wise and good in the young; that tenaciousness of power which would communicate no advantage with another. this period, a little more particularly. He set a proper value upon life. He desired its continuance, with the feelings natural to a man, he prized it as the gift of God, as the What anxiety does the good man discover precious season of acting for God, of observ- that Israel should act wisely, and go on prosing and improving the ways of his provi- perously after his death! There is no end to dence, of doing good to men, of preparation his admonitions and instructions. By word, for eternity. He prayed for its prolongation, by writing, by insinuation, by authority, in without fearing its end; and he thereby re- the spirit of meekness, of love, of parental proves that rashness which exposes life to care, he cautions, he warns, he remonstrates. unnecessary danger, that intemperance which Men naturally love to be missed, to be inquirwastes and shortens, that indolence and listed after, to be longed for; but it was the delessness which dissipate it; and that vice and impiety which clothe death with terror. light of Moses in his departing moments, that his place was already supplied, that the congregation would not miss their leader, that Joshua should happily accomplish what he had happily begun. Selfish men enjoy the prospect of the disorder and mischief which their departure may occasion. Moses foresaw the revolt of Israel after his decease, and it was the grief and bitterness of his heart. In Moses we have a bright example of genuine patriotism. That most respectable quality appeared in him early, and shone most conspicuously at the last. "When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter: choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."* For Israel's sake he was willing In Moses we have an instructive instance to encounter a thousand dangers, to endure of that continuance in well-doing, that pera thousand hardships. For them he braved severance unto the end, which finds a duty the wrath of a king, sacrificed his ease, con- for every day, for every hour; which accounts sented to be blotted out of God's book. For nothing done so long as any thing remains to them he laboured, fasted, prayed; in their be done, which cheerfully spends and is spent service was his life spent, and his dying for the service of God, and the good of manbreath was poured out in pronouncing bless-kind. Age is ready to put in its claim, when ings upon them. If it went well with Israel, no matter what became of himself. Their unkindness and ingratitude excited no resentment in his breast. When they rebelled he was grieved, when they were threatened he trembled, when they suffered he bled, when they were healed he rejoiced. O how his temper and conduct reprove that pride, which perpetually aims at aggrandizing itself, which must have every thing bend and yield to it, which is ready to sacrifice thousands to its own humour or advantage; that selfishness which grasps all, sets every thing to sale, and refuses to be ashamed. The generosity and disinterestedness of Moses eminently adorned the close of his life. He was a father, and had all the feelings of that tender relation. It was natural for him to wish and expect that his sons should be distinguished after his death, should be the heirs of his honour, should succeed to his authority. An ordinary man would have been disposed to employ the power which he possessed to build up, to enrich, to ennoble his own family: but the will of God was declared. Joshua was the choice of Heaven; Joshua, his servant, one of another family, another tribe. In the appointtment Moses rejoices, he adopts Joshua as his son, as his associate; sees him rise with complacency, puts his honour upon him: and thereby exposes to shame that littleness of soul which enviously represses rising merit, that vice of age which can discern nothing Heb. xi. 24, 25. But honour is expected, and advantage to be reap- In the whole of his temper and conduct, we have an ensample which at once admonishes, reproves, and encourages us. May we not, after considering the noble and excellent spirit he discovered through the course and at the close of life, contemplate the probable state of his mind in reviewing the past, and surveying the prospect before him: both affording unspeakable comfort, but neither wholly exempted from pain. Pleasant it must have been to reflect, 1. On his miraculous preservation in infancy. "To what dangers was I then exposed? Doomed to perish by the sword from my mother's womb. Concealed by fond parents for three months at the peril of their life, as well as my own. Committed at length to the merciless stream, a prey to manifold deaththe roaring tide, hunger, the monsters of the river, contending which should destroy me. But I was precious in the sight of God. No plague came nigh me; no evil befel me. The daughter of the tyrant saved me from the rage of the tyrant. The house of Pharaoh became my sanctuary. The munificence of a princess recompensed the offices of maternal tenderness. I knew not then to whom I was indebted for protection, from what source my comforts flowed: let age and consciousness acknowledge with wonder and gratitude the benefits conferred on infant helplessness and infirmity; let my dying breath utter his praise, who preserved me from perishing as soon as I began to breathe." to its source; to ascend from son to father, up to the general parent of the human race; to rescue from oblivion the ages beyond the flood, and to rescue departed worth from the darkness of the grave. By me these venerable men, though dead, speak and instruct the world. By me the being and perfections, the works and ways, the laws and designs 2. May we not suppose the holy man of of the great Supreme stand unfolded; the God, by an easy transition, passing on to me- plan and progress of his providence, the sysditate on deliverance from still greater dan-tem of nature, the dispensation of grace. To ger, danger that threatened his moral life my writings shall ages and generations rethe snares of a court? "Flattered and ca- sort for the knowledge of events past, and ressed as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, for the promises and predictions of greater brought up in all the learning of the Egyp- events yet to come. The Spirit of the LORD tians, having all the treasures in Egypt, at spake by me, and his word was in my tongue, my command, at an age when the passions, and the word of the LORD endureth for ever. which war against the soul, are all afloat- 5. What delight must it have afforded, in what risk did I run of forgetting myself, of reviewing the past, to revive the memory of forgetting my people, of forgetting my God? communion with God, of exalted intercourse But the grace of the Most High prevented with the Father of spirits! "Blessed retireme. I endured as seeing him who is invisible. ment from the noise of the world and the I refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's strife of tongues; solitude infinitely more daughter. I was not ashamed to be known delicious than all society! Wilderness of for a son of Israel. I went out to see the Horeb, school of wisdom, scene of calm and burdens of my brethren, I had compassion on unmixed joy, in thee I learned to commune them, and comforted them; not fearing the with my own heart, forgot the sensual, unwrath of a king, I smote him that did the satisfying delights of Egypt, observed the wrong, and saved the oppressed. I chose glories of nature, contemplated the wonders rather to suffer afliction with the people of of Providence, enjoyed the visions of the God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a Almighty! Happy days, when I tended the season. I esteemed the reproach of Christ flocks of Jethro, obeyed the dictates of inspigreater riches than the treasures in Egypt. ration, and conversed with my heavenly To God I committed myself; and my virtue, Father, as a man with his friend! I saw him my religion, my honour, my inward peace in flaming yet unconsuming fire, I heard his were preserved." voice from the midst of the burning bush, my 3. What satisfaction must it have yielded feet stood upon holy ground. And thou, Moses in reviewing his life, to reflect on his sacred summit of Sinai, where the Most having been made the honoured instrument, High imparted to me the counsels of his in the hand of Providence, for effecting the will; supernaturally sustained the feeble, deliverance of an oppressed people? "Imortal frame; irradiated my soul with the found Israel labouring, groaning, expiring in the furnace. I beheld the tears of them that were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Their cry reached heaven. He who made them had mercy upon them. He was pleased to choose me out of all the myriads of Israel, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. He taught my stainmering tongue to speak plainly. He said to my fearful heart, Be strong. He armed me with his potent rod; and subjected the powers of nature to my command. The oppressor But a retrospective view of life must have was crushed in his turn, and the oppressed presented to Moses many objects painful went out free, full, and triumphant. And to and humiliating; and bitter recollections me, even unto me, it was given to conduct must have mingled themselves with the this great, difficult, dangeroas, glorious en- sweet. The repeated defections of a stiffterprise; and Heaven crowned it with suc-necked and gainsaying people, whom no communications of his love, and my countenance with beams of light; how can I forget thee, and the forty hallowed days past on thee, in converse more sublime than ever before fell to the lot of humanity! To thee, sacred structure, reared according to the pattern showed me in the mount, to thee I look in rapturous recollection! Thou wert my refuge in the hour of danger. In thee the assurances of divine favour and support, compensated, extinguished the unkindness of man. How often hast thou been to me a heaven upon earth!" kindness could melt, no threatenings deter, no promise animate, no calamity subdue: a people who had requited the care of Heaven with reiterated, unprovoked rebellions; and his own labours of love, with hatred, insult, and ingratitude. Painful it must have been to think, that he had survived a whole people, endeared to him by every strong, by every tender tie: that he had been gradually dying for forty years together, in a condemned, devoted race, which melted away before his eyes in the wilderness: that with his own hand he had stripped Aaron, his brother, of his pontifical garments, and closed his eyes. Painful to reflect on his own errors and imperfections-his criminal neglect of God's covenant, which had nearly cost him his life: his sinful delay and reluctance to accept the divine commission appointing him the deliverer of Israel; the hastiness of his spirit in defacing the work of God, by dashing the tables of the law to the ground, and breaking them in pieces; the impatience of his temper, the unadvisedness of his lips, the unguardedness of his conduct, at the waters of strife, which drew down displeasure on his head, and irreversibly doomed it to death. This uneasy retrospect would naturally lead to prospects as uneasy and distressing-The time of his departure is at hand; the body must speedily be dissolved and the dust return to the earth as it was. Against his admission Canaan is fenced as with a wall of fire, and a distant glimpse must supply the room of possession, and another must finish his work. Besides the natural horror of death, there was mingled in that bitter cup a par ticular sense of personal offence and fatherly displeasure as inflicting it. Israel too, he foresaw, would after his decease revolt more and more, and call down the judgments of Heaven, and forfeit the promised inheritance-and this was to him the bitterness of death. hast said." Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. My master is dismissing me from painful service; I shall rest from my labours; I shall receive the crown. I am passing from the imperfect, interrupted communion of an earthly sanctuary, to the pure, exalted, uninterrupted, everlasting communications of the heavenly state. I shall see God as he is. I shall be changed into the same image. I shall be ever with the Lord. I shall shine in his likeness. I shall be added, united to the assembly of the faithful; to the venerable men of whom I wrote, to Abel the first martyr to the truth, to Enoch, who walked with God, to Noah, the preacher of righteousness, to Abraham, who believed, and was called the friend of God, to Joseph, whose bones are now at length to rest in the land of promise, to Aaron, my brother, by nature, by affection, in offence, in hope. With the natural eye I behold the fertile plains of an earthly Canaan: but by the eye of faith I descry another country, that is an heavenly; watered with the pure river of the water of life, where grow the trees of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations: where there is no more death. My brethren, I die, but God will surely visit you. There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken. In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. In Abraham's seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Mortality is swallowed up of life; "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory." But by what brighter prospects was this gloom relieved, and the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death illuminated! He saw the promise of God hastening to its accomplishment. The land flowing with milk and honey" was fully in view. The time, the set time was now come; and what "Let me die the death of the righteous, powers of nature could prevent the purpose and let my last end be like his."" Mark the of Heaven from taking effect? "O Lord, perfect man, and behold the upright: for the thou art faithful and true; Do now as thou | end of that man is peacc." 66 HISTORY OF MOSES. LECTURE LXXVIII. And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. And ne said unto them. I am an hundred and twenty years old this day: I can no more go out and come in: also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said.-DEUTERONOMY xxxi. 1-3. THE last words and the last actions of culated to excite emotions suitable to their eminent men are remembered, repeated, present condition. A complete generation recorded with a mournful pleasure. We of men had melted away before their eyes listen with peculiar attention to those lips, under the divine displeasure! Every rewhich are to speak to us no more and moval, every encampment was marked by the man, and the words, which we neglected, the death of multitudes, who had fallen not while there was a prospect of their continu- by the sword of the enemy, but were cut off ing longer with us, we prize, we cleave to, by the flaming sword of divine justice, and and wish to retain, when they are about to were not suffered to enter into the land be taken away from us. Indeed we discover promised to their fathers, "because of unbethe value of nothing, till we are threatened lief." with, or feel the want of it; and we awake to a sense of the happiness which we have possessed, by the bitter reflection that it is gone from us for ever. Farewell addresses serve to rouse both the speaker and the hearers. He is led to weigh well those words which he is to have no future opportunity of altering or amending. His eyes, his voice, his turn of thought, his expression, all will be influenced, by the ⚫ solemnity of his situation; and what he feels, he will certainly communicate to others. Wherefore is not every address considered in this light; as a last, farewell, dying speech? It may be so in truth; and if it were known to be so, would our attention be so distracted, our spirit so careless; would our language be thus cold, our zeal thus languid? Attend, my dear friends, and fellow mortals. This is beyond all controversy, to some of us the last opportunity of the kind. The sound of this voice shall never again meet all those ears in one place. It may be for ever silenced; each of them may be for ever closed; and the ordinary tide of human affairs must certainly scatter, this night, persons who are never more to re-assemble, till that day when the whole human race shall be gathered together in one great multitude. We are come hither to ponder thy dying words, O Moses, and to gírd up our loins, and follow thee. This whole book may be considered as a serics of powerful, pathetic, and tender addresses, delivered at different times within the compass of the last month of his life, by Moses to Israel, in the near and certain prospect of dissolution. Art has attempted to divide it into so many several distinct heads or branches, forming together a complete body of instruction, wonderfully adapted to the occasion, and powerfully enforced upon the minds of the hearers by the death of their teacher, which immediately followed. They saw in this at once the mercy and faithfulness, the justice and severity of God. Israel was still preserved, but every single offender had died the death. The covenant made with Abraham and his seed stood firm, though they were threatened with utter extermination in Egypt, and were actually exterminated in the wilderness. The possession of Canaan was made sure to that chosen race, but not one of the murmurers at Kadesh-barnea was permitted to survive the threatened destruction. By an example that came so closely home to the breast and bosom of every man, all were admonished of the absolute security, and infallible success of trusting in God, and of following the leadings of his providence; all were warned of the guilt and danger of disobedience and distrust. We see in this the reason why so great a proportion of the sacred oracles are delivered in the form of history. A fact makes its way directly to the heart, is easily remembered, and readily applied. It requires depth of understanding and closeness of attention to comprehend a doctrine, and to draw the proper inferences from it: but "the wayfaring man, though a fool," can discern the meaning, and feels the force of a plain tale of truth, and the recollection of yesterday becomes a lesson of conduct for to-day. 2dly. This valedictory address of Moses consists of a recapitulation of the laws, moral, ceremonial, political, and military, which he had already delivered to them in the name of God. On this account, the division of the Pentateuch under consideration, has obtained the name of Mischna Thora, translated by the Seventy; Deuteronomy, that is, the second law, or a repetition of the law. The men were dead who heard the voice of God speaking these tremendous words from Sinai. The men of the present generation were unborn, or but emerging from childhood, when The first great branch is a succinct and that fiery dispensation was given: but its animated historical detail of the conduct of obligation was eternal and unchangeable. the Divine Providence towards them and Providence therefore directed it to be retheir fathers, during the last forty years, hearsed aloud in the ears of the generation commencing with their departure out of following, by the voice of a dying man, and Horeb, and containing an account of their to be by him left recorded in lasting characsuccessive movements and encampings. A ters, for the instruction of every future age. recapitulation of the recent events of their What was local and temporary of this disown lives, and of what had befallen their pensation has passed away: what was im immediate predecessors, was obviously cal-mutable and universal, remains in all its force and importance; and shall continue, though heaven and earth were dissolved. and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is, among you."* And again, "If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, (which have committed that wicked thing) unto thy gates, even that man, or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three wit put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people: so thou shalt put the evil away from among you."t Did we not know, that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:" did we not know, by fatal experience, that there is no absurdity too gross for men to adopt, no impiety too daring for them to commit, we should be astonished to think that the enactment of such laws should ever have been necessary; that having been enact There is one law which Moses, in the prospect of death, presses with peculiar earnestness, as he knew it to be of special importance, and was but too well acquainted with the violent, the almost irresistible propensity of his auditory to infringe it-the law which prohibited and proscribed idolatry, that crime of complex enormity, against of heaven, which I have not commanded; which the voice of the Eternal had uttered so many thunders, and which had brought on Israel so many grievous plagues. Nothing can be more energetical than the expressions he employs to expose the guilt and danger of this offence against God; nothing more dreadful than the judgments which he denounces against those who should contract it themselves, or presume to decoy others into that odious practice. He leaves them desti-nesses, shall he that is worthy of death, be tute of every thing like a pretext for following the nations in this impiety and absurdity, by calling to the recollection of those who were witnesses of the awful scene, and urging upon the consciences of those who were since born," that there was no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire; that therefore to pretend to imitate what never was seen, what cannot be seen, was at once ridiculous folly, and daring, impious presumption. He solemnly enjoins, that the tenderest and most respectable ties of nature be disregarded in the case of those who should dare to set the example of vio-ed, there should be occasion to explain and lating the divine will in this respect; that the most intimate friends and nearest relations should become strange and hateful, if they presumed, by precept or by practice, to countenance this transgression. His own 3dly. Moses labours in this, his last disemphatic language will best express his course, to establish the importance and nemeaning, and show with what oppressive cessity of knowing the divine law, and for weight the subject lay upon his heart. If that end, of making it the subject of contithy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy nual study and meditation. Every son of Israel son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bo- must daily employ himself in the reading of som, or thy friend which is as thine own it. The young must not plead exemption on soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go account of his youth, nor the old plead the and serve other gods, (which thou hast not privilege of age. No closeness of applicaknown, thou nor thy fathers; namely, of the tion to secular business, no eagerness to gods of the people which are round about prosecute a journey, no eminence of rank you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, and station, no, not the state and necessary from the one end of the earth even unto the duties of royalty itself, must pretend to claim other end of the earth,) thou shalt not con- a dispensation from the superior obligations sent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither of the law of the Most High. "These words," shal. thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou says he, "which I command thee this day, spare, neither shalt thou conceal him. But shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall them diligently unto thy children, and shalt be first upon him to put him to death, and talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, afterwards the hand of all the people. And and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; thou liest down, and when thou risest up. because he has sought to thrust thee away And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine from the Lord thy God, which brought thee hand, and they shall be as frontlets between out of the land of Egypt, from the house of thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon pondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." * Deut. xiii. 6-11. † Deut. xvii. 2-7. Deut. vi. 6-9 *Deut. xiv. 15. enforce them by so many awful sanctions, and that notwithstanding, in defiance of sanctions so formidable, any should have been found bold enough to transgress. |