are not condemnation. "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins ?" * He who loved his own, loveth them unto the end, and if the Christian sufferer, looking only to the blood and righteousness of his Redeemer, in penitence and faith, be for a time cast down, while wave after wave be permitted thus, for purposes both of punishment and purification, to pass over him, let him be assured, that, bearing the chastening in the spirit of childlike meekness and confiding love, it shall, in the language of our church," turn to his profit, and help him forward in the right way that leadeth unto everlasting life." + EXPOSITION XXVI. NUMBERS XX. 14-29. 14. And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh, unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travel that hath befallen us: 15. How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time: and the Egyptians vexed us and our fathers. * Lamen. iii. 39. + Visitation of the Sick. 16. And when we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border : 17. Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country : we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's high way, we will not turn to the right hand, nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. 18. And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword. 19. And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the high way: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only, without doing anything else, go through on my feet. 20. And he said, Thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand. 21. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border wherefore Israel turned away from him. The country of Edom lying directly in the road of the Israelites to the promised land, it might have been expected that they would have been commanded to march at once across it, and put to the sword all who should endeavour to impede them. But again we are reminded that God's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts, and the Israelites are directed to ask, and not to force a passage. Moses appears to have made this request with much judgment, by laying before the Edomites the wonderful interference of the Almighty in behalf of his chosen people, and distinctly showing that they were under the peculiar protection and guidance of the Most High. Had the Edomites been wise, they would, like Rahab, at once have seen the advantage, and grasped at the opportunity of establishing a friendship with so powerful a people; but they, with equal want of policy and of kindness, refused the boon which had been solicited, and for ever lost the opportunity of healing the original breach, between Esau their progenitor, and Jacob the father of the Israelites, and thus only hastened the fulfilment of the patriarch's promise, "Be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee; cursed be every one that curseth thee.”* So true is it, in almost every instance, that real, heartfelt, unpretending kindness to our brethren, is as certainly good policy as it is good Christianity; and that the man who neglects it, not only declines one of his highest duties, but forfeits, at the same time, one of his best and most valuable privileges. 22. And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor. * Gen. xxvii. 29. 23. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, 24. 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. Aaron is now to pay the forfeit of that unhallowed act of disobedience, of which we have lately read, and in which he, no doubt, fully participated. You will observe, in furtherance of the observations we have before made, (that adding to God's commands, is as sinful a disobedience, as diminishing them,) that it is here spoken of by the Almighty himself as rebellion against his word; "Because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah." It is in these days peculiarly necessary that we should attend to this, when so many, under the appearance of greater sanctity, and a more self-denying religion, are engaged in the attempt to destroy, or at least greatly to injure, that Christian liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free; the liberty to run the way of God's commandments, but not to endeavour to improve upon them, or enlarge them, by the traditions of men. But to continue the narrative, 25. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor: 26. And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. 27. And Moses did as the Lord commanded: and they went up into mount Hor, in the sight of all the congregation. 28. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount. 29. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel. Such was the close of the long, and honoured life of Aaron. With the departure of this good and holy man, Moses had lost, probably, his last surviving relative, and perhaps the sentence, hard though it might appear, that he should not set foot in the promised land, would be robbed of much of its bitterness, by the afflictive visitations that had lately thickened around him. It is merciful, although it is at the same time deeply painful, that as we advance in life, its strongest attractions are thus permitted to drop off, and its dearest relationships to be severed; and as we mourn, one by one, those whom we have most loved, and honoured, and cherished here, we become proportionably less anxious for the advantages of so perishable a world, and less desirous of its distinctions. They who, by enjoying them |