And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazer his son: and Aaron died there in the top of the mount. And Moses and Eleazer came down from the mount. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.-NUMBERS XX. 23-29.

THE love of life is one of the most useful flesh, for the greater good of the church and and important principles implanted in human of the world, argues a great, a noble, and nature; and death, the necessary end of all disinterested spirit; it excites our love and men, is an event mercifully and in wisdom admiration. That man is indeed immortal, hid from our eyes. Hoping that we may the daily language of whose conduct is, live till to-morrow, we feel ourselves impelled "Let me perform at least one good action to exert ourselves to-day, to make some pro- more, I know I am to die; let my tongue, vision for it. Not knowing the time of their then, yet once again speak praise to God and death, men are engaged to act as if they instruction to man, before it becomes for ever were immortal. And though no wise man silent. Before the cold hand of death freezes would "wish to live always," or can deem it up the genial current at my heart, let it pour possible, yet the precise period never comes, out the gentle stream of kindness, sympathy, when we find ourselves so entirely unoccu- and love. While this arm is able as yet to pied with temporal prospects or pursuits, so extend itself, and this hand to expand, let it totally mortified to the world, as to be dis- be extended to protect the oppressed, to supposed with cheerfulness to leave it. Hence port the weak; let it be expanded to feed the the business of the world goes on, which hungry, to clothe the naked, to relieve the would otherwise stand still; and that God, miserable. Ere my eyes close, to open no of whose years there can be no end, is carry-more, let some one of the wonderful things ing on designs of everlasting moment, by of God again pass through them, to revive frail and shortlived instruments. This man makes a few feeble, dying efforts, and expires. Another comes after him, takes up the instrument which his fellow had laid down, makes his stroke or two, and expires likewise; and yet by means of efforts so weak, so interrupted, and self-destroying, the purposes of Heaven proceed, the building of God rises; every loss is instantly repaired, every defect supplied, and no chasm in the chain of Providence is permitted to take place. Hence men are dignified with the title of fellowworkers with God, and the perishing attempts of perishing creatures are employed in maturing the plans of infinite wisdom, and are honoured by the acceptance and approbation of Him who "worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." What a motive to diligence, exertion, and perseverance!

my drooping spirits, to cheer and elevate my sinking soul; and before I divest myself of my robes of office, never to resume them, let me humbly endeavour to minister to the Lord, and to the spiritual wants of men, in the duties of my station."

Calm and composed as was the death of Aaron, we advance toward it with slowness and reluctance, and therefore with eager ness seize the occasion which scripture affords, of adverting to some farther incidents of his life, before we come to the history of that fatal event.

It was with astonishment and grief, we saw him engaged in a plan of disaffection and sedition against his amiable and excellent brother; and in wonder mixed with terror, we observed the mingled lenity and severity of the punishment inflicted by God on that impious, unnatural, and ungrateful conduct. But the offence was not expiated when Miriam was struck with leprosy, and Aaron thereby tacitly reprehended; when Miriam was restored, and Israel permitted to move forwards. Transgressors often flatter themselves that surely the bitterness of death

"I paint for eternity," replied the great artist of antiquity, when reprehended for an over curious, painful, and laborious attention to the more nice and delicate touches of his favourite pieces. What a lesson of encouragement, admonition, and reproof to Christians! They are indeed acting for eternity; not like the painter, pursuing the empty bub-is past, when a righteous God is but awaking ble, reputation, but aiming at "the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls." They are striving continually to bring a new tribute of praise to God, and to promote the everlasting happiness of mankind.

It is truly pitiable to see a poor creature cleaving to life after the relish of it is gone, merely from a fond attachment to the things of time. It is more lamentable still to behold a miserable wretch shrinking from death, through a well-grounded horror of its consequences. But to desire life from a desire of doing good; to be willing to continue in the

to vengeance; and it is not seldom found, that between crimes and punishments there is such an apparent affinity, that the criminal cannot but read his guilt in the evil which overtakes him; and the world is made to "see," not only "the rod," but "him that hath appointed it."

Six years have elapsed, from the sedition of Aaron and Miriam, when a similar conspiracy is formed to discredit the government of Moses, and the priesthood of Aaron, by certain turbulent, envious, and ambitious men of their own tribe, in confederacy with some

folly of men! He was pleased to appoint a lasting memorial of the preference which he had bestowed on Aaron and his family, and to confer a fresh badge of distinction on the man whom he delighted to honour. Moses is directed to take of each of the tribes of Israel a several rod, and to inscribe every one with the name of the prince of that tribe to which it belonged, writing the name of Aaron on the rod of the tribe of Levi. They

the Lord, in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony, and previous intimation was given to all concerned, that by the next morning God would give an explicit, and unequivocal declaration of his will, respecting the once of priesthood.

of a similar spirit of the tribe of Reuben. So signal and alarming, is apt speedily to be obwidely and so suddenly has the malignity of literated-such is the thoughtlessness and revolt spread itself, that no less than two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown, with their adherents, have been infected by it: and Aaron has his large share of that obloquy, which he had before so unjustly employed, to weaken the hands, and to blast the reputation of his brother. But ah! my friends, a leprosy of seven days could not wash away the stain of this transgression; neither could the blood of one unhappy victim, make atone-were to be laid up together over night before ment for a crime in which so many were involved. The Lord creates "a new thing," to mark the severity of his hot displeasure. When Moses had made an end of denouncing the judgment of God, it came to pass that "the ground clave asunder that was under them, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And there came out fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense."* A plague broke out among the people, which, before it was stayed by the interposition of the high priest himself, offering incense between the living and the dead, had consumed fourteen thousand seven hundred.

What, Ở Aaron, were now thy feelings, surveying a field of blood so dreadful and so extensive! What were thy feelings in reflecting that for the very offence which thou thyself hadst committed, Miriam was a leper, and thousands were slain! Did not thy heart tremble, as the sword of the destroying angel laid heaps upon heaps, whilst thou stoodst in the fearful gap, lest its keen edge should reach thyself?

The God whom we adore, would rather make himself known by the wonders which he performs, and the mercies which he dispenses, than by the judgments which he executes. It was fulfilled accordingly. The rods of the eleven other tribes remained as they were deposited; separated from the parent stock, sapless, withered, and dead; but the rod of Aaron, as if it had been still a branch united to a living root, and by a progress of vegetation infinitely more rapid than nature knows, in the course of one night, "brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.”* And lo, a miracle as great as a lifeless twig bringing forth fruit, the fierce and angry spirit which acts of just vengeance had but irritated, is by a miracle of kindness and condescension, mollified, melted, subdued, extinguished: and thus necessary are signs and wonders to silence and persuade murmuring, unbelieving Hebrews, as well as to render inexcusable impenitent Egyptians.

This mark of preference having been openly exhibited, for the conviction and saIt is remarkable, that the enormity of the tisfaction of all, commandment is once more greater crimes which Aaron committed, was given to carry back this wondrous rod, and exposed by the judgments wherewith God to deposit it by itself before God, with the visited similar crimes in others, not in him- other sacred furniture of the most holy place, self; whereas, for an apparently lighter trans- to serve to latest posterity as one of the pregression, his life was irrecoverably forfeited, cious monuments of the divine favour to their and he fell under a doom, which no peni- forefathers. It is highly probable, that it altence nor supplication could alter or avert. ways preserved that verdure to which it was We cannot judge of the malignity of crimes thus preternaturally restored; and is a lively from certain external circumstances. Both image of the constant preservation of the in the good which men do, and the evil they universe, by that all-powerful Word which commit, God principally regards the heart spake it into existence at first; of the conand intention; but to discern and to judge of tinued support of life, by the merciful visitathe thoughts and intents of the heart, is a tion of that Spirit who "breathed into man's prerogative, which with awful propriety he nostrils the breath of life; and man became a has reserved to himself. living soul."+

God has punished the defection of Korah Aaron, thus again distinguished and honourand his abettors in the most open and exem-ed of Heaven, continues to enjoy the dignity, plary manner. Not satisfied with this, be- and to perform the duties of the priesthood for cause the memory of judgments the most thirty-one years longer; we doubt not, with

Numb. xv. 31-33. 35.

*Numb. xvii. 8.

† Gen ii. 7.

mount Hor, and learn to die to the vanity and glory of this world, and to cleave, with increased ardour to that gospel, by which "life and immortality are brought to light,” and to trust in that great High Priest, who, though he "was dead, is alive, and lives for evermore," and giveth "eternal life to as many as he will."

Death, the most common of all events, at every season, and in whatever form it comes, is tremendous and affecting; but the appearance of death, in the scene before us, is alto

credit to himself, and to the satisfaction and advantage of all Israel. But, alas! he has the mortification of seeing that people gradually and imperceptibly wasting away before his eyes; he feels himself the dying minister of a dying congregation; he observes the hand of justice doing that by slow degrees, which it might have accomplished at once, and employing forty years in what could have been made the work of a single moment. At length the stroke of death comes home to his own family, and it may be presumed to his very heart. In the one hundred and twen-gether singular and uncommon. It is indeed tieth of his year age, and thirty-seventh of the death of an old man, but not occasioned his priesthood, Miriam, his sister by nature, by any apparent decay of nature, not prehis friend by habit and affection, and, sad to ceded by long sickness, not hastened on by think, his companion in offence, is removed disease or accident; but the spirit is surrento a world of spirits, and he is warned of his dered at the command of God, in the fulness own departure, by the loss of one of his near- of health, in the composure of perfect recolest and dearest relations. Moses delineates lection, without a hesitation of reluctant naher character with singular conciseness and ture, without regret, without a pang. When simplicity. The hand which she had in his sentence of death was pronounced upon preservation, when he was exposed, in early Moses himself, and for the self-same transinfancy, upon the Nile, procures her an in-gression which shortened the life of Aaron, terest in his affection, and in those of his readers, which the blameableness of some parts of her after conduct is unable wholly to destroy. Our censure of her envy and malignity, in more advanced life, is somewhat softened by the recollection of her childish tenderness, attachment, vigilance, and address; and, while we condemn the vehemence of her spirit, and the unruliness of her tongue, the edge of resentment is blunted, when we see her punished there, where a female is Were we to follow the impulse of imaginamost vulnerable, in the fairness of her looks, tion, we might, without overleaping the moand the agreeableness of her person, and we desty of nature, represent to you the deep heartily join in the prayer of Aaron in her concern wherewith the good man's own fabehalf: "Alas, my lord, let her not be as one mily was affected when the award of death dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed, was pronounced: the concern of all Israel at when he cometh out of his mother's womb;" the thought of being deprived of the labours, and in that of Moses himself; "Heal her the advices, the example, and the prayers of now, O God, I beseech thee." From thence, their venerable high priest; the concern of to the hour of her death, a period of thirty- Moses in being made the messenger, almost seven years, the history is entirely silent the executioner of death, upon his much beconcerning her, and this is, perhaps, the high-loved brother, associate, and friend; himself est praise that can be bestowed upon her. The sharp reproof which she had received for presuming to intermeddle in public affairs, had taught her, we are bound in charity to believe, that the post of honour, for a woman, is a private station; that she is then most distinguished, most respectable, most valuable, when the world knows and talks least about her.

That self-same year the fatal summons is addressed to Aaron also, and one brother is made the messenger of death to the other. The same hand which arrayed him in splendid apparel, and consecrated him to the high and honourable office of priesthood, must strip him again, and anoint him to his burying. The whole progress of this solemn scene is highly pathetic and interesting. Let us atend the funeral procession to the top of

we find the fondness of nature, and the fervour of religion, repeatedly uniting, to crave a reprieve at least, if not a total remission: but Aaron, when summoned to depart, whether it was from superior fortitude of mind, from the consciousness of greater demerit, or that the historian has charitably drawn a veil over a brother's infirmity, while he frankly exposes his own, prepares instantly and cheer. fully for the event.

too lying under the same condemnation. If, after he received the command to ascend the mountain, that he might die, he was permitted to minister in the priest's office any more, to pour out the blood of the sacrifice, to burn incense upon the altar, to lift up his hands and bless the people, with what holy fervour may we suppose these sacred services performed with what devout attention would they be listened unto and waited upon, when both minister and people knew for certain they were to meet no more! May we not suppose the good man, in strains such as these, taking a last, long farewell of those to whom he had for so many years stood in a relation so tender and so intimate. "The time of my departure, O Israel, is at length come, and I am ready to be offered up. That God who appointed me to serve you in holy things,

fadeth not away. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Arise, let us go hence. Arise, let us ascend to the top of the mountain."

Having, in whatever language, bidden a final adieu to worldly connexions; in the sight of all the people, the high priest, in all the splendour of his official habit, sad and solemn, climbs up the hill, from which he never was to descend. What were the emotions of Israel in gradually losing sight of their venerable patriarch, to see him no more again for ever? What were the feelings of the patriarch in surveying from the summit of the mountain the goodly tents of Jacob, in which he had an earthly concern no longer? Nature casts many a longing, lingering look behind;" but faith looks forward, and beholds mortality swallowed up of life. Nature regrets a promised land; unseen, unpossessed, unenjoyed, because of unbelief: faith stretches the wing, and aims a bold but not uncertain flight, to a heavenly Canaan, where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are for ever at rest.”

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The spirit fails as we proceed. The deathwarrant is again recited. The justice of the sentence is acknowledged, and the prisoner prepares for death. The golden crown, the mitre, the girdle, the ephod, the breastplate, are one after another deposited, and human glory is patiently surrendered. As they were severally yielded up by the father, they are severally assumed by the son. Stripped of all that cover

permits me to wait at his altar no longer. I have fulfilled my day. I have finished my course. I have survived the greatest part of my contemporaries, but must die at length. I leave you with remorse, because I accuse myself of many failures in point of duty towards you; I leave you with regret, because I sincerely love you; I leave you with joy, because I can with confidence commit you to a guardian | Providence, even to the God of your fathers, who can easily supply my place, by one wiser, holier, and more faithful than me; and who, I trust, will continue still to rule and to lead you by that best of men, of brothers, and of friends. My body leaves you, but my spirit cannot be separated from you, in death it will cleave unto you; and when set free from the clogs of sense, it will still hover over you, attend your journeyings, and, finally, rest in peace when Israel rests in the promised land. These forty years have I borne your names engraved on jewels, upon my heart, and I will carry you with me in my heart, to the regions of eternal day. Farewell, my sons; Eleazer, the heir of my dignity and anxiety, and Ithamar, my youngest hope. Think of the dreadful fate of your elder brothers, and serve the Lord with reverence and godly fear. Think of your father's errors and learn wisdom. Ponder his approaching dissolution, and learn the nothingness of human grandeur. Call to your remembrance what Providence has done to and for me, and rejoice with trembling. Again I am summoned away; it is the voice of Moses, of my bro-ed the body, the body itself is at length laid ther; it is the voice of God I hear. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee, the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. I come, my brother, I know whose command thou bearest; I know that I must obey. But to part with thee is the bitterness of death; endeared as we are to each other by friendship, as allied by blood-conjoined in office, knit together by habits of affection, united in life, and, blessed reflection, not to be long divided by death. Thou wilt bury all my unworthiness in the grave; thou hast already buried it in the profounder, silenter tomb of a gentle and forgiving heart. I come, O my God, at thy call; I desire not to live, if thou biddest me to die. Yet I mourn to think that my death is a mark of thy displeasure. But I see the sun Let the son of pride, who is rising into shining through the cloud; it is not wholly splendour, and bears "his blushing honours in anger, thou art summoning me away; thick upon him," turn his eyes to the top of thou art graciously putting an end to my yonder mountain, and learn the nothingness painful labours, my anxious thoughts, my im- of all the glory of man. Is his station higher perfect services, to my weaknesses and wan- than that of the high priest of Israel! Are derings, and exalting me to a dignity far be- his vestments more magnificent, is his chayond what I have hitherto enjoyed. I shall racter more sacred, is his dignity more persee thee as thou art. I shall serve thee with-manent, flow his honours from a higher out wearying. I shall offend no more. Hence- source? Behold Aaron laid low: retiring forth is laid up for me, a diadem for glory and from the world, naked, as naked he came infor beauty, a crown of righteousness that to it; the head which once wore the mitro,

down, and the mortal blow is at length struck by Him who saith, "I make alive, and I kill." Aaron dies, but Eleazer lives. The priest expires, but the priesthood is immortal. Three ascend, only two return. What matters it how the poor perishing clay tabernacle were disposed of? About the spirit of the man whom God thus called away, we can be under no anxiety nor apprehension. A general, and I doubt no, an unaffected mourning of thirty days takes place; and all Israel lament when dead, the man whom many had envied, maligned, and persecuted through life.

This is one of the many happy consequences and effects of death! It shuts the mouth of scandal; it brings to light, unnoticed or obscured virtues; it draws the veil over blemishes and imperfections.

levelled with the dust; the tongue which once spoke so well, for ever dumb.

The hour of rest nightly admonishes us of the last fatal hour. We strip ourselves of our garments one by one, and lay them down; we are reduced to the image of death; the eye is closed; our faculties are absorbed; the form of the man only remains. And the time is at hand, we know it, when we must put off this body, as an uneasy, worn-out, useless vestment, fit only for the moth or the dunghill. "Man must say to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my sister and mother." "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field."

Our very children are the harbingers of our dissolution. They are the pleasantest, but the plainest monitors. Every step they rise brings us a little lower; as they grow stronger and stronger, we grow weaker and weaker. They wait to assume our name, our place, our robes, our office: they are ready to array themselves in our spoils. The elevation of Eleazer is the fall of Aaron. The public life of the son, is the death of the sire.

Look to that mountain, O man, and reflect that he whom now you hate, envy, oppose, malign, will speedily be changed into a clod of earth, and rendered incapable of feeling

or returning thy animosity; and learn to die betimes to these wicked and odious passions. Suppose him laid on the bed of death; stript of those honours, talents, advantages, successes which render him the object of jealousy and malignity to thee. How you are disarmed! Pity and tenderness awake in your breast. You now hate yourself, that ever you could hate your brother. Let the reflection of what may so soon happen reconcile thee to him now. Mar not thy own comfort, by seeking to disturb his repose. The cold hand of death will speedily extinguish the angry flame.

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They truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: but this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.— Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." *** "He need not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore."+ † Heb. vii. 27, 28.

*Heb. vii. 23-25.

HISTORY OF BALAAM.

LECTURE LXVII.

These are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteous ness; but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbad the madness of the prophet.-2 PETER ii. 15, 16.

all our other appetites, only whets this; and after the heart is dead to every other joy, it lives to the dear, the inextinguishable delight of saving and hoarding.

Of all the evil propensities to which human | and deluged it with blood, may be traced up nature is subject, there is no one so general, to an eager desire to obtain the territory, or so insinuating, so corruptive, and so obstinate, the treasure of another. Age, which blunts as the love of money. It begins to operate early, and it continues to the end of life. One of the first lessons which children learn, and one which old men never forget, is, the value of money. The covetous seek and guard it for its own sake, and the prodigal himself must first be avaricious, before he can be profuse. This, of all our passions, is best able to fortify itself by reason, and is the last to yield to the force of reason. It most unremittingly engages the attention and calls into their fullest exertion all our powers of body and of mind. Ambition and pride, those powerful motives of human conduct, are but ministering servants to avarice. Reputation and power are pursued chiefly as the means of procuring wealth; and all the fierce contentions which have distracted the world,

In exact proportion to their incapacity and disinclination to make use of money, is the violence of men's thirst to possess it; and on the threshold of eternity it cleaves to them, as if life were just beginning. Philosophy combats, satire exposes, religion condemns it in vain: it yields neither to argument, nor ridicule, nor conscience. Like the lean kine in Pharaoh's dream, it devours all that comes near it, and yet continues as hungry and meagre as ever. If a representation of the odiousness, criminality, and danger of this vile affection can be of any use, it must be to those whose hearts are not yet hardened