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keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways.

10. And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee.

11. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

12. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.

13. And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them :

14. And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

In the midst of all these temporal promises, then, we have this deeply-important spiritual blessing, "The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself," as among the highest and richest gifts from the treasury of heaven. If they would but follow on to know the Lord, and to obey his commandments, he would make them

"an holy people unto himself," and even more, "would establish" them as such. What a promise, what a boon was this! how far beyond all that preceded and all that followed it! Yes! in every dispensation, this is the Almighty's choicest blessing, "holiness unto himself." Whatever else is granted, or whatever else withheld, this is never absent from the catalogue of God's promised mercies. How strongly was this truth attested amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai! "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation." How sweetly was it again repeated in the still small voice of the Gospel of God's love!" Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;" and again, "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men, to the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." Holiness in both dispensations, therefore, holiness is made the reward of holiness; and establishment in holiness, the promised blessing to all who seek it. May our heavenly Father bestow them both upon us,

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as a family and as individuals, for his dear Son's sake, that being made free from sin, and become servants to God, we may have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." *

EXPOSITION LXIII.

DEUTERONOMY XXviii. 15-68.

15. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

16. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.

17. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.

18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

19. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

20. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

*Rom. vi. 22.

We have lately reviewed all the promises and blessings awaiting the Israelites upon a course of obedience; we have here the threatening and curses which were most assuredly to follow disobedience and rebellion. There is something perfectly appalling in the enumeration of these maledictions; nothing could escape them; all places, all occupations, all things, as it were, swarmed with them. Did the rebellious Israelite look to his "basket and his store," to what he had already acquired of earthly goods, for contentment and satisfaction? The curse of the Almighty God was upon them; his "riches were corrupted," his " garments moth-eaten," his gold and silver cankered, and the rust of them was "a witness against him" that he had forsaken God. Did he seek to replenish his wasted wealth by his labours in the field? Alas! to him the field could yield no fruit, for God's curse was in the field. Did he hasten back to bury himself in the multitudes of the city beyond the reach of the Almighty's avenging arm? The curse had alighted there before him, and met him only with disappointment and disgrace. Did he resolve to seek his happiness in the bosom of his family, in the shelter of his home? Vain was it even there, for the man who was at war with God, to look for peace; the "fruit of his body"

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had already felt the curse, and as all creatures, even the highest, the dearest, and the best, can be to us but what God makes them, all became to the disobedient Israelite, from the infant in the cradle to the wife of his bosom, but so many vehicles for the curse of an offended God. So truly wretched was the lot of those who wilfully forsook, or carelessly neglected the God of all their mercies. Nor have we yet arrived at the close of this sad catalogue.

21. The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thon goest to possess it.

22. The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

23. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.

24. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

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64. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.

65. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the

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