"Prudence constrains him to withdraw which had endured in it cruelties the most from the danger which threatened the stran- unexampled. The tyrant pursues him, gains ger who dared to shed the blood of an Egyptian. ground, presses hard upon him. Behold hun He retires into the land of Midian, and there encompassed on every side, by a vast and inexperiences repeated proofs of the care of vincible army, by a ridge of inaccessible that miraculous Providence which accompa- mountains, and by the waters of the Red Sea. nied him through the whole course of a long He rebukes the roaring billows; they inlife. Cut off from every opportunity of dis- stantly become obedient to the man whom playing the qualities of the hero, he exhibits the DEITY has made, (if the expression be those of the philosopher. He employs the lawful) the depository of his power. The calmness of that retreat in contemplating the waters were a wall unto them on their right divine perfections; or rather, in this delicious hand and on their left,* as the sacred historetirement it was, that he enjoyed the inti- rian expresses himself. Moses advances into mate communications of the Almighty, who the wilderness, and, by a continuation of miinspired him, and appointed him to the high raculous interposition, he beholds those very destination of laying the first foundations of waters which had divided, to favour the pasrevealed religion, which was to supply the de- sage of Israel, closing again, and swallowing fects of that of nature, already clouded and up Pharaoh, his court, and his host. disfigured by the prejudices and the passions of mankind. He composed the book of Genesis; and thereby furnished the world with irresistible arms to combat idolatry. He attacks the two most extravagant errors into which the human race had fallen, the plurality of gods, and that which admits imperfection in the Deity. To the one, and the other, he opposes the doctrine of the unity of an allperfect Being. "That God, whose existence and attributes he thus published, was pleased to manifest himself to him in mount Horeb in a manner altogether singular and miraculous. He confers on this chosen servant, the glorious but formidable commission to take the field against Pharaoh, to stem the current of oppression, to attempt to mollify the tyrant; and, if persuasion failed, to employ force, to support arguments by prodigies, to exact from all Egypt the expiation of those barbarities which she had dared to exercise upon a people distinguished as the object of his tenderest love, and of his most illustrious miracles. "Delivered, in appearance, from his most formidable enemies, he soon finds he has to maintain a lasting conflict with foes still more formidable, the very people whom he conducted. He discovers in these degenerate sons of Israel every mean and grovelling sentiment which a servile state has a tendency to inspire; all the absurdity of weak and capricious minds; all the cowardice, perfidy, and ingratitude of corrupted hearts. With such a race, Moses found himself under the necessity of living in a waste and parched desert, and of struggling there with all the horrors of hunger and thirst, and a total want of every necessary. Exposed to all the insults of an enraged, ungovernable multitude, he is at the same time constrained to act as their intercessor with an offended God. He feels himself called upon to maintain the interests of the divine glory with a stiffnecked and perverse nation: and to plead the cause of that very nation with Deity, provoked to execute righteous judgment on a race of men who were continually disposed to insult his "This appointment Moses presumes to de-authority, and to degrade his perfections, by cline: but from a spirit of humility rather than associating him with the infamous idols of the of disobedience. He could not conceive it Pagan world. possible that, at the age of fourscore, and labouring under a defect of speech, he could be the person qualified to address a mighty prince, and overturn a whole kingdom. The appointment is a second time pressed upon him; a second time he refuses it. At length, however, his reluctance is overcome; and, filled with that Spirit which animated him to the conflict, he enters on the career of glory which was presented to him, and his first victory is a victory over himself. He tears himself from the delights of the land of Midian; ne quits the house of a father-in-law, by whom he was most tenderly beloved, to encounter a host of enemies and executioners. "He arrives in Egypt. He presents himself before Pharaoh: he entreats; he threatens; he draws down upon the Egyptians plagues the most tremendous. He departs from that kingdom, at the head of a people "Moses had sometimes the felicity of averting the divine displeasure, and of restraining the madness of the people. But more frequently he endured the mortification of seeing the inefficacy of all his well-meant efforts. The violence of the people bore down all opposition; and offended Heaven turned a deaf ear to the voice of his supplication. Divine justice vindicated its rights; Israel felt its severest strokes, and twentyfour thousand† fall at one stroke. "The most awful chastisements have proved equally ineffectual with the tenderest expostulations, to bring them back to a sense of their duty. And as if Moses had been responsible for the calamities which they had brought upon themselves, by their reiterated crimes, they talk of stoning him. They propose to appoint a commander to conduct them † Numb. xxv. 9. Exod. xiv. 29. back to Egypt, from whence God had deliver- source! Witness these ardent aspirations of ed them by a strong hand and a stretched- soul after God: If thy presence go not with out arm: they prefer an inglorious servitude me, carry us not up hence. I beseech thee, to the miraculous protection afforded them in show me thy glory.* the wilderness, and to all the prospects of the fair inheritance which God had promised to bestow upon them. "What zeal for the glory of God! Witness the tables of the law broken in pieces at the sight of a people who had rendered them"In a state of such anxiety and distress, selves unworthy of receiving marks so tenMoses passed forty complete years, and con-der of the love of God. Witness that rigoducted, at length, the remains of this people to the borders of the promised land. Was ever life so singularly eventful? Was ever hero signalized by so many extraordinary ex-gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay ploits? "If we go into a more particular detail of his great actions, we meet with a bright display of every shining virtue. "What magnanimity! Witness the armies he so successfully commanded; witness the crown and kingdom of Egypt despised, rejected, when put in competition with the obligations and prospects of religion. "What firmness! Witness his undaunted addresses, and his animated replies to Pharaoh. Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.* We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; there shall not be an hoof left behind. Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more.t "What fervour! Witness these hands lifted up to heaven, while Israel was fighting against Amalek. Witness these ardent prayers in behalf of the rebellious Israelites: Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of, will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.'t "What charity! Witness these forcible expressions: Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.§ "What gentleness! Witness what is said of him, Numbers xii. 3. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. "What earnest desire to draw supplies of grace and truth immediately from their rous order issued to the sons of Levi: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.'t Witness his answer to Joshua, when he expressed an apprehension lest the prophetic gifts bestowed on Eldad and Medad should eclipse the glory of his master: Enviest thou for my sake, would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!' "What perseverance! Witness those exhortations; and that sacred song, with which he concluded his ministrations and his life. "But where was perfect virtue ever to be found? Moses too had his infirmities. In a life so long, however, and so peculiarly circumstanced, who is chargeable with faults so slight and so few? His very errors seem to partake of the nature of virtue. The darker shades of his character become perceptible from the contrast they form with a whole life so bright and luminous. That he should shrink back, at first, from the proposal of an embassy to the king of Egypt; that he should neglect, for a season, from certain domestic considerations, the circumcision of a child; that he should be slow of belief respecting the disposition of a righteous God to extract water miraculously from the rock, to supply the wants of a murmuring generation; that he should strike the rock a second time, rather from indignation against the rebels, than from distrust of God in whom compassions flow. These undoubtedly are blemishes, nay, offences which God might punish with death, were he strict to mark iniquity; but, when human infirmity is taken into the account, they are faults that excite pity rather than indignation. "Should any part of the eulogium we have pronounced on Moses seem exaggerated, we shall add, to all the honourable traits under which we have represented him, one infinitely more glorious still, traced by the hand of God himself, who best knows how to appreciate merit and distribute praise, and which exalts our prophet far above all human panegyric: There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face: in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to de Exod. xxxiii. 15. 18. in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel." age the one hundred and twentieth. Before his death, he uttered a clear and distinct prediction of the Messiah, which, in "the fulness of time," was exactly accomplished; and he appeared in person on mount Tabor to lay This truly great man died in the year of all his glory and honour at the feet of the the world two thousand five hundred and Saviour of the world. We shall have finished fifty-three; and before the birth of Jesus our plan, after we have suggested a few reChrist one thousand four hundred and fifty- flections on this prediction of Moses, and on one; eight hundred and ninety-seven years this his appearance, in company with Elias, after the flood; and before the building of to do homage to the Son of God,—" the Solomon's temple four hundred and forty; in Author and Finisher of our faith." To Him the fortieth year from the Exodus, or depar-"be glory and dominion for ever and ever. ture of Israel from Egypt; and of his own Amen." HISTORY OF MOSES. LECTURE LXXXIV. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken. According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.-DEUTERONOMY XVIIL 15-18. ACTS iii. 22. In the frame and course of nature, who does not perceive evident marks of wisdom in design, order in execution, energy in operation? All is plan, system, harmony. Every thing bespeaks a Being provident, omnipotent, unremittingly attentive: whose works, indeed, infinitely exceed our comprehension; but which by their beauty, simplicity, and usefulness, fill the mind with wonder and delight, while their variety, lustre, magnificence, and immensity astonish and overwhelm. The government of the world, it is equally evident, is the result of contrivance; it evinces a constant, superintending care. Event arises out of event, link runs into link. What to the first glance appeared an assemblage of scattered fragments, is found on a more careful and attentive inspection, to be a regular, beautiful, well proportioned fabric, a "body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part." It must be pleasing to every serious mind to observe in the work of redemption a similar uniformity of design, progress, and execution. We find patriarchs, prophets, apostles remote from, unknown to one another, at different ages, in different regions, declaring the same purpose, promoting the same plan, aiming at the same end. This affords a presumption, at least, that he who made, upholds, and governs the universe, is likewise the Author of salvation; in all whose works and ways a noble and important end is obviously kept in view; and that end pursued and attained by means the wisest and the best. The Mosaic and Christian are not separate, unconnected, independent dispensations, but corresponding and harmonious members of the same great building of God. Nature and grace have one source, one date; they proceed in a parallel direction, they are hastening to one common consummation. Or to speak more properly, the system of external nature and the scheme of redemption are the well-adjusted, the harmonized parts of the one great plan of eternal Providence, which contains the whole purpose of the glorious CREATOR concerning man-his first formation, his present state and character, and his final destination. Turn up the inspired volume at whatever page you will, and you have a person, or an event, or a service, or a prediction unfolding, in one form or another, the merciful "purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory." Transport yourself in thought to whatever period of the world you will, and you still find the gospel preached; whether in the sacrifice of righteous Abel, the translation of Enoch, the ark of Noah, the promise made to Abraham, the predictions of dying Jacob; from the seat of Moses, the throne of David, the dungeon of Jeremiah. They all speak an uniform language, all give witness to the same person, all disclose their own peculiar portion of the gospel treasure, for the illumination of an ignorant, the reformation of a corrupted, the salvation of a perishing world. The writings of Moses exhibit a singular display of this grand combined plan. He traces nature up to her birth, and instructs us "how the heavens and earth rose out of chaos." He conducts us through the mazes of the moral government of the Great Supreme, and there too unfolds wild uproar reduced to order, and "the wrath of man working the righteousness of God." He draws aside the curtains of the night, and "the dayspring from on high" dawns on fallen humanity. He attends us through the morning of that bright day, and, constrained at length to retire, leaves behind him the assurance, that "the fulness of the time" would come, that "the morning light" would advance with growing splendour unto "the perfect day." He presents to our astonished eyes the vast, the complicated, the beautiful machine; wheel within wheel put in motion, preserving from age to age its steady majestic tenor, with native, unwearied, undiminished, force; referring us still to its divine AUTHOR, who made and upholds all "by the word of his power," and for whose " "pleasure they are and were created." Moses not only in what he wrote, but in what he was and acted, illustriously displayed the grace of God in the redemption of the world. Not only did he write and testify concerning the great Deliverer, but his person, his character, his offices, were a prefiguration of "Him who was to come," and to whom "all the prophets give witness." The prediction which has been read, and the pointed application made of it by the apostles to their divine Master, constitute the proof of what we have just advanced. Moses, under the direction of the spirit of prophecy, raises the expectation of mankind to the appearance of a prophet, like, indeed, but far superior to himself; and the apostles point with the finger to Jesus of Nazareth, saying, "We have found him of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write." A limited creature, of threescore years and ten, is lost in the contemplation of a period of fifteen hundred and eleven years, for such was the distance of this prophecy from its accomplishment. The shortlived creature loses sight of it, feels his interest in it but small, is at little pains to transmit the knowledge of it to those who shall come after him; the next generation it is neglected, overlooked, forgotten; or, if observed and recollected, is misunderstood, misapplied. But during every instant of the extended period, the eternal eye has been watching over it; in solemn silence attending its progress, triumphing over both neglect and opposition; and a slumbering world is roused at length to see and to acknowledge the truth and faithfulness, the power, wisdom, and grace of the Most High. The day of Moses then, in the eye of God, runs down to that of Christ; as his, in return, ascends to the earliest of the promises and predictions, illuminating, quickening, confirming, fulfilling all that is written. Placed at whatever point of the system of nature, whether on our own planet or on any other, to the north, or to the south, in summer, or winter, the eye is still attracted to the common centre of all, the great" Light of the world." In like manner, at whatever distance we are placed, and in whatever direction we contemplate the system which redeeming love has framed, from under the shade of the tree of life in Eden, from the summit of Ararat, Moriah, or Pisgah, in the plain of Mamre, or from a pinnacle of the temple; with Abraham, viewing the Saviour and his day afar off, or with Simeon embracing him, the same "Sun of righteousness" sheds his glory around us; we see the light, we feel the influence of him who quickeneth and enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. As we find Moses plainly and unequivocally referring men to Christ, so the Saviour as explicitly refers to Moses for a testimony concerning himself; thereby plainly insinuating, that if the Jewish prophet deserved any credit, possessed any respectability, this credit, this respectability were ministering servants to the dignity of his own person, the sacredness of his character, the divinity of his mission. And this is accompanied with a severe denunciation of judgment against such as admitted the authority of Moses, but rejected that of Christ; to introduce, recommend, and confirm which was the end for which Moses was raised up. "Do not think I will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye-trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" This reciprocal testimony, therefore, of the founders of the ancient and new economy, throws light on both, and communicates mutual credibility and importance. Moses satisfies himself with simply delivering the prediction which he had in charge; he forms no plan, enters into no arrangement to bring it into effect, but leaves to Providence the care of leading forward to the accomplishment, in the proper time and method. Christ simply points to what was written, and was generally known, received, and respected as a revelation from heaven, and requires to be believed and obeyed no farther than he bore the characters under which Moses had announced him; particularly that of "the great Prophet which should come into the world." The proper character of a prophet is to communicate the special will of Heaven to men. God, indeed, writes his will on the mind of every man, as he comes into the world; interweaves it with the very constitution and frame of his being, so that, in truth, every man is a law, is a prophet to himself. But the characters are quickly erased, effaced; education, example, superstition, vicious propensities, obliterate the writing of God; habit and the commerce of the world harden the heart, and lull the conscience asleep, and "the hearts of men are set in them to do evil." Hence the necessity of a prophet, of a messenger, of a minister from heaven, to republish the original law, to restore the obliterated characters, to call men back to God from whom they have revolted. foundation, and it standeth sure, and the building rises; "he willeth, and none can let it." "God made man upright;" and to maintain or restore that uprightness is his great aim and end, under every dispensation of his providence, under the law and the gospel, by Moses and by Christ. A prophet must have the necessary qualifications for his office, must be instructed in the mind of God, be filled with zeal for his glory, be animated with ardent love to mankind, be fortified against the assaults and opposition of ignorance, and prejudice, and envy. And such an one was Moses, "whom the Lord knew face to face," with whom he conversed as a man with his friend; his zeal was inextinguishable; for the good of Israel he was ready to make the sacrifice of self; his meekness was unruffled, his patience not to be subdued, his perseverance indefatigable, his resolution undaunted. How much more eminently conspicuous were these characters of a prophet, in the great "Author and Finisher of the Christian faith?" The only begotten Son who is "in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him;" "the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." "I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." "The cup which my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?" "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.* 66 And such an one was Moses; raised up of God at a period of singular darkness and depravity, divinely commissioned to promulgate the royal law. Not to settle a different, a novel constitution, not to new-model human nature, but to revive and enforce the primitive constitution, to proclaim in the ear what Moses conversed forty days with God in nature whispered from the beginning, to the mount; but thus saith uncreated Wishang up the conspicuous tablet before the dom, "The Lord possessed me in the begineye, whose contents are the exact counter-ning of his way, before his works of old: I part of what the finger of God, in the very was set up from everlasting, from the beginformation of man, engraved on "the living ning or ever the earth was;" "before Abratables of the heart." And when Christ came, ham was, I am." In the beginning was the the Prophet after his similitude, was it not Word, and the Word was with God, and the in like manner to rebuild what was broken Word was God. The same was in the bedown, not to rear a totally different edifice? ginning with God. All things were made by to magnify the law and make it honourable, him; and without him was not any thing to clear it from misinterpretation and perver- made that was made. In him was life, and sion, to restore it to its native purity and the life was the light of men." simplicity, and to extract the spirit out of the letter? "Think not," says he, "that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."* This confirms the observation we have been all along endeavouring to inculcate respecting the uniformity and perseverance of the divine procedure. Men start from purpose to purpose, from pursuit to pursuit; they lose sight, they tire of their object; they waste their strength, they are discouraged by opposition, they began to build before they counted the cost. But "known to God are all his works from the beginning." He forms his plan, and undeviatingly pursues it. "I am the Lord, I change not." He lays his * Matt. v. 17, 18. The spirit of Moses was sometimes stirred within him; he dashed the tables of the law to the ground, "he spake unadvisedly with his lips;" he incurred the displeasure of his heavenly Father, he drew down a sentence of just condemnation upon his head; but the spirit of the Christian Leader was in no one instance discomposed. "He did no sin, neither was guile found in his lips." He suffered indeed and died, but it was without a crime, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God." Moses expressed a willingness to be blotted out of God's book, to be deprived of his personal right as a son of Israel, provided Israel might receive the remission of sin, have their rights preserved, and the covenant of promise be confirmed. But Christ became "a curse for us," was "hanged on a tree," was cut off from the ↑ John .. 1. 4. Matt. iii. 17. |