of heaven in his clearness."* Like Paul contemplation and discovery of perfection caught up into the third heaven, but incapa- that knows no limit, knows no end. ble to tell whether in the body or out of the body: caught up into paradise, and listening to the conversation of its blest inhabitants, but what he heard were words unspeakable "which it is not lawful for man to utter." Was it needful to caution such men and such a people against idolatry? What similitude could they employ, who, though they enjoyed the fullest and most satisfying demonstration of Jehovah's presence, felt their understanding confined, their imagination checked, their senses confounded. They are lost in a splendour which at once attracted and repelled; which was only the foundation and external vail where glory resided, the pavement not the ceiling, the habitation not the inhabitant; a splendour resembling the transparency of the gem, which seems to transmit the light, and the solidity of the gem, which no force can penetrate.

Is it too fanciful to suppose, that there is singular beauty in the colour of the jewel here specified by the sacred penman, who was an eye-witness of this glorious appearance, and who attempts to convey an idea of what he saw? "Paved work of a sapphirestone," the happy medium between the fair and dazzling lustre of the diamond, and the dim, familiar complexion of the emerald: not the fiery glare of the empyrean, nor the sober verdure of the earth; but the pellucid azure of the crystal sky, which equally corrects and tempers the dazzling power of the noontide sun, and the oppressive gloom of the midnight hour; which possesses light enough to discover the object without distressing the organ, and shade sufficient to relieve without sinking into obscurity!

From this higher elevation, Moses is informed that he is to receive the same law in a different form: "I will give thee tables of stone, and a law and commandments which I have written: that thou mayest teach them."* As he arises towards heaven, the dispensation of which he was the minister becomes more and more plain and palpable. A matter of such deep importance must not be trusted to the vague and varying traditions of fallible and changing men, but collected into a record that can defy the lapse of time, and preserve unchanging truth and dignity amidst the revolutions of empire and the wreck of nations. This was graciously intended to prevent the necessity of a frequent interposition of Deity, which must at length have diminished its impression by commonness and familiarity. What God, therefore, at first, with his creative finger, curiously engraved on the heart of man, he audibly pronounced amidst the awful glories of Sinai, and afterwards committed to writing on tables of stone for perpetual preservation. And happy it is for man, that he has not been left, for moral and religious instruction, to the traditions of men, who are ever changing and inconsistent with themselves, or to the flimsy, imperfect, contradictory systems of philosophy and science, falsely so called; but that he is brought to the law and to the testimony, to Moses and the prophets, to the Saviour himself and his apostles, to a Bible and a Sabbath. Happy it is that every one is furnished with one and the same light to his feet, and lamp to his paths, and that all are taught of God from the least to the greatest. But indeed the care of Providence, in preserving this precious record, and transmitting it to us unaltered, unimpaired, is a perpetual miracle, a series of revelations, which we are bound to acknowledge with wonder, and to improve with gratitude.

In the next ascent into the mount, Moses is accompanied, a certain length at least, and no doubt by divine appointment, by Joshua, his minister, on whom God began to put honour thus early, in order to exalt him in the eyes of the people whom he was destined one day to command, and to prepare him betimes for the wise and faithful discharge of his high office, by communion with God. As this absence of Moses, from the weighty du

Not overwhelmed, but cheered and elevated by this moderated display of the divine glory; having seen God and yet living; feeling his hand upon them yet uncrushed by its weight; the nobles of the children of Israel conclude the service of this eventful day by the banquet of peace and love. They must now return to secular employments, and descend from the mountain; but Moses has yet farther manifestations of the will of God to receive, and is commanded to ascend still higher. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written: that thou mayest teach them." Be our at-ties of his charge, was to be of longer containments what they will, who is he that "hath attained, or is already perfect?" Our arrival at one eminence is only to see from its summit another, and thence another still ising above us: but in moral and intellectual pursuits, this is a disappointment that mortifies not, an exercise that fatigues not: the joy of heaven is to make progress in the

Exod. xxiv. 10. † 2 Cor. xii. 4. t Exod. xxiv. 12.

tinuance than usual, the management of civil affairs, and the administration of justice were committed in the mean time to Aaron and Hur, his companions and coadjutors on the mount, when, by the lifting and holding up of his hands, Amalek was smitten before Israel. Was ever spot of this earthly ball so highly honoured as that barren mountain in the midst

Exod. xxiv. 12

of the desert? Persons, not places, possess | every iota and tittle was of divine contrivance dignity. The presence of God confers greatness and importance; He can receive none from created, much less from artificial pomp and magnificence. The great God "dwelleth not in temples made with hands." "The heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him;" but "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'

The curiosity of travellers has been excited to visit this scene of wonders. But is there not an intentional obscurity spread over the ⚫ description, to baffle idle curiosity, and to call us to the spirit and intention of the dispensation, not the external apparatus of it? Wherever there is this book; wherever there is a principle of conscience; wherever there is common reason and understanding, there is the law, there is Sinai, there is God. It is not to make a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre, to stand on Calvary, to drive infidels by force of arms out of Jewry, that constitute the faith and piety of the gospel; but to know Christ Jesus, and him crucified, in "the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death."

and appointment, and undoubtedly had a meaning and significancy which we cannot in every particular find out to perfection. The pattern of it was showed unto Moses in the mount, and particular directions were given for its construction; in these were employed the forty days mentioned in the close of this chapter; when the history suddenly breaks off to exhibit a scene of a very different nature, which, if God permit, will form the subject of the next Lecture; namely, the unprovoked revolt of Israel to idolatry, the fabrication of the "golden calf, and the hasty descent of Moses, to stem that dreadful torrent of guilt and wrath which had begun to flow.

In the ratification of the covenant between God and Israel, we see the stress that was laid upon blood. The blood of the innocent victim must be poured out, and the altar must be sprinkled with blood. The elders of the people must be purified with blood. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission, no friendship, no peace, no access: life must be paid to redeem life. Blood in the sacrifice is the one thing needful, the one thing significant: blood in religious offices is all in all. Blood applied to any other purpose, is contaminating, unhallowed, unwholesome for food, polluting not purifying to the flesh, is a source of corruption and death, not of health and life. The idea of blood, in one The appearance of God's presence and view or the other, runs through the whole providence vary their aspect, according to history of redemption. It occurs not more the distance at which they are contemplated, frequently in the Old Testament than in the and the medium through which we view them. New. One great sacrifice has indeed put What to the nobles in the mount appeared an end for ever to the future effusion of blood; "as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone, but it is still symbolically held out as the me and as it were the body of heaven in his dium of reconciliation and access to God. clearness," to the multitude in the plain “We have redemption through his blood, the wore a more threatening and terrible appear- forgiveness of sins according to the riches of ance. The sight of the glory of the Lord his grace."* We are redeemed, "not with was like devouring fire, on the top of the corruptible things, as silver and gold, but mount, in the eyes of the children of Israel." with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb Fire at once consumes and refines, leaves to without blemish and without spot." "We the pure gold all its solidity and value, and draw nigh to God through the blood of his lays hold only of the dross. Moses undis- Son." When we approach to ratify every mayed, because following the command of one his personal covenant with God at the God, advances into the midst of consuming communion table, we commemorate the fire; and so far is nature from being over-death of Christ in the symbols of his body powered and destroyed by this keen, piercing element, that it is rather cherished and strengthened by it. Flame supplies the place of food; instead of perishing in a moment, at the end of forty days, without any other means of subsistence, we see the prophet descend in additional glory and renovated vigour; for all creatures are, and do that which their Creator wills.

66

broken, and his blood shed. "This is the blood of the covenant," said Moses," which the Lord hath made with you," and "This is the New Testament in my blood," saith Christ, "shed for the remission of sins." When we look toward eternal rest, the holy city, the Jerusalem that is above, the new and living way which leads thither, which conducts into the holiest of all, is through the rent veil of the Redeemer's flesh. "His blood be upon us and on our children,” ex claimed the Jews, while they were cruci. fying the Lord of glory. Dreadful impreca tion !

O Lord, require not our blood of our own sweet smelling savour, acceptable unto God; hand, nor of every man at the hand of his that “ being justified by faith, we may have brother. O Lord, let this man's blood be peace with God, through our Lord Jesus upon us and upon our children, not as an op- Christ. By whom also we may have access pressive load, as it was on those who with by faith into this grace wherein we stand, wicked hands impiously shed it, but as an and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." atonement for our sins, as a sacrifice of a | Amen.

Amen.

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE LVII.

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden ear-rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving-tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.-EXODUS XXXIL. 1-4.

dians expressing the utmost horror, entreated the king to impose upon them any hardship rather than that. Among the Hottentots, the aged, so long as they are able to do any work, are treated with great tenderness and

THE real instances of human folly and to induce them to eat the dead bodies of their extravagance far exceed the conceptions of parents, as the Indians did? Being answered the most lively imagination. All history, that it was impossible for them ever to abandon and every day's experience, justify the mor- themselves to so great inhumanity, the king, tifying account which the prophet gives of in the presence of the same Greeks, demandour corrupted nature-" The heart is de-ed of some Indians what consideration would ceitful above all things, and desperately wick-prevail with them to burn the dead bodies of ed: who can know it?" The partiality of their parents as the Greeks did? The Inself-love, and the charity of a kind disposition, would at times lead us to form a more favourable judgment both of ourselves and of others, than we deserve. The form of sin, seen in its nakedness, is so hideous, that we shrink from it with horror: but use familiar-humanity; but when they can no longer izes the spectre; and we are insensibly led to bear, to be, and to do that which once we abhorred. Could a prophet have foretold one half of the irregularities, the excesses, the enormities of our lives, we should have deemed the prediction a falsehood and an insult; and, with the resentment of conscious virtue, we should have been ready to exclaim in the words of Hazael, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Yet alas! the event has wofully verified the cruel imputation; and exhibited the man fallen Idolatry is one of those practices, to our from his excellency, become the very mon-apprehension, so foolish and unreasonable, ster he justly detested; the man sunk into an that we wonder how it ever obtained footing object of pity, of scorn, or of detestation to in the world; and with difficulty are we himself and mankind. brought to believe the avidity with which Many practices appear to us absurd and whole nations have given into it. The parunnatural, merely because we are not accus-ticular circumstances of the Israelites in the tomed to them. Herodotus relates, that Da-wilderness, render their proneness to idol rius, king of Persia, having assembled the worship peculiarly monstrous and unaccount Greeks who were under his command, de-able. The chain of miracles which accom manded of them what bribe they would take panied their deliverance from Egypt; that constant symbol of the divine presence which

* Jer. xvii. 9.

crawl about, they are thrust out of the society, and put in a solitary hut, there to die of hunger or age, or to be devoured of wild beasts. If you expostulate with them upon the savageness of this custom, they are astonished you should reckon it inhuman: "Is it not much greater cruelty," they ask, "to suffer persons to linger and languish out a miserable old age, and not put an end to their wretchedness, by putting an end to their days?"

HISTORY OF MOSES.

attended them, the pillar of fire and cloud; for the public good, is to be the leader, the LLECT. LVII. the daily miraculous supply of bread from abettor, and an example, in practising the heaven; the recent anathema pronounced abominations of that country from which against the worship of images from the dread- they had been so happily delivered. ful glory of Mount Sinai; the scrupulous care employed, if we may use the expression, to exhibit no manner of similitude of the Deity in Horeb, to prevent the possibility of a pretence to use, themselves, or to transmit to posterity, any sensible representation of the invisible God; all these, superadded to the plainest dictates of common sense and reason, clothe with a blackness and malignity not to be expressed, the strange conduct which is the subject of this chapter.

layed to come down out of the mount, the "And when the people saw that Moses depeople gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us: for as, for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him."* as well as a wickedness in certain vices, There is a sottishness, a madness, which, at first sight, we should deem inconsisMoses foreseeing the length of his absence brute, the frenzy of the lunatic, and the matent with each other. The irrationality of the in the mount, had wisely delegated his power lignity of the demon, here discover themto Aaron and Hur, that the operations of selves at once; and leave us perplexed government and the administration of jus- which we are most to wonder at and deplore. tice might suffer no interruption. God, the What shall we say of the stupidity which great God, was now vouchsafing to employ talked of making gods, and of following himself in prescribing a mode, and a minis- that as a guide which itself could not move, try of worship for his Israel, which should but as it was carried? With what notes of possess all the pomp and splendour display-indignation shall we mark our abhorrence ed by the nations in the service of their false of that base ingratitude which could speak gods, together with a sacredness and dignity contemptuously of such a benefactor as Mopeculiar to itself. He was preparing to gratify their very senses by external show, as their souls by heavenly wisdom. He was planning a tabernacle, establishing a priesthood, and appointing festivals and sacrifices, whose magnificence should leave them nothing to regret in the glory which they had seen in Egypt; and at that very time, they are employing themselves in devising and executing a plan of religious service, equally disrespectful to God and dishonourable to themselves.

Their guilt begins in sinful impatience and presumption. In matters both of life and of religion men greatly err, when they take upon them to carve for themselves. "Vain men would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt."* tion is so sudden that it seems incredible. The transiNot many days are past since they had given the most solemn, explicit, and unreserved consent to the whole of the divine law. "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." The treaty had been but just ratified by a covenant, a sacrifice, and a feast, with a solemnity not easily to be forgotten. The noise of the mighty thunderings has scarcely ceased; the ineffable glory of the

they have not well recovered from the terror inspired by that voice which made heaven and earth to tremble. circumstanced, as one man they fly to the apYet even thus pointment, not of a new leader and commander, though that had been ingratitude without a parallel, but with an impiety the most shocking and confounding, to the creation of a new god. And the very first exercise of the power which was committed unto Aaron ↑ Exod. xxiv. 7.

*Job xi. 12.

ses; "This Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him?" With what holy resentment must we execrate the spirit that could deal thus perfidiously, presumptuously with God?

tonishment upon the conduct of these vile
After we have vented our anger and as-
Israelites, let us pause and examine our-
selves. Asserted by a strong hand and a
the sons of God, have we never reverted in
stretched-out arm into the glorious liberty of
thought, in desire, in practice, into that very
thraldom of sin from which the Son of God
came to set us free!
weight of benefits much more precious, and
Lying under the
explicit, have we never swerved from the
bound by engagements equally solemn and
path of duty, never lost sight of our vows,
never failed in our obedience? With so
much clearer and fuller discoveries of the
being, nature, and will of the one living and
true God, have we feared and loved him,
and only him; have we never bowed the
knee to mammon, never worshipped in the
house of Rimmon, never kissed the image of
Baal? Alas, alas! we hate and condemn

own, while we stand chargeable in the sight
sins merely because they are our
of God and man, with equal or greater of-
to perceive, so self-deluded as not to feel
fences of a different kind; so blinded as not
their enormity.

of Aaron no reluctance against this horrid
Is it not amazing to observe on the part
proposal; to hear from his lips no remon-
strance?
trust?
Is it thus he discharges his sacred
Is this the man whom Jehovah was,
Exod. xxxii. 1.
Ibid.

A

in the meanwhile, designing to advance, and sooner or later come to entangle the feet of promoting to the dignity of the priesthood? those who use them. Mark, how one rapaMany things have been alleged in extenua-cious domineering passion swallows up many tion of his fault, though nothing can amount others. "Can a maid forget her ornaments, to a full vindication of his conduct. The or a bride her attire ?" And yet behold the conciseness of the sacred history, it has been daughters of Israel cheerfully sacrificing the said, may have suppressed some of the more darling embellishments of their persons to a favourable circumstances, and exhibited only mistaken principle of religion! If there be a general view of the subject. Some of the a passion more violent than another, it is the Rabbins pretend that his colleague in office, love of gold in the heart of a Hebrew; but Hur, had lately been massacred in a popular we see one more violent than even that, the commotion for daring to resist the prevailing delirium of idolatrous superstition. frenzy and that Aaron' complied, through fear of similar treatment, after having thus deprecated the divine displeasure; "O Lord, I look up to thee, who knowest the hearts of men, and who dwellest in the heavens: Thou art witness that I act thus contrary to my own will: Lay it not to my charge."