Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest 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." Thus said Moses; and lo, continues the history, "the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people." As soon as the great lawgiver became certain that Israel was not to be destroyed, he descended from Mount Sinai, with the tables of the law in his hands, in order to convince himself with his own eyes of the terrible sin of his people. But when he approached the camp, and heard from a distance the disgusting shouts and revelry, and the noise of the dancing round the golden calf, it seemed as though he now comprehended all for the first time. His anger waxed hot, and in his zeal he hurled from him the tables of the law, so that they broke into a thousand pieces. Then, full of holy indignation, he rushed into the midst of the insane multitude-took the calf-ground it to powder-and summoning the sons of Levi around him with the cry, "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me!" commanded them to gird on their swords, fall without mercy on the madmen, and slay them. Three thousand men fell on that day by the avenging swords of the sons of Levi, a sacrifice to their own guilt, and a bloody monument of the justice and fiery indignation of Jehovah. Then said Moses unto the people, "Ye have sinned a great sin and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin." He now reascended the mountain, and once more addressing the Lord, uttered here the well-known and ever-memorable words, "Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.' Alas! this ardent prayer was answered with a poor consolation. The Lord said unto Moses, "Whoso

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ever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee. Behold, mine angel shall go before thee; nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." Moses had not expected this answer :—the punishment had only been deferred, and not remitted; and an angel had been promised to guide them instead of Jehovah himself. This was again repeated to him shortly after, and in a manner still more explicit. The Lord said unto Moses, (who now stood for the children of Israel,) "I will send an angel before thee . . . for I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people; lest I consume thee in the way."

These things had just happened to Moses at the moment when our history commences. Can you wonder now that we should find his mind in a state which more resembles a stormy night upon a raging sea than the calm serenity of a mild spring morning? No, he is not yet composed; his soul is still disquieted within him; and although he once more addresses God in prayer, it seems as if he never before had stood in the presence of Jehovah in a state of such oppression and anguish. "See!" he cries in the bitterness of his heart, "thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me!" As he begins to pray, let us remark what a change rapidly comes over him. A dark thunder-cloud threatens us with destruction-when suddenly a mighty storm arises to drive it away; and it seems as though we never beheld the heaven above us shine upon our heads more beautifully or more benignantly than at this moment. That which took place in the soul of Moses was exactly similar.. A miraculous star rose up during the night which oppressed his heart; a star whose plendour chased the darkness away. A thousand recol

lections sprang up out of the tempestuous waves of his spirit, in whose soft harmony the discord of his soul died away and was no longer heard. Like David afterwards, who thought during the night upon the music of his harp, he now called to mind by-gone songs of joy. The most beautiful and the most happy moments of his life arrayed themselves in fresh colours before the eyes of his soul. He remembered in what a near relation he stood to his God, and his God to him; and along with this remembrance there arose up within him a light, a freedom, and a joy, against which no sorrow and no grief could have power.

Jehovah had formerly said to him, "I know thee by name!" And as the olive branch had been carried by the dove to Noah, so these words at a happy hour were borne to Moses on the wings of memory. Well did he know all that they comprehended-a salutation of love out of the mouth of God-the affection of a father's heart. It was as much as to say, "Thou art one chosen out of a thousand, protected by my power and cherished by my grace." Yet it said much more than this, for God's words always contain worlds of signification. They resemble the deep and inscrutable heaven of night, which the farther it extends, is the more richly strewed with stars; and the deeper the gaze penetrates, the longer is the eye fixed in astonishment. On another occasion, Jehovah had said to Moses, "Thou hast also found grace in my sight!" And was not this expression like a heavenly archive to the prophet, filled with the most blessed documents? In it there lay the handwriting of God, corroborating his right of citizenship in heaven-an assurance of eternal life, which no gold could purchase-a record of the pardon of his sins, before which all accusers must become dumb-a bond of peace and a passport on the road to his Father's house, against which no hindrance could avail. But who is able to

express all that lay contained in it! The two sentences, "I know thee by name," and "Thou hast also found grace in my sight," were as if God had bequeathed to him the whole tenderness of his heart. They arose in the midst of the darkness of his soul, like two angels of peace with balm-branches in their hands; upon which all sorrow and grief disappeared, and the dark oppression which had weighed down his bosom gave place to the most childlike confidence and the most joyful hope.

How happy should we be, my brethren, if at any time of our life's pilgrimage such sentences of God should be addressed to us! It might happen that those assurances of grace with which we are greeted from the lips of God himself should disappear for a time, enveloped in the clouds of doubt and unbelief; but at the right hour they would shine forth in our hearts with benignant lustre, like the bright constellations of heaven; and ere we were aware, restored to all their former beauty, be to us every thing of which in our peculiar circumstances we had need :-torches shining during the night-the sound of heavenly harps in the vale of tears-rocks under our feet supporting us in the deep sea-and secure and beautifully garlanded barks of deliverance coming through the stormy breakers to the aid of our shipwrecked souls. To have those divine words, spoken by the lips of Him who is unchangeable, preserved in the casket of our hearts, is indeed a treasure! Guard it carefully, thou who hast it! and though thy house may be in flames, let it burn; only save this precious document!

II. Moses prays. How joyfully do his words now sound; and what blissful confidence in the friendship and love of God do they express! Listen to the words of his prayer. "See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt

send with me; yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight; and consider that this nation is thy people!" Excellent prayer, and most worthy of imitation! Thus man must hold God to his word, and rest firmly and unweariedly on his promises of mercy. Hereby he only gives him the honour which belongs to him as a God of truth; and such a child-like and holy confidence will never meet with refusal. But what is it that Moses most especially desires in this request? He says, "Thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me." Has not God let him know it? Has he not three successive times said unto him, that he would send his angel to guide him in his journey over the desert? Certainly he had done so; but the idea of this angel seems to have passed through the prophet's mind without finding a resting-place. "What angel?" thought Moses. An angel was not what he had expected: another guide was in his heart and wishes; and this other was Christ-Christ the Son of the living God himself!

We are now at the third period of the kingdom of God; in the days of the Law,-when we behold the promised Mediator reflected as in a mirror in the faith and desire of a sinner, and comprehended in the most vivid manner by the human mind. The star of Jacob now shines so brightly in the heaven of revelation, that even the eye dimmed with tears and weeping for salvation can clearly discern it. The Bible as yet was small, and in a narrow compass; but not the less numerous and frequent were the lights which it scattered to illuminate the darkness in which the sinner's life was enveloped. Already it contained the promise, that the woman's seed should bruise