Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

one step farther back than this? or render a more sufficient reason? But mark the use which Moses makes of this display of the Divine sovereignty; he does not refer to it to gratify the national pride, or to strengthen the individual confidence of the Israelites. Far, very far from it: he simply adduces it as a deeply influential motive for their heartfelt gratitude and holy obedience. Surely, then, the same great truth ought to possess a powerful influence in producing the same effects upon ourselves. Have we been, as a nation, as a family, as individuals, thus made, most undeservedly, the partakers of the mercy and goodness of God? Have we been blest with the faithful ministry of his word, from which others have been excluded? Have our hearts been touched as it were with a live coal from off the altar, and kindled into love and gratitude to the blessed Author of all our mercies, while many around us remain cold, insensible, and obdurate? "What shall we render unto the Lord for all his mercies?" Shall we not thankfully acknowledge that all is of grace, unmerited, unlooked for grace; that "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give glory, for Thy mercy and Thy truth's sake." Shall we not constantly, gratefully, and

*

* Ps. cxv. 1.

L

prayerfully, endeavour to make some return for all these unspeakable blessings, that, as our Church service admirably expresses it," we may show forth his praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives." Most earnest should we be, in this heartfelt endeavour, by remembering and acting upon the remembrance, that if the Lord our God hath chosen us, it is "to be a special people unto himself,” “ a holy, a peculiar people, zealous of good works:" or, as St. Peter declared to the strangers to whom he wrote, “ Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

66

It is then, that we can best rejoice in the thoughts of our election, when we are most patient in suffering, most active in doing the will of the Lord, " being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God."* Most naturally, therefore, did Moses conclude this portion of his address to the Israelites, by saying,

11. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

12. Wherefore it

shall come to pass, if ye hearken * Phil, i. 2.

to these judgments, and keep and do them; that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers.

The Israelites were not for a moment to conclude, that because the Almighty had thus chosen them out of all the world, as the people upon whom He had set his love, and whom He intended to bless and prosper in the most astonishing and unprecedented manner, that they were therefore at liberty to live as they pleased, either obeying or disobeying his commands, and that all would equally go well with them. No, we have just seen, that it was a part of the covenant, that "they should keep and do the judgments of the Lord," and many and awful were the evils to which, if this were disregarded, they should most assuredly be exposed. So is it with ourselves. That merciful Being who hath chosen us to salvation as an end, has chosen us also to sanctification as the means that leads to it; "Holy, holy, holy," is the "Lord God of Sabaoth, and holy must every renewed and pardoned sinner be, holy in the robes of a Saviour's righteousness, holy in affections, pure in heart, righteous in life, through the all-pervading influence of the Divine Spirit, before he can be rendered meet to be an inhabitant of that city, where " holiness unto the

Lord" shall be stamped upon every brow, and fully occupy, throughout the years of eternity, every glorified and grateful heart.

[Here may be read from verse 13, to the end of the chapter.]

EXPOSITION LII.

DEUTERONOMY viii. 1-20.

1. All the commandments which I command thee this day, shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers.

2. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no.

3. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

4. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

5. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.

6. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

7. For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills ;

8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and figtrees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

9. A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

Moses, in the verses we have just read, recalls to the minds and hearts of the children of Israel, some of the many and great wonders which their eyes had witnessed, during their long and weary travel. He does this to furnish them with a fresh incentive to obedience, knowing well how greatly they would stand in need of it. He therefore dwells upon the astonishing goodness of God, in preserving to them their bodily comforts undiminished, through so long a series of years. He reminds them that even their very raiment had been miraculously preserved to them, unworn by age, unsoiled by travel, during forty

« AnteriorContinuar »