nations, beyond expression, and evidently proceeds which should render them the envy and wonfrom Him from whose view no part of the der of the world; an establishment, which world of nature lies concealed. The natural length of time should not impair; a succeshistory of that king of the feathered race, sion of prophets, of priests, and of princes, were this the time and the place to introduce which was to issue in the eternal priesthood it, would be the best commentary on the pas- and unlimited sovereignty of one, whose sage. But we may at least stop to illustrate, government was to be an universal and everby comparing it with the same image, de- lasting blessing to them and to mankind. lineated by the same masterly hand, with" Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me still greater strength of colouring, and greater above all people: for all the earth is mine." force and variety of expression. For the Segulah, “a peculiar treasure," something Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot exceedingly prized and sedulously preserved, of his inheritance. He found him in a desert a gem of peculiar lustre and value, which an land, and in the waste howling wilderness; affluent and powerful prince culls out from he led him about, he instructed him, he kept among many, takes under his own particuhim as the apple of his eye. As an eagle lar charge, and will not entrust to the care stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her of another. young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh Moses takes up this striking idea again in them, beareth them on her wings; so the that beautiful song of praise, in which, at the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no close of life, he recapitulates the wonderful strange God with him. He made him ride ways of Providence to that chosen family: on the high places of the earth, that he might "The Lord's portion is his people: Jacob is eat the increase of the fields; and he made the lot of his inheritance."* The promise him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil which follows in the sixth verse, is wonderout of the flinty rock."* The sagacity and fully calculated to inspire ideas of dignity vigilance of the eagle in providing the means and importance: "Ye shall be unto me a of support and safety for her callow brood, kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." her strength and fierceness in defending They had just left a country where the them, her tender sympathy with their weak-priesthood was held in high estimation; ness, her anxiety to hasten on their maturity where the persons of those who bore that and capacity to provide for themselves, the sacred character were inviolable, and their pains which she takes to instruct them to property exempted from the imposts which fly, as they are all fully justified by facts, were laid upon that of other subjects. But so they are conveyed to us in language the the peculiar respect paid to this order of men, most simple, plain, and elegant; and raise us and the immunities which they enjoyed, to the contemplation of an object, of all others served only to expose more glaringly the the sublimest, sweetest, most interesting, contrast, the degradation, and distress of the and most composing to the soul. They re-great body of the people. Whereas here was present to us, the all-comprehending view of a whole nation destined of Heaven to equal eternal Providence, the never-sleeping eye of the Watchman of Israel, the unassailable protection of the heavenly Guardian, the more than maternal care, diligence, and zeal which Jehovah continually exercises over them that are his. Happy is that people that is in such a case; yea, "happy is that people whose God is the Lord."+

honours; not a king and subjects, but a com monwealth of kings; not one ministering at the altar in the name of thousands, one admitted within the veil, and myriads removed to a humbling, mortifying distance: but a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, majesty and sanctity in one.

These are the words which Moses is comAs the friendship between God and Abra-manded to rehearse in the ears of all the ham, the father and founder of that great people. Having descended from the mount, nation, commenced and was confirmed in the he collects them accordingly by their elders;

* Deut. xxxii. 9, &c. † Psalm cxliv. 15.

Deut. xxxii. 9.

the men first in age, first in wisdom, first in dignity and authority; and delivers to them the high message which he had in charge. Impressed at once with the power and grace of their heavenly King, they as one man reply, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." Which answer Moses again reports to his dread Employer. Thus, in the very preparatives for the publication of the law, the mediation of the gospel was clearly taught and inculcated; and thus throughout we perceive that guilty creatures can have no safe nor comfortable access to a holy God, but by means of "a days-man to lay his hands upon both;" and thus, the very minister of a fiery law exhibited a type of that great High Priest, at once "merciful and faithful;" "faithful in the things pertaining to God;" | "merciful, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people."

their thoughts. When God came to give the law, he came after solemn warning, he gave evident signs of his approach, he declared to a moment when he was to be heard and seen in his majesty. But, when he shall come to execute the law, we are informed that he shall take the world by surprise, that men may be always ready. "Behold I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee."* "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."t Be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh."‡

well known to need any remark. It is only when the King of kings, and the Lord of lords announces his approach, that men are incurious, unceremonious, careless, and indifferent.

When but a friend or neighbour is expected to visit us, decency requires that our persons, our houses, our entertainment, be rendered as inoffensive and as acceptable as we can make them. The anxiety which men feel, and the pains which they take to reMoses is upon this informed, that God in-ceive and entertain their superiors, is too tended on the third day from that time to manifest himself to all the people as the Leader and Ruler of that vast army, and as the Employer and Patron of Moses his prophet, in a manner that should leave no room to doubt in whose name he spake, and by what authority he acted: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee forever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord." "I come to thee in a thick cloud." God already resided among Israel, and presided over them in a pillar of fire and a cloud. But whatever be the medium of communication between the Deity and his creatures, it is capable of being increased and improved beyond imagination. There is a darkness grosser, and a cloud thicker, and more awfully impregnated than any of which we have had experience. There is a voice louder, and a glory brighter than any which we have heard or seen. Who can declare, who can conceive the utmost extent of the power of the Almighty? There is a splendour infinitely superior to that of "the sun shining in his strength." There may be an angel excelling in might: "Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God." Know we ever so much, there is a field of discovery before us infinite as the immensity of JEHOVAH, to employ a duration of inquiry endless as his eternity.

A command is now issued to the people to employ themselves that day and the next in solemn preparation for this august visit. They are directed, as an external mark of respect to the most holy God, as a token of obedience, and as an indication of inward purity, to wash their clothes, to abstain from whatever might defile the body or the mind, and even to deny themselves such innocent and lawful gratifications as might have a tendency to disturb their attention and distract

The great Jehovah was to manifest him self first to the eye. "Be ready against the third day; for the third day the Lord will come down, in the sight of all the people, upon Mount Sinai." All is hitherto attractive and encouraging. The face of God is clothed with smiles. He comes "to dwell with men upon earth." But the grace and condescension of God, while they invite to the communications of friendship, forbid the boldness and freedom of familiarity. While he makes himself known as a Father, a Protector, a Guide, he permits us not to forget that he is at the same time "a great God, and a great King." Therefore a strict injunction is given in the twelfth and thirteenth verses, "And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death. There shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, ye shall come up to the mount." This last expression, "When the trumpet soundeth long, ye shall come up to the mount," is evidently a caution and a threatening, not an invitation; and seems to import, "Let him who dares, presume to approach nearer; let him come up into the mount, if he will." At the sound of that tremendous trumpet, they were ready to sink into the earth with terror, instead of desiring or attempting a nearer intercourse with the great and terrible God, who hath put all nature into consternation. As they were commanded, so they did, Matt. xxiv. 42. * Ver. 44,

* Rev. iii. 3.

among lions, more composedly than Darius in his palace, surrounded by his officers and guards; he sleeps calmly, as a father in the midst of his children. He who fears God has nothing else to fear.

But what new doctrine is to be ushered in under all this formidable apparatus? What law, unknown, unheard of before, is to be introduced and enforced by ceremonies so dreadfully august and solemn? Just that which was from the beginning, that which the finger of God more silently and curiously interwove with the very texture and frame of the human soul. The voice of God says, from the heights of Sinai, none other things than those which conscience speaks to every man, from the deep recesses of his own breast. It is this that gives weight to both the law and the gospel. They have their counterpart in the nature and condition of man. They are of God, who knows what is in man and what is good for man.

All impurity is carefully removed; and they see, in solemn silence and earnest expectation, in hope mingled with fear, the gradual approach of this all-important, this eventful day. At length, in all its pomp and importance, the third day arrives. Every creature, every element feels and gives witness to the appearance of its God. Heaven and earth, angels and men, the water and the land, air and fire, announce the presence of their great Creator and Ruler. I tremble as I read. What must it have been to see and hear? "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." Lo, the hoarse thunder is lost in the louder sound of the trumpet; and that awful sound, in its turn sinks into silence, before the all-penetrating, all-commanding accents of the voice of God himself. The thick darkness of a cloud, impregnated with But can He whose "presence fills heaven the terrors of divine justice, threatens one and earth,” change his place? Can God be moment to extinguish forever hope and joy; said to ascend, or descend? The devout eye and that darkness the next moment is dis- sees him in every creature, in every place, in pelled by the more terrible flashes of celestial every event. The pious soul feels and acfire. How poor the state of an earthly prince knowledges him incessantly. But to rouse compared to this! "God maketh his angels stupidity, to reprove carelessness, to convince spirits, his ministers a flame of fire." What infidelity, God must assume state, clothe heart is not melted in the midst of this wild himself with thunder, involve the top of uproar? There is not an object of astonish- Sinai in clouds, and shake its foundation. ment which we are acquainted with, but what As in the composure of Moses we behold enters into this description. Thunder, light- the confidence of divine friendship, and the ning, blackness of darkness, tempest, earth-security arising from union with God, so in quake, the trumpet of God; and all these are but the coverings of terror, the harbingers of majesty and might. Behold, God is in the thunder, in the lightning, in the tempest, in the earthquake! they are mere instruments to do his pleasure.

But we are directed to one object perfectly placid and composed in the midst of tumult and confusion:"even when the voice of the trumpet sounded long and waxed exceeding loud," Moses possessed his soul in patience. "Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." It is guilt that gives force to fire, that lends fury to the stormy wind, that shakes the earth by first shaking the soul. Faith in God controls the elements, and soothes the soul to rest in communion with God, as the child falls asleep in the fond maternal bosom. Moses comes up at the command of Him who is King and Lord of nature, and therefore he has nothing to fear. The three children fall down bound in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, but the flames have no power to kindle upon them; they consume only the cords with which they are bound; they themselves walk at liberty through the midst of the fire; they rest as on a bed of roses, for behold another is in company with them, and "the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." Daniel sleeps secure in the den

the caution which is given in the twenty-first verse, "Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish," we see the danger of unlicensed curiosity, of presumptuous boldness. Fire and darkness equally repel and intimidate, equally compose and encourage. All the dealings of God with man, are "line upon line, and precept upon precept."

The similitude of the legal and evangelical dispensations, and their difference, would necessarily occupy a much larger portion of your time and attention than now remains. It were better, therefore, to bring them together in one discourse calculated for the purpose.

I conclude the present Lecture with simply reading two or three short passages of scripture, closely connected with and serving to illustrate our subject; written at two very different periods, and in two very different states of the church. The first is in the history of Elijah, the great restorer of the law, near six hundred years afterward. "And he rose, and did eat, and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights, unto Horeb, the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him; and he said unto him, What doest thou

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE LIV.

According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee: only the Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses.-JOSHUA i. 17.

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.-JOHN i. 17.

In forming estimates of greatness, it is na- ledge speedily levels the fabric which imatural for men to consult their senses, not gination had raised. But the wonders of their reason. With the idea of royal majes- nature, the mighty works of God, grow upon ty we connect those of a chair of state, a nu- us as we contemplate them. No intimacy of merous and splendid retinue, an ermine robe, acquaintance reduces their magnitude or tara sceptre, and a crown. But wisdom and nishes their lustre. And if the very frame goodness are the qualities which confer real of nature, the vastness, the variety, the hardignity, and command just homage and re-mony and the splendour of the visible creation spect. Our preconceptions of earthly mag- be calculated to fill us with astonishment and nificence much exceed the truth, and know-delight, how must the plan of Providence,