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HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE LXXIX.

And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong, and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee, he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.-DEUTERONOMY Xxxi. 7, 8.

Is it not a presumption and a presentiment of immortality, that men naturally feel, design, and act as if they were immortal? In life we are in the midst of death; but it is equally true, that in the very jaws of death, we live; and fondly dream of living longer. Let the fatal moment come when it will, it comes to break into some scheme we hoped to execute, to interrupt some work we had begun, to disappoint some purpose we had adopted. The warnings of dissolution which are sent to others, we seem to understand and feel better than those which are addressed to ourselves. One man is under sentence of condemnation, another labours under an incurable disease; one is daily exposing his life to jeopardy in the high places of the field, another putting the knife of intemperance to his throat every hour: this man has completed his seventieth year, and his neighbour has lived to see his children's children of the third and fourth generation.

These are all symptoms equally mortal, but none takes the alarm to himself: every one is concerned for his neighbour's case, and flatters himself his own is not quite so desperate. The wretch condemned to death, soothes his soul to rest with the hope of a pardon, and laments the certain doom of his consumptive acquaintance: the declining man, with his foot in the grave, pities and prays for the unhappy creature who must suffer on Wednesday se'nnight. The soldier braves the death that is before his eyes in a thousand dreadful forms, in the presumption of victory; and the voluptuary thanks his kinder stars that he is likely to sleep in a sound skin. The man of seventy reckons upon fourscore; and ten years in prospect are a kind of eternity; and the grandsire amuses himself with the hope of seeing his grandchildren settled in the world. Thus the pleasing illusion goes on and men are dead, indeed, before they had any apprehension of dying.

*

The thoughtless and impious insensibility with which many advance to their latter end, is not more mournful and distressing, than the steadiness and composure of piety and habitual preparation are pleasing and instructive. Blessed is the state of that man to whom life is not a burden, nor death a terror, who has "a desire to depart and to be with 2 Y

Christ," but is willing "to continue in the flesh," for the glory of God, and the good of men; who neither quits his station and duty in life in sullen discontent, nor cleaves to the enjoyments of this world, as one who has no hope beyond the grave.

But the cup of death, to the best of men, contains many bitter ingredients. Even to Moses it was far from being unmixed. To the natural horror of dying was superadded the sense of divine displeasure; a sense of death as a particular punishment. It disappointed a hope long and fondly indulged in, the hope of being himself, and of seeing Israel in possession of the promised and expected inheritance. And, what was the bitterness of death to such a spirit as his? Moses died in the persuasion, and a melancholy one it was, that the people on whom he had bestowed so much labour, whom he had cherished with such tender affection, whom he was so unremittingly anxious to conduct to wisdom, to virtue, and to happiness, would, after his death, swerve from the right path, provoke God to become their enemy, and thereby bring down certain destruction upon their own heads. "I know thy rebellion, and thy stiffneck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death? Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them. For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you: and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands."*

It is pleasant to a dying father to entertain the sweet hope that the children of his care, of his love, will remember the lessons which he taught them, will follow out his views, will support the credit of his name, will instruct and bless the world by the example of their wisdom, their piety, their virtues, though he is not to be the happy spectator of it: but ah! more cruel than the pangs of dissolving nature, the dreadful conviction of approaching folly and disorder: the sad prospect of

* Deut. xxxi. 27–29. 30*

discord among brethren; of profligacy and licentiousness, no longer restrained by parental gravity and authority: a fair inheritance, and an honourable name ready to be dissipated by profusion, to be covered with shame, to be disfigured by vice, to be forfeited by treason. It is sweet to a dying pastor to contemplate the success of his ministry, the extent of his usefulness; to cheer his fainting heart with the thought of having been made the humble instrument of bringing many souls unto God, many sons unto glory and with the well-grounded belief that his doctrine shall survive him: that though dead he shall continue to speak and to instruct. Sweet the prospect of that day when he shall present himself, and the joyful fruit of all his labours, to his Father and God, saying, "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs, and for wonders in Israel; from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion."* It was this which caused the great "Author and Finisher of our faith" himself to rejoice in spirit, on the very eve of his departure out of the world. "Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled." But O how depressing to reflect, "I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain ;" to look back upon a ministry, not the "savour of life unto life, but of death unto death," and to look forward to the dreadful progress of degeneracy and corruption, from evil to worse, till "sin, being finished, bringeth forth death;" to look forward to the still more dreadful day of doom and to the prospect of appearing as an accuser and a witness against the despisers of that gospel, which would have saved their souls from death.

The faithful servants of God are not all equally successful, and even a Moses has the mortification of knowing assuredly that all his pains and anxieties should prove ineffectual. The tide of corruption sometimes rushes down so impetuously, that no force can stem it; and Providence is often pleased to put honour upon the meaner and feebler instrument, that the glory may redound not "to him that willeth, nor to him that runneth, but to God, who showeth mercy." But every faithful minister, like Moses, has at least this consolation:"having kept nothing back, but declared the whole counsel of God, they have delivered their own souls;" they published the truth of God, "whether men would hear or whether they would forbear;" and if they have not been so happy as to persuade, they have at least put to silence wicked and unreasonable men; if they have not prevailed to render them holy, they have at least rendered them inexcusable; if they have been unable to subdue the pride of the

Isa. viii. 18. ↑ John xvii. 12. 1 Isa. xlix. 4.

creature, they have displayed the holiness and justice of the Creator.

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We find Moses taking refuge in this, when the dearer, sweeter hope was at an end-the hope of being the favoured, honoured minister of life and salvation. "I am fast approaching to the end of my career; I have already passed the limits which God has prescribed to the life of man. Six score of years are fled away and gone, and these hairs, whitened by time, labour, and affliction, feelingly inform me that my last moment is at hand, that no more time remains but what is barely sufficient to give you a few parting admonitions, to breathe over you the blessing of a dying friend, and to bid you a long farewell. After a laborious, anxious, and painful ministry of more than forty years; after being honoured of God to perform before your eyes, and those of your fathers, a series of miracles, which shall be the astonishment and instruction of the whole world till time expire, I was looking for the compensation of all my troubles, the reward of all my labours, the accomplishment of all my wishes, in your sincere return to God, in your grati tude to your friend and deliverer, in your fidelity and obedience to God, and in the prosperity and happiness which must infal libly have flowed from them. The paternal solicitude I have felt, that ardent love which emboldened me, at the hazard of my own life, to stand in the breach' 'between you and a holy and jealous God, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy you;' that fervour of zeal which hurried me on to wish myself blotted out of God's book, if the dearer name of Israel might be permitted to continue written in it; all my discourses, all my emotions, all my efforts; my active days, my sleepless nights; these unceasing sighs which I still breathe to Heaven in your behalf, these last tears which a dying old man sheds over a people still and ever dear to him, and from whom to be torn asunder is the death of deaths; these are the faithful and undoubted proofs of my affection for you, of my unabated, inextinguishable zeal for your salvation. But alas, however earnestly I may desire it, I dare not, cannot hope! I foresee your perfidiousness and rebellion; I know your perverseness and ingratitude. 'While I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death? What then is left me, but the mingled and strongly allayed satisfaction of reflecting that I am innocent of your blood, that your salvation is in your own hands, that if you perish your blood must be upon your own heads." "Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them." "I call

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said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach
that thou must die: call Joshua, and present
yourselves in the tabernacle of the congre-
gation, that I may give him a charge. And
Moses and Joshua went, and presented them-
selves in the tabernacle of the congregation.
And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in
a pillar of a cloud, and the pillar of a cloud
stood over the door of the tabernacle."* What
solemn moments to the whole congregation,
those which Moses and Joshua passed be-
fore the Lord, remote from the public eye!
How solemn to the parties themselves!—
What is a charge from the mouth of a dying
man, though that man be a Moses, compared
to a charge from the mouth of Jehovah him-
self, by whom spirits are weighed, and to
whom all the dread importance of eternity
stands continually revealed? And this God,
O my friends, is daily sounding a charge in
every ear, "Occupy till I come."
"Arise ye
and depart, for this is not your rest."
sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the
devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour." "See that ye walk
circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
redeeming the time, because the days are
evil.”

"Be

heaven and earth to record this day against | more than human appears. "And the Lord you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."* Having in terms such as these poured out the anguish of an overflowing heart, Moses addresses himself to his last earthly employment. The last exercise of his authority is to lay down all authority. The concluding act of his administration, is to transfer the right of administration to another; and the legislator, leader, and commander expires, while the man yet lives. Imagination can hardly paint a more affecting scene. Hear the trumpet sounding the proclamation of a solemn assembly, an holy convocation. Behold the thousands of Israel flocking together to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; every eye straining to catch a departing glance of him whom they were to behold no more; every ear eagerly attentive to drink in the last accents of that voice which the hand of death was about to silence for ever. Behold the venerable sage, in all the composure of unaffected piety, in all the dignity of wisdom, in all the respectability of age, in all the simplicity of a child, in all the serenity of a celestial spirit, in all the solemnity of death, advancing to his well-known station, presenting to the This secret conference being ended, they people him whom they were henceforward return to the people, and Moses publicly to acknowledge and obey as the ruler ap-delivers to the Levites, which bare the ark pointed over them by Heaven. His eyes of the covenant of the Lord, a copy of the beam complacency, his tongue drops manna, law which he had transcribed with his own as he conveys to his noble successor the hand, to be laid up in the side of the ark, as plenitude of his power, the residue of his a standing witness for God against a sinful honour, a double portion of his spirit. Be- people; and the business of this interesting hold he lifts up his hands and lays them upon and eventful day concludes with a public the head of Joshua, with a thousand tender recital from the lips of Moses of that tender wishes that his burden might sit light upon and pathetic song, which we have in the him, that he might escape the pains he him- thirty-second chapter. This sacred song self had endured, and attain the felicity which every Israclite was to commit to memory, to was denied to him; with a thousand pater- repeat frequently, and to teach it every man nal exhortations to follow Providence, and to his son. It was composed expressly by fear nothing; to love Israel, to seek their the command of God, and under his immegood always: with a thousand fervent pray-diate inspiration. "Now therefore write ye ers for his prosperity and success. I see this song for you, and teach it the children Joshua with modest reluctance shrinking back from a charge so weighty: desirous of being still a subject and a servant: accepting with regret honours of which Moses must be stripped; ready to cry out, as his master was taken away from him, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" I see on every countenance a mixture of sorrow and resignation, of hope clouded with remorse and concern; they could now die for him, whose life they had embittered by unkindness, levity, and ingratitude; they reproach themselves and one another, as having occasioned the death of the wisest and best of men; they cannot bear to think of surviving him. But a voice more awful than that of man is heard: a glory † 2 Kings ii. 12.

* Deut. xxx. 19.

of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel. And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until they were ended."t

And a most wonderful composition it is, whether considered as the production of a lively, lofty, correct imagination; abounding with the boldest images, and conveying the noblest sentiments; adding all the graces of poetry to all the force of truth; as conveying the most useful and necessary moral and religious instruction, in a channel the most pleasing and attractive; as the address of a dying man, a dying father, a dying minister,

* Deut. xxxi. 14, 15.

Deut. xxxi. 19-22-30.

to his friends, to his family, to the flock; to the contemplation of one object surpassabounding with the tenderest touches of ingly grand; impresses it in various points nature flowing immediately from the heart, of view upon their hearts and consciences, and rushing with impetuous force to the lips; till having lost themselves in its grandeur as the awful witness of the great God against and immensity, they are prepared to bear, to a disobedient and gainsaying race; exhibit- approve, and to profit by the severe personal ing to this hour the proof of the authenticity attack that follows. “Because I will publish of that record where it stands, of the truth the name of the Lord; ascribe ye greatness and faithfulness, of the mercy and severity unto our God. He is the rock, his work is of the dread Jehovah, and of the certainty of perfect; for all his ways are judgment; a the things wherein, as Christians, we have God of truth, and without iniquity, just and been instructed. right is he."*

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and thy, how delicately is the application qualified, by the introduction of every tender, every melting, every conciliating circumstance! They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee and established thee?"+

What can equal the boldness and sublimity Having thus raised them above every mean, of his exordium or introduction? How is the every selfish consideration; and placed them, boasted eloquence of Greece and Rome left and made them to feel themselves in the at an infinite distance behind! What a cold- awful presence of the great God, who is ness in the address of Demosthenes and righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his Cicero, compared to the fervour and elevation works," he descends abruptly, by a transition of the Israelitish orator! "Ye men of quick as lightning, to the censure he had in Athens." "Romans." " Conscript Fathers." view. But even then, he insinuates it, rather If ever there was an audience that demand- than charges it home: and speaks for some ed respect, from numbers, from importance, time as of strangers, as of persons absent; from situation; if ever there was a speaker and constitutes his auditors judges as it were prompted by duty, drawn by inclination, of the case of others, not their own; and by urged on by the spur of the occasion, Israel employing the address of the third persons was that audience, Moses that speaker, on they and their, leaves them for a moment this ever-memorable day. But the ardent in uncertainty whom he could mean, and soul of this heaven-taught orator, with thou- | when he comes at length to address them in sands upon thousands before his eyes, grasps, the second person, and to use the terms thee with a noble enthusiasm, an infinitely larger space than the plains of Moab, an audience infinitely more august than the thousands of Israel. "Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth." This was seizing the attention at once; the solid globe, thus summoned, seems to give ear, the celestial spheres stand still to listen, angels hover on the wing to mark and record the last words of the departing prophet; what mortal ear can then be inattentive, what spirit careless? How sweetly calculated is the next sentence to compose the minds of his hearers, roused and alarmed by the solemnity of his first address. The thunder of heaven seemed ready to burst upon their heads, after an invocation so awful, and though Moses alone spake, they were ready to die; but their fears are gently lulled to rest, the next word he utters; he has only love in his heart, and honey upon his tongue. "My doctrine shall drop as the rain my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass."* The final object of Moses being to warn, to admonish, and to reprove the perverse nation of whom he was taking leave, observe how Constrained at last to denounce the rightskilfully he manages this difficult and deli-eous judgment of God, in order to approve cate part of his task. To have come directly his own fidelity, and if possible to prevent and without preparation to it, had been to the ruin which he feared, he makes a display give certain disgust and offence; for he had of the awful terrors of divine justice, suffi to deal with a moody, murmuring, irritable, discontented race: he therefore first fills their minds with great images, leads them

Deut. xxxii. 2.

He then goes into a recapitulation, partly historical, partly poetic, partly allegorical, at once to refresh the memory, to fire the imagination, and to exercise the invention, of the divine conduct towards them and their fathers, during many generations, that the conclusion he was about to draw might fall with irresistible weight upon the minds of all; that their base ingratitude and desperate folly might appear to themselves in a more odious light, when contrasted with the wis dom, goodness, and loving-kindness of the Lord. This occupies a considerable part of the chapter, from the seventh verse to the eighteenth, and a passage it is of exquisite force and beauty, as I am convinced you will also think upon a careful perusal of it.

cient to awaken the dead, and to confound the living; and to increase its force and vehemence, Moses disappears, and God, the

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great God himself comes forward, and in the first person utters the seven thunders of his wrath; "For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling, also, with the man of gray hairs."

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The prophet, as it were exhausted with this violent exertion, this formidable denunciation of vengeance, sinks into feeble, hopeless regret, and he reluctantly, despairingly deplores that misery which he can neither prevent nor avert. They are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up."t

Finally, a dawn of hope arises, and, wrapt into future time, the sacred bard hails the coming day of deliverance, and exults in the prospect of the junction of the nations with the ancient people of God, in the participation of one and the same great salvation. "Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land and to his people." * Deut. xxxii. 22, 25. † Deut. xxxii. 28-30. Deut. xxxii. 43.

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Such is the structure, such the general outline of this inimitable piece of sacred poesy. If what has been said shall induce any one to study it more attentively, he will probably discover beauties which have escaped us; and the discovery will bring its own reward. How many fathers, as they afterwards rehearsed the words of this song in the ears of their children, and taught them the knowledge of it, would recollect with a mournful pleasure, that they saw and heard Moses himself recite it aloud, on the very last day of his life; and glory in relating how near him they stood, and in describing to a new generation the form of his countenance, the deportment of his person, the tones of his voice!

That very day, the warrant of death arrives. The ministry of even a Moses is accomplished, and Providence hastens to convince the world, that, depart who will, the work of heaven never can stand still. We have seen him hitherto engaged in active labours for Israel and for God. We shall consider him yet once more, dismissed from his service, and concluding a life of eminent usefulness, by a death of charity, benediction, prescience, and resignation. May God impress on our minds a sense of our frailty, mortality, and accountableness, that we may redeem the time, fulfil the duties of our day and the design of our Creator, work out our salvation, and so die in peace, die in hope, whenever it shall please Him to call us away to the world of spirits. Amen.

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE LXXX.

And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. DEUTERONOMY xxxi. 1.

SENECA, the celebrated Roman moralist, was preceptor to the emperor Nero, and had early and studiously trained him to virtue. But falling under the displeasure of that sanguinary tyrant, he was condemned to lose his life, by being blooded to death. The day of execution being arrived, he prepared to meet his fate with intrepidity, and to die as he had lived, in communicating useful knowledge. His pupils gathered round him, eager to mark his dying deportment, and provided with their writing tables, to record and preserve his last sayings. He was put into the warm bath, the arteries of his legs and arms were opened, and the purple fluid which sustains life, gradually drained off, while his

sorrowing, admiring disciples, caught the words as they fell from his parched lips.

But a greater than Seneca is here. We are this night gathered round a dying Moses, to listen to the last accents of that tongue which, once excepted, spake as never man spake. We behold him neither impetuously rushing forwards into the mortal conflict, nor timidly shrinking from it; but advancing with a steady, majestic step, to meet the king of terrors. The interests of the God of Israel, and of the Israel of God, had employed his thoughts all his life long; and, blended in one, they glow in and expand his heart to his latest moment. He was speedily to cease from every earthly care, to cease from serving

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