-Iijii!i!|l!l, 
 
 ■I 
 
 11 
 
 
Section.iVrvJ.i I 
 No, 
 
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SABBATH MOENING READINGS 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
SABBATH MORNING READINGS 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 r,EV. JOHN' CUMMISG, D.D., F.R.S.E., 
 
 MINISTER OF THE SCOTTISU NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COURT, COVEXT GARDEN, LONDON 
 
 BOOK OF EXODUS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 
 
 CLEVELAND, OHIO: 
 
 JEWETT, PROCTOR, AND WORTUINGTON. 
 
 NEW YORK : SHELDON, LAMPORT AND BLAKEMAN. 
 
 1854. 
 
CAiM bridge: 
 
 ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTTPERS AXD PRINTERS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This Volume consists of expositions of the second 
 book of the Pentateuch — the Book of Exodus. It 
 elucidates customs and explains difficulties, if not 
 with learning, at least with simplicity and clearness. 
 It goes over ground consecrated by stupendous man- 
 ifestations of the presence and glory of God, and 
 records the sins and sufferings — the waywardness 
 and unbelief — of a people more favored than any. 
 
 But it is not a dry statement of the past. It is 
 full of practical and instructive applications to us, 
 on whom the ends of the age have come. " All 
 these things," says an apostle, " happened unto 
 them for ensamples, and they are written for our 
 admonition." 
 
 The Jew has in reserve for him a yet more majes- 
 tic Exodus. We, the Gentiles, are now in our 
 desert and accomplishing ours. May we reach the 
 true Canaan, the heavenly rest — the New Jerusa- 
 lem! ■ 
 
Tl rilKFACE. 
 
 As in the Readings on Leviticus, which will fol- 
 low this Volume, many very deeply interesting rites 
 and ceremonies occur, replete with evangelical truth, 
 for which I cannot find room, I propose, if spared, 
 during 1854, to issue, for those who choose to have 
 it, a small, cheap, occasional volume, to be called 
 " A Companion to the Sabbath Morning Read- 
 ings ON THE Old Testament," which will contain 
 special illustrations of important passages in Le- 
 viticus. 
 
 May it please God to make these Readings helps 
 to us, to " read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest " 
 his own precious Word. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The periods specified in this Book, are, from the Death of Jo- 
 seph to the Birth of JMoses years 60 
 
 From Bii-tli of ]\Ioses to Departure from Egypt . . . " 81 
 From Departm-e to Erection of Tabernacle . . . . " 1 
 
 " 142 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Bii-th of Moses — A Mother's care — The Ark — The Sister Sentinel — 
 Pharaoh's Daughter finds Moses — His Mother is appointed his 
 Nxu-se — His Sympathy with his own Oppressed People — His In- 
 terference — The Well at Midian — His Wedding . ... 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Burning Bush — The Lord Jesus in it — God's Sympathy with 
 Sulferers — Character of Palestine — Borrowing Jewels . . 22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Mission of Moses — His Hesitation — God's Condescending Assur- 
 ance — Instances of Divine Power — Miracles, Keal and Romish — 
 Pharaoh's Heart 30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Security of Pharaoh — Interview of Moses and Aaron with Pharaoh 
 — Royal Discourtesy — IMildncss of Moses and Aaron — Royal 
 Tyranny — Severity of Lnbnr — Disappointment of Mopos . . 38 
 
VUl CONTEXTS. 
 
 ClIArXEll VI. 
 
 The Division of tlie Bible into Chapters — The Doubts and Fears of 
 Moses — God's Condescending Love — Jehovah — God's Covenant 
 — Moses still Doubts 45 
 
 The King tliat knew not Joseph: or, The Christian in the World . 50 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Gifts — The Mission of Moses and Aaron — Hardening of Pharaoh's 
 Heart — Miracles and Marvels — Rod turned into a Serpent — 
 Water into Blood 61 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Pharaoh a Type — God's Doings — Nile for Seven Days is Blood — 
 The Plague of Frogs — Eg3'ptian Ovens — Efforts of Magicians — 
 Sin and its Penalties inseparable — Swarm of Gnats and Beetles — 
 Pharaoh's Relenting — Lesson 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Reason for God's Dealing — A Precedent — Gou's Reverence to the 
 Constitution of his Creatures — Plague on Cattle — Animal Suflfer- 
 ijig — Plague of Bodily Disease — Plague of Hail . . .75 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Pharaoh's Heart still hardened — Another Appeal to Pharaoh — The 
 Confession of Pharaoh — The Locust Plague — The Plague of 
 Darkness — Pharaoh's Terms 87 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Explanations — The Prophecy of the Last Plague — The Failure of 
 all in softening the Heart of Pharaoh 93 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Pharaoh relents — Children sufter ibr Parents a Fact in History — 
 Transubstantiation — The Sacrifice and feast — Training and 
 Teaching Children — Borrowing Jewels .... 100 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Great Exodus — Numbers of the Emigrants — The mh-aculous 
 Nature of the Exodus — The First-born — Unleavened Bread — 
 Written Texts — God's Discipline — Joseph's Bones ". . . 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Eoute out of Egypt — The Red Sea — Despair of the Israelites — 
 Heroism — Slavery — Moses prays — God replies — Pillar of Fire 
 — Shechan — The Dividing of the Sea — Destruction of Pharaoh . 116 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Song of ]\Ioses — j\Iurmuring — The Bitter Water — The Branch . 124 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Murmuring for Bread — God's Mercy and Goodness — Meaning of 
 Manna — PecuHarities in the Miracles — The Sabbath . . 130 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Nearest Way — Murmuring — Thirst — Divine Goodness — The 
 Rock — Rephidim — War, Prayer, and Battle — The Glory of the 
 Victory 137 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 This Chapter an Episode — Early Courtesy and Hospitality — Jethro's 
 Good Advice — The Cabinet of Moses 144 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Law Expressed not Created on Sinai — St. Paul's Commentary 
 — Descriptions of Sinai 148 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 The Law of God 158 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Slaves and Masters — Reason of Toleration of Slaver}^ — Lex Taliouis 165 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Judicial Laws — Ancient Money — Buvglury — Trespasses — Lawsuits 
 -^Strangers — MoncA'-lending — OlFences against Magistrates . 171 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 Laws against Calumny — Excessive Deference to Autliority — Ju- 
 dicial Kules — Festivals — 'fixe AngelJehovah .... 177 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Moses goes up to God — Value of a Written Word — Responsibility — 
 Tlie Sight of God— Our Privileged Place 184 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Tabernacle — Its Use and Design — Its Minutice not meaningless 
 — Analogies — Places of Worship — Ecclesiastical Politics — Exclu- 
 siveuess 189 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Keasons for Minute Mechanical Specifications — Analogies between 
 God's Work and Word — Epistle to the Hebrews — The Vail — The 
 Holy of Holies 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Reasons of so Minute Regulations — Separation of Israelites . . 212 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Insulation of the Jews — Every Part of Tabernacle its Use — Christ 
 the End of all — Romish Ecclesiastical Dresses — Simplicity — 
 Meaning of "Holy" — High-Priost's Precious Stones — Urim and 
 Tliummim — Pomegranates 216 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 No New Testament Leviticus — Apostolical Succession — OfTerings 
 for the Priests — Return of the Jews 225 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Levitical and Evangelical Worship — Golden Altar — Angel by the 
 Golden Altar — Atonement for Golden Altar — Washings — Holy 
 Oil— All Nature Tainted 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Recapitulation — Persons Inspired to execute the Divine Plan — Gifts 
 and Graces not always united — Education — Secular Teaching in 
 India — The Sabbath and Sanctuary Work — Sabbath and Crystal 
 Palace 239 
 
 Tabernacle Furniture 246 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Moses tarries in the Mount — The Israelites seek an Image of God 
 — Aaron's Proposal — The Golden Calf — Images and Idols — 
 Drunkenness and Pagan Rites — Language — Repentance — God's 
 Finger — Broken Tablet — Aai'on's Apology — Punishment . . 264 
 
 CHAPTER XXXm. 
 
 Moses' Prayer — God's Glory — Heaven — The Growing Revelation 
 of it — Glorv is Goodness — How God is Glorified . . . 274 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Moses prepares New Stones — God's Apocalypse on the Mount — 
 Moses prays — The Extermination of the Canaanites — The Expul- 
 sion of Romanism — Sabbath in Harvest — Fasting — Protestantism 
 and Popery 280 
 
 Saving Name — Moral Glory — Howard and Byron — Each Attribute — 
 Solution of Sinners' Difficulties 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 The Tabernacle — The Sabbath — Voluntary Offerings — Alms in 
 , Kind and in Currency — Self-love and Selfishness — Zeal and De- 
 votedness 302 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. , 
 
 Prescriptions carried out — Reasons for Minute Specifications — Liber- 
 aUty of the People — Restraint necessary — God's Wisdom given 
 to Builders 308 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Reasons of Records of Minute Works — Tabernacle Furniture — Tlie 
 Ark. — The Mercy-seat — The Shechinah — Earth related to other 
 Orbs — Church of Christ not tied for ever to a Land — Candlestick 
 — Christ the High-Priest in the H0I3' of Holies — Skill of Israelites 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Continuation of Inventory of the Tabernacle — Wealth of the Israel- 
 ites — Looking-glasses 316 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Details of the Building of the Tabernacle 320 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Close of Exodus — Scriptural Forms — Romish Rites suppose the 
 Kew Testament not Written — Altars — Oils — Holy Water — Type 
 of a Protestant Church . . . ■ . 322 
 
 The Shechinah 328 
 
 The Vailed Prophet: or the Glory Dimmed 347 
 
SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 CHAP TEE I. 
 
 THE PERIODS SPECiriED IN THIS BOOK ARE, FROM THE 
 
 DEATH OF JOSEPH TO THE BIRTH OF MOSES . TEARS 60 
 
 TROM BIRTH OF 3IOSES TO DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT " 81 
 
 FROM DEPARTURE TO ERECTION OF TABERNACLE . " 1 
 
 142 
 
 This is the second book of those five that constitute what 
 is usually called in theological language, the Pentateuch, or 
 the five Books of Moses. The word " Pentateuch," is de- 
 rived" from the Greek, and means five works or compositions. 
 These five are the books that we are now reading, namely, 
 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. 
 Exodus is the second. Its name in the Hebrew is not that 
 which we usually give it. You are aware that most ancient 
 books, especially of the date of the books of the Pentateuch, 
 are called after the first words of the book. For instance, 
 the Book of Genesis is called by every Jew to this day, and 
 was called by the Jews previous to the birth of our Lord, 
 Bereshith Bara, — that is, " In the beginning he created ; " 
 because the first words of the book are Bereshith Barah 
 Elohim, etc. " In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth; "'and thus, the initial sentence is the techni- 
 
 1 
 
2 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 cal title of the book. So now, the Book of Exodus begins, 
 " Now these are the names." The Hebrew for this is, 
 Weeleh vShemoth, and this book, therefore, whieh we call 
 " Exodus," is called by every Jew, These are the Names. 
 But the name " Genesis " was given to the first book by 
 what are called the Septuagint translators, who were ac- 
 complished scholars, appointed by Ptolemy about three 
 hundred years before Christ, to translate the Old Testament 
 for the use of Hellenistic Jews scattered throughout the 
 whole of Egypt. The name " Exodus " denotes " the going 
 forth," as " Genesis " denotes " generation," or " creation," 
 and '' Deuteronomy," " the other Law," or the second edition 
 of the Law. The names, therefore, given to the Pentateuch 
 are comparatively modern, that is, they were given about 
 three hundred years before the birth of our Lord ; but they 
 are still retained as being sufficiently expressive of the 
 meaning and the contents of each book. 
 
 This book Exodus is a description of the increased multi- 
 plication of the children of Israel, of the attempt of the 
 Egyptians to crush them, and of the result of that attempt 
 in their majestic exodus from Egypt to Canaan their prom- 
 ised land. 
 
 In the beginning of the book all the different names of 
 the tribes are given ; and it is said, " All the souls that came 
 from Jacob were seventy souls." Now, it may give some 
 illustration of the rapid increase of the Israelites, when we 
 state that when they inarched out of Egypt there were six 
 liundivd thousand men capable of bearing arms, besides the 
 accompaniments of women and children. How very sad 
 does that verse read, " And Joseph died, and all his breth- 
 ren ! " All their envies, quarrels, misconceptions, fears, love, 
 all perished in the sepulchre ; and their souls emerged from 
 their earthly tenements into the presence of God and of the 
 Lamb. Joseph, the good, noble, and excellent, died. Reu- 
 ben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, died. Their bodies went the 
 
EXODUS T. 3 
 
 way of all the earth, and tlieir souls went the way of all 
 spirits. And so we, too, must die. 
 
 We then read that as tlie eliildren of Israel inereased, 
 " there arose up a new king over Egypt, whieh knew not 
 Joseph." The expression, " knew not Joseph," is a llehrew 
 one, and denotes, " approved not of Joseph." For instance, 
 in the first Psalm we read, " The Lord knoweth the way of 
 the righteous ; " that is, he approves of it. And again, 
 " The world knoweth us not ; " that is, doth not approve of 
 us. And it is not said, " another king," but " a new king," 
 and evidently implies that a new dynasty then took pos- 
 session of the throne, and exereised jurisdiction over the 
 land of Egypt ; and this new dynasty, having received no 
 special blessing from Joseph, was ungrateful for the bless- 
 ings that he bestowed upon a previous dynasty, and perse- 
 cuted the descendants of him whom the former kings of 
 Egypt felt it alike their privilege and their duty to patron- 
 ize and to honor. 
 
 Now this new dynasty was evidently afraid of the growth 
 of a powerful people in the midst of them — a sort of im- 
 ■periuni in imperio ; and although, if the Jews were what 
 they should be, they could have had no evil designs against 
 the reigning power, yet the Egyptians, evil, and ever think- 
 ing evil, said, " Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest 
 they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out 
 any war, they join also unto our enemies, and tight against 
 us, and so get them up out of the land." Hy{)Othetical of- 
 fences have generally been the ground of the persecution of 
 the people of God. It has rarely been for a crime proved, 
 but generally for a crime possible. And this dynasty, in the 
 exercise of what it thought a very far reaching diplomacy, 
 but really a very wild and foolish hallucination, determined 
 to persecute, and gradually crush, the children of Israel. 
 The result proved that the wisdom of man is folly Avith 
 God. Whatever is undertaken that has no sanction from 
 
4 SCRirXURE READINGS. 
 
 God, never will have any real or permanent success before 
 men. All success is temporary and "worthless which is not 
 the product of enlightened princij)le, pure motives, and 
 noble aims and objects. Therefore, whether it be dynasties 
 in power, or rulers in a land, or whatever it be, let us always 
 be sure that we are doing the right thing, in the right way, 
 from right motives and for right ends ; and then God, our 
 own God, shall bless us. But attempt any thing, however 
 wise it looks, or talented it appears, yet if it be not inspired 
 by principle, it is a rope of sand — it has no cohesion — it 
 must fall to pieces. Let us, therefore, ever feel that we 
 never can do wisely, unless we do well, and that the highest 
 principle is ever the purest and best policy. The dynasty 
 that succeeded the ancient Pharaoh did not know this. 
 They thought they could extirpate God's people. They 
 might as well have tried to extirpate the sun from the fir- 
 mament, or the fruits and trees of the earth ; for the ever- 
 lasting arms are around all them that love and fear God ; 
 and they are an immortal people who are the sons and 
 daughters of the Most High. The Egyptians found here 
 that the more they afflicted them, the more they mul- 
 tiplied. They were like the burning bush, for the more 
 it blazed, the more it shot forth its branches : it was inde- 
 structible. 
 
 They resolved on a cruel plan, by forcing female loving- 
 kindness into cruelty against the Israelites' very existence, 
 and endeavoring to extirpate them by fraud and the most 
 infamous and profligate means, since they dared not pub- 
 licly assail and attack them. 
 
 In verse IG, the Hebrew word translated "stool," is prop- 
 erly a trough — a vessel of stone for holding water. "" See 
 them " is, " see the children," not the mothers ; and the real 
 meaning is — When ye see the new-born children laid in 
 vessels of water for the purpose of being washed, ye shall 
 destroy the boys. The midvvives did not drown the Hebrew 
 •boys : they feared God, and so God honored them. 
 
EXODUS I. 5 
 
 But before the Egyptians did this, it is said, " They made 
 their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick." 
 Now it has been objected to this, that if the pyramids, as 
 some have supposed, were the production of the chihh-en of 
 Israel in their bondage, as they are not built of brick, this 
 statement cannot be correct. But the Pyramid of Fayoum 
 is built of brick ; and thus, whilst all the pyramids may not 
 have been the production of the children of Israel, some of 
 them may have been so. But it is singular that on the 
 Egyptian monuments there have been discovered portraits 
 with peculiar hieroglyphic characters, showing strangers or 
 foreigners, proved to be so because they wore beards, dig- 
 ging clay and making bricks ; and Egyptians, evidently so, 
 because they have no beards, standing over them with rods 
 and whips, lasliing them when disobedient ; and the impres- 
 sion has been produced by these remains of other days, that 
 they are bond fide Egyptian records, referring historically 
 to the very fact recorded in the 14th verse, that "they made 
 their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, 
 and in all manner of service in the field." It is most strik- 
 ing to see how, as antiquity is examined and explored more 
 and more, fresh light is cast upon the sacred page, and new 
 confirmatory proofs of its truth are discovered. It has also 
 been ascertained, although this matter is more disputed, that 
 there are evidences on Egyptian monuments of a new dy- 
 nasty being introduced into Egypt, just at the very period 
 alluded to in this chapter, when it is said, " There arose up 
 a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." These 
 are interesting facts ; and it is evident to us that, by and by, 
 the infidel and the sceptic will have scarcely a single argu- 
 ment to wield. He has now but very few and very feeble 
 ones ; but he makes the most of what he has ; but as the day 
 advances, as science makes progress, as evidences come round, 
 as discoveries are made, as ancient remains are ransacked, 
 there will grow more and more the irresistible and conclu- 
 1* 
 
6 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 sive proof that tliis Book is what we Christians, in onr 
 hearts and consciences and firmest reasoning believe it to 
 be — God's inspired and holy Word. 
 
 Josephus speaks thus of the period of Jewish history 
 referred to in this chapter : " Having, in length of time, for- 
 gotten the benefits they had received from Joseph, particu- 
 larly the crown having come unto another family, they be- 
 came very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many 
 ways of afflicting them, for they enjoined them to cut a 
 great many channels for the river, and to build walls for 
 their cities. They set them also to build pyramids, and by 
 this means wore them out." 
 
 How lowly are the beginnings of the Church of Christ! 
 
 How easily does God make the place of the persecutio'h 
 of his sons a nursery of their graces ! 
 
 The following interesting remarks are, I think, worth 
 extracting, from Dr. Hawk's " Egypt and its Monu- 
 ments : " — 
 
 " After the death of Joseph, sixty-five years elapsed 
 before the birth of Moses, according to the chronology of 
 Dr. Hales. The author of the Pentateuch distinctly informs 
 us, that, during this interval, all the sons of Jacob and the 
 men of their generation, had died ; and, toward the latter 
 part of the interval above named, the fact meets us that 
 ' there arose up a new king over Er/ypt, ivhich knew not 
 Joseph.' This is a particular of Egyptian history, in the 
 explanation of which confusion has arisen, from the fabrica- 
 tion of the pretended Manetho about the leprous Israelites 
 under Moses, and their recall of the shepherd kings, to 
 which we have already adverted. Some have thought that 
 the monarch of this new dynasty was the first sovereign 
 furnished on the reintrusion of the i)astoral invaders. In 
 opposition to this opinion, we are met by the fact that these 
 shepherds are represented by Manetho (the only authority 
 
EXODUS I. 7 
 
 for the return of the shepherds at all), as coming back on 
 the invitation of the Israelites ; the shepherds, therefore, 
 were not likely to become their oppressors. But further, 
 according to Manetho, the Israelites were not oppressed 
 during this su|)posed second period of pastoral sway, but, in 
 conjunction v/ith the shepherds, were themselves the op- 
 pressors. Tiie document of Manetho on this subject, there- 
 fore, can only be made intelligible by interpreting it to 
 mean exactly the contrary of what it says, and, of course, is 
 not entitled to the least respect as historical authority. We 
 therefore reject as spurious the whole paragraph from Man- 
 etlio, giving tlie story of the return of the shepherds on the 
 invitation of ' the lepers.' 
 
 "As far as our investigations have enabled us to discover, 
 the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt began to reign about sixty 
 years after Joseph's death, and the first king was Thothmes, 
 T'ethmosis or Amosis, or Ames or Amos, ibr in all these 
 various modes it has been written. The chronological coin- 
 cidence would, therefore, suggest that he was the king who 
 ' knew not Joseph.' By this expression we understand, not 
 that he was ignorant of the past history of Joseph, but that 
 he was not so deeply impressed as the last dynasty had 
 been with a sense of the services Joseph had rendered to 
 the state, and therefore not equally disposed to acknowledge 
 the claims of the Israelites upon the Egyptian government. 
 But why was this ? Because he was from the distant prov- 
 ince of Thebes, knew nothing personally of the Hebrews, 
 and, with the usual haughty arrogance of Egyptian mon- 
 archs, probably viewed them with the contempt and suspi- 
 cion that attached to foreigners, and, as we have seen, 
 especially to shepherds. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has made 
 a suggestion on this subject, well worthy of consideration. 
 He thinks that the Jews, who had come in under the press- 
 ure of a famine, had asked and obtained a grant from the 
 Egyptian authorities, on condition of the performance of 
 
8 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 certain services by them and their descendants. This is 
 rather corroborated by the fact that some of them were 
 agriculturists, while others were shepherds ; for we read 
 that, beside their labor ' in mortar and brick,' they were also 
 employed ' in all manner of service in the held ' (Ex. i. 14) ; 
 
 and, in Deuteronomy, the phrase occurs, ' Egypt where 
 
 thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it.' 
 
 " While the Memphitic dynasty lasted, Wilkinson thinks 
 this grant was respected, and nothing more was required of 
 the Hebrews than a compliance with the terms on which it 
 was made. But when the Theban family came to the 
 throne, the grant was rescinded, and the Services notwith- 
 standing required ; and thus commenced the bondage, when 
 despotism and prejudice soon found a pretext for imposing 
 additional burdens. It was pretended that the Hebrews, 
 who certainly had rapidly increased in numbers, had 
 thereby become dangerous to Egypt, particularly as they 
 lived on the side next to the Nomade tribes, with whom 
 they might make alliances; and, more especially, as they 
 were not very far distant from the descendants of the old 
 invaders, the shepherds, who had withdrawn to Palestine 
 only, and there constituted the valiant and powerful race of 
 the Philistines. 
 
 " Whether this pretext were well or ill founded, it fur- 
 nished the Egyptian monarch with sufficient grounds for 
 treating the Israelites like captives taken in war, and com- 
 pelling them gratuitously to erect ' treasure cities ' for him, 
 which they did. All we can say of this conjecture, in the 
 absence of positive proof, is that it does not violate proba- 
 bility, and is perfectly consistent with the details of the 
 Bible story. 
 
 " The next point that we have to consider, consists of the 
 details of Jewish oppression, at the hands of Egypt: 'They 
 did set over them taskmasters, to afflict them with their 
 burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, 
 
EXODUS I. 9 
 
 Pithom and Raamses.' — 'And the Egyptians made the 
 children of Israel to serve with rigor : and they made their 
 lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick, and 
 in all manner of service in the field : all their service, 
 wherein they made them serve, was with rigor.' 
 
 " I. T/iet/ set over tliem tashnasters. This is perfectly 
 Egyptian ; and exists at this day, with the single difference 
 that the Egyptians occupy the place of the oppressed, 
 instead of the oppressors. The bitter cup is returned to 
 their own lips. A modern writer states, that 'when the 
 labor of the people is required for any public work, the 
 officers of Mehemet Ali collect the whole neighborhood — 
 men, women, and children, and, dividing them into so many 
 companies or droves, ajipoint tashnasters over them. These 
 are armed with whips, which they use pretty freely, as they 
 are responsible for the completion of the work.' The mon- 
 uments show that this was precisely the custom of ancient 
 Egypt." 
 
 " III. They ivere subjected to hard bondage in mortar and 
 brick. Bricks in Egypt are of great antiquity, and, as we 
 learn from the Scripture story, were usually made with 
 straw, intermixed with clay. Thus writes Wilkinson : ' The 
 use of crude brick, baked in the sun, was universal in Upper 
 and Lower Egypt, both for public and private buildings; 
 and the brick field gave abundant occupation to numerous 
 laborers throughout the country. These simple materials 
 were found to be pecuHarly suited to the climate ; and the 
 ease, rapidity, and cheapness with which they were made, 
 offered additional recommendations. ... So great was the 
 demand, that the Egyptian government, observing the profit 
 which would accrue to the revenue from a monopoly of 
 them, undertook to supply the public at a moderate price, 
 thus preventing all unauthorized persons from engaging in 
 their manufacture. And in order more eficctually to obtain 
 their end, the seal of the king, or of some j^rivileged person, 
 
10 SCRirTURE READINGS. 
 
 was stamped npoi-i the bricks at the time they were made. 
 Bricks have been found thus marked, both in public and 
 private buildings." 
 
 "As to the use of strmi\ it is proved, by an examination 
 of the bricks brought by Rosellini from Thebes, bearing 
 the stamp of Thothmes IV., the fifth king of the eighteenth 
 dynasty. ' The bricks,' says Ro^ellini, ' which are now 
 found in Egypt belonging to the same period, always have 
 straw mingled with them, although, in some of those 
 that are most carefully made, it is found in very small 
 quantities.' Another writer, quoted by Hengstenberg, 
 Prokesch, says : ' The bricks (of the first pyramid at 
 Dashoor) are of fine clay, from the Nile, mingled with 
 chopped straw. This mtermixture gives the bricks an 
 astonishing durability.' 
 
 " In connection with this subject of brick-making in 
 Egypt, a most interesting painting was found by Rosellini, 
 at Thebes, in the tomb of Roschere. He did not hesi- 
 tate to call his comments on it, ' Explanation of a picture, 
 representing the Hebrews as they were engaged in making 
 brick.' 
 
 . " ' Of the laborers,' says he, ' some are employed in trans- 
 porting the clay in vessels ; some in intermingling it with 
 the straw ; others are taking the bricks out of the form, and 
 placing them in rows ; still others, with a piece of wood 
 upon their backs, and ro})es on each side, carry away the 
 bricks already burned or dried. Their dissimilarity to the 
 Egyptians appears at the first view ; the complexion, phys- 
 iognomy, and beard permit us not to be mistaken in sup- 
 posing them to be Hebrews. They wear at their hips the 
 apron which is common among the Egyptians ; and there is 
 also represented, as in use among them, a kind of short 
 trousers, or drawers. . . . Among the Hebrews, four Egyp- 
 tians, very distinguishable by their mein, figure, and color 
 (which is of the usual reddish brown, while the others are 
 
EXODUS I. 11 
 
 of what we call " flesli color,") are seen. Two of them — 
 one sitting, the other standing — carry sticks in their hands, 
 ready to fall upon two other Egyptians, who are here repre- 
 sented like the Hebrews, one of them carrying u[)on his 
 shoulders a vessel of clay, and the other returning from the 
 transportation of brick, carrying his empty vessel to get a 
 new load.' 
 
 " It is not surprising that this remarkable picture should 
 have attracted much attention among the students of Egyp- 
 tian antiquity. Heeren remarks of it, ' If this painting rep- 
 resents the servitude of the children of Israel in these labors, 
 it is equally important for exegesis and chronology. For 
 exegesis, because it would be a strong proof of the antiquity 
 of the Mosaic writings, and especially of the Book of Exo- 
 dus, which, in the first and fifth chapters, gives a description 
 which applies most accurately to this painting, even in un- 
 important particulars. For chronology, since it belongs to 
 the eighteenth dynasty, under the dominion of Thothmes 
 Mccris, about 1740 B.C., and therefore would give a fixed 
 point both for profane and sacred history.' 
 
 " Indeed, the striking character of this painting seems to 
 have caused an intimation, if not a positive expression, of 
 doubt as to its genuineness. The question has been asked, 
 ' Is it not probably a supposititious work, prepared after the 
 Pentateuch was written ? ' Rosellini first gave it to the 
 world ; afterward. Sir Gardner Wilkinson made a new 
 examination of it on the spot, and his acknowledged sound 
 judgment deliberately decided in its favor, as being a 
 genuine production of the eighteenth dynasty. His judg- 
 ment, it will be seen, is entitled to the more weight when 
 we add, that he is not prepared to say, the picture refers to 
 the work of the Israelites in their bondage ; but rather 
 questions it, remarking, however, ' it is curious to discover 
 other foreign captives, occupied in the same manner, over- 
 looked by similar " taskmasters," and performing the very 
 
12 SCKirTURE HEADINGS. 
 
 same labors as the Israelites described in the Bible ; and no 
 one can look at the paintings of Thebes, representing brick- 
 makers, without a feeling of the highest interest.' " 
 
 The intensely interesting nature and illustrative char- 
 acter of these extracts, justify the long quotation I have 
 given. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIKTH OF MOSES. A MOTHER'S CARE. THE ARK. THE SISTER 
 SENTINEL. PHARAOIl's DAUGHTER FINDS MOSES. HIS MOTHER 
 IS APPOINTED HIS NURSE. HIS SYMPATHY WITH HIS OAVN 
 OPPRESSED PEOPLE. HIS INTERFERENCE. THE WELL AT 
 MIDIAN. HIS WEDDING. 
 
 You will recollect the statement, recorded in the previous 
 chapter, that a law was passed by the Egyptian tyrant, that 
 every male Hebrew child should be put to death as soon as 
 born, because he feared, or pretended to fear, that, if the 
 Israelites grew up and became numerous, they would depose 
 him, and appoint a monarch, of their own race, to sit upon 
 the Egyptian throne. We now enter on the wondrous 
 biography of an individual, over whom especially were the 
 overshadowing wings of Providence, and in whom were 
 great destinies. He had an important and illustrious part 
 to play in the future history of God's ancient people, in 
 the preparation for the Messiah, and also in the establish- 
 ment of that Divine economy which made way for, and un- 
 bosomed by degrees, the gospel of Christ. 
 
 It appears in this record, that, when Moses was born, his 
 mother saw "that he was a goodly child," or, as he is called 
 by Stephen, when remonstrating and reasoning with them 
 who were about to murder him, "exceeding fair" — j]v ug- 
 teIoq rcj Gecj — that is, " beautiful before God ; " and the 
 Apostle Paul, in alluding to the same event in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, ascribes the hiding of Moses to faith, and 
 the reason that prompted his mother, Jochebed, to hide him 
 2 
 
14 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 from the assaults of Pharaoh, to some bright signature on 
 the infant's brow. We read in Hebrews xi., " By faith 
 Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his 
 parents, because they saw he was a proper child," or, as 
 rendered in the Acts of the Apostles, " exceeding fair ; '* 
 " And they were not afraid of the king's commandment.'' 
 Now, what this " fairness " can have been, it is impossible, 
 with accuracy, to say. No doubt every mother thinks her 
 own child the fairest ; but on this child there was some 
 Divine signature ; some aureole around his head ; some 
 bright evidence of a destiny before him more than human ; 
 and of a relationship that predicted something in his char- 
 acter and history greater than ordinary. And therefore, on 
 this account, as well as from maternal instinct, strong 
 enough in ordinary circumstances, she took him, and 
 resolved to hide him three months. But when the hiding 
 of him longer than three months became impossible — per- 
 haps from the searchers of Pharaoh, or perhaps from the 
 fears she entertained lest some one should inform of the cir- 
 cumstance, she made her election, and chose to trust her 
 dear babe rather to the mercy of the crocodiles, the winds, 
 and the waves, than keep him any longer within reach of 
 the cruel tyrant who then occupied the throne. Mothers of 
 England, how privileged are ye ! She therefore, with all 
 the inventiveness of maternal instinct and love, collected the 
 papyrus, which no doubt was the substance out of which the 
 ark or basket was made, and out of which boats are still 
 constructed on the Nile — and fastened its different parts 
 together with " slime," or bitumen, and lastly, the outside of 
 it she covered with pitch, to protect it from the ingress of 
 water. She then placed it, not upon the river, where it 
 would be borne with the current to the sea, but among the 
 bulrushes — that is, at some distance from the banks, but 
 not far enough to come within the current, and be carried 
 down with the stream. But not satisfied with these pre- 
 
EXODUS II. 15 
 
 cautions, she resolved to set a sentinel to watch the child, 
 probably to give the alarm sho. Jd any wild beasts approach, 
 or, still worse, should any persons, searching for male 
 infants, threaten to come near. She therefore placed the 
 sister of Moses (of course the female children were not ob- 
 noxious to Pharaoh) " afar off, to wit," or ascertain, " what 
 would be done to him." Having thus placed this sentinel, 
 whose guardian care was increased by affection, and whose 
 watchmanship was made more secure by the inspection of 
 the distant eye of the mother herself, both watched through 
 weary days and nights, till, it is said, "The daughter of 
 Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river." This is 
 not the exact description of her purpose. Her object was, 
 to perform some religious rite. The river Nile was the 
 most sacred thing in Egypt ; and most of their religious 
 rites and ceremonies were connected with the river and its 
 sacredness. Her " maidens," or ladies in waiting, " walked 
 along by the river's side ; " the strange object caught her 
 attention ; and, when she saw the ark among the flags, " she 
 sent her maid to fetch it." You can well conceive what was 
 the terror of the sentinel sister, and, still more, the agitation 
 and alarm of the sentinel mother. "And when she had 
 opened it, she saw the child ; and, behold " — the world 
 would say, accidentally, but a Christian must say, by the 
 good providence of God — "the babe wept." This was a 
 spectacle too touching for Pharaoh's daughter to resist ; and, 
 therefore, with true womanly feeling, in language so plain 
 that it indicates the truth of the narrative, " she had 
 compassion on him, and said. This is one of the Hebrews' 
 children." 
 
 Making the best of the emergency, the sentinel sister, 
 who stood b}^, ran up to Pharaoh's daughter, and, not telling 
 what was untrue, but not stating, as she was not called upon 
 to state, what was all the fact, she said, " Shall I go and 
 call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may 
 
16 SCUIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 nurse the child for thee ? " As it happens to be a Hebrew 
 child, and of very tender years, you would, no doubt, like a 
 Hebrew nurse for it. Will your royal highness, therefore, 
 trust me to find one for this child, whose beauty so charms 
 you, whom you have picked up accidentally in the river ? 
 AYell, the thought was so very natural and reasonable, that 
 Pharaoh's daughter said instantly, " Go. And the maid 
 went, and called the child's mother." Here is a specimen 
 of Christian stratagem — that is, stratagem warranted by 
 Christian principles. It was in no respect, that I can see, 
 inconsistent with the sincerity and candor of Christian 
 character. Forthwith the mother came; and Pharaoh's 
 daughter said to her, little suspecting she was the mother, 
 " Take this child away, and nurse it for me ; " and she 
 added, " I will give thee thy wages." The mother could 
 have said, what the safety of the babe prevented her say- 
 ing, " I want no wages ; my reward will be the privilege of 
 nursing this babe;" but, with thorough tact and manage- 
 ment, and yet with the propriety and consistency of a Chris- 
 tian, she took the child, and, without a word about the 
 wages, silently and thankfully became its nurse ; " and he 
 became," by adoption, as customary in Egypt, the son of 
 Pharaoh's daughter. "And she called his name Moses," 
 from the Hebrew verb 3Iashah, which means to "draw 
 out." The Egyptian lady gave the Hebrew babe a Hebrew 
 name. 
 
 "And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was 
 grown " — according to the statement in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, when he was forty years old — "that he went out 
 unto his brethren." You see where his heart was. He 
 was in a royal palace, where, as an adopted son, he was 
 treated exactly as if he had been one of the king's own 
 children ; and yet his heart seems to have grown more and 
 more insensible to the splendor, dignity, and equipage of a 
 palace, and to have had its deepest sympathies with his poor 
 
EXODUS II. 17 
 
 countrymen, groaning under the oppression of Pharaoh. 
 " By faith," says the apostle, " Moses, when lie was come to 
 years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter : 
 choosing rather to suffer afiliction with the people of God, 
 than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." He W'Ould 
 rather be a Christian brickmaker, than an Egyptian pi-ime 
 minister. Such is the force of faith, the victory that over- 
 come tli the world. 
 
 " He spied an Egyptian," it is said, " smiting an Hebrew, 
 one of his brethren." That was a command for him in- 
 stantly to interpose. "And he looked this way and that 
 ■way " — not as if he knew^ that he was going to do a bad 
 deed, but, as the original denotes, he hesitated, as if to say, 
 Is this the time for it ? " ^nd when he saw that there was 
 no man " — probably to help — " he slew the Egyptian, and 
 hid him in the sand." Now it happens, that, according to 
 Josephus, there was a law in Egypt, that, if two men were 
 seen fighting together in mortal conflict, a spectator might 
 interfere, even though he took away the life of one of 
 them. Moses, therefore, did not do a thing unlawful, ac- 
 cording to Egyptian law ; but he did a thing unpardonable 
 to Egyptian feelings, and therefore he might expect to suffer 
 for it. Diodorus Siculus states, that the laws of Egypt 
 warranted such a deed. 
 
 Well, having thus saved an Israelite from the fangs of a 
 fierce Egyptian, " behold, (what was unseemly enough,) two 
 men of the Hebrews strove together; and Moses said to 
 him that did the wrong" (what was a most Christian 
 remark), " Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? " And now 
 see how little encouragement he had to help them who 
 would not help themselves. This Hebrew said to him, who 
 had given up rank, patronage, and power, in order to assist 
 his countrymen, " Who made thee a prince and a judge over 
 us ? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyp- 
 tian ? " Ungrateful answer ! If Moses had been a worldly 
 2* 
 
18 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 man, lie would have said, " I see I get no thanks for doing 
 good ; I shall return to the palace, and leave the wretched 
 Hebrews to work out their own deliverance." But, my 
 dear friends, when we do good, we are not to do it witli the 
 prosjiect of receiving thanks. If you do so, vvhat better 
 are you than the scribes and Pharisees ? We are to do 
 good, because it is good, and because it is duty. If the 
 thanks come, we are happy that there are men who are 
 thankful ; and if not, we are sorry only for them who can- 
 not be grateful, but our duties are the same. Our obliga- 
 tions remain ; our responsibilities are not diminished. All 
 the thanks Moses got from this Hebrew was, " Intendest 
 thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian ? " The Israel- 
 ites had sunk into brute insensibility under oppression. It 
 is a remarkable fact, we cannot too earnestly reflect on, 
 always and everywhere true, that extreme physical degra- 
 dation dulls the intellect, and destroys moral sensibility. 
 Some persons complain, that the very poorest classes of the 
 community, who live in underground cellars and upper gar- 
 rets, are unthankful. But it is because we are undutiful. 
 Physical degradation has a most pernicious effect ui)on the 
 moral, spiritual, and intellectual feelings of mankind. It 
 brutalizes and barbarizes. I believe that our missions, with 
 all their value — our city missionaries and our Scripture 
 readers, doing a most noble work — are here vastly ob- 
 structed in their work. I believe a great physical and 
 social amelioration in poor men's homes must be made, 
 before a substantial moral and spiritual one begins in their 
 hearts. We must raise the masses above the level of the 
 brutes, before we can raise them to the level of Christians. 
 You must make them men, before you can make them, by 
 the grace of God, Christians. One rejoices that there is 
 progress made in this. I think, giving the people the op- 
 portunity to have more light, and larger windows, is one of 
 the best approximations to duty that any Chancellor of the 
 
EXODUS II. 19 
 
 Exchequer has yet given us ; and I am perfectly sure of 
 this, that there would be less indulgence in alcoholic drinks, 
 if the poor man had only a more comfortable home to go to. 
 The fact is, he goes to his home, miserable in all respects, 
 unfit, as many of them are, for a human being. He then 
 goes across to the public-house, and there he finds a warm 
 fire, a comfortable room, a sanded tloor, and people who will 
 converse with him, gas-light, and a newspaper. He is led 
 into the public-house, not because he loves alcoholic drinks, 
 but because he wants comfort. Let him have these at home. 
 The best teetotal society would be the elevation and im- 
 provement of the homes of the poorer classes of our coun- 
 try ; for physical degradation powerfully repels the best 
 efforts to Christianize and instruct. 
 
 " Now, when Pharaoh heard this thing," we read, " he 
 sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of 
 Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian " — a country in 
 Arabia Petr^a, so called from Abraham's fourth son, by 
 Keturah — " and he sat down by a well." It then appears 
 that the daughters of " the priest," or prince, " of Midian 
 came to draw water." As you read of Rachel and Rebekah, 
 this was not inconsistent with the dignity of a princess. 
 "And the shepherds," or some of the wild tribes of the 
 desert, "came and drove them away." One cannot help 
 seeing a contrast here between the conduct of Moses and 
 Jacob. You recollect, that, when the intended wife of the 
 latter came to the well, he offered all his services, and made 
 himself, in every shape, agreeable to her. But when Moses 
 saw these come to draw water, he did not offer to help them. 
 Evidently Jacob was a specimen of a Christian, refined and 
 cultivated, and anxious to serve and oblige others, as well as 
 to benefit himself; but Moses as evidently was a man who 
 had simply a stern sense of duty, and who felt that he had a 
 mission, which he must embark on, having no taste or time 
 
20 SCRIPTUKE READINGS. 
 
 to indulge in expressions of courtesy. Jacob was a patri- 
 archal gentleman ; Moses, a man whose heart and thoughts 
 were full of a solemn mission. He did not help them to 
 draw water ; but when strangers interfered with them, and 
 attempted to oppose them, he showed, that, if he had not the 
 courtesy of Jacob, he had that sense of duty which would 
 not suffer another to be injured unjustly. This deep sense 
 of duty, this stern solemnity of thought, runs through the 
 life of Moses. 
 
 When they came to the prince their father, they told him 
 the story of their protection. The old man said, " And 
 where is he ? Why is it that ye have left the man ? Call 
 him, that he may eat bread," and enjoy the rites of hospi- 
 tality, and that I may personally thank him for his kindness. 
 W^ell, Moses went to his home, and enjoyed his hospitality, 
 and was so charmed with Zipporah, his daughter, that he 
 got her in marriage. His courtship, unlike Jacob's, was 
 brief and business-like. 
 
 We read then, " It came to pass, in process of time, that 
 the king of Egypt died ; " but the children of Israel found 
 no relief ; they still " sighed, by reason of the bondage.'* 
 But " their cry came up " to the Lord of hosts. 
 
 'We thus see what small beginnings, if right in their 
 nature, have great ends. That child, in that ark of papyrus, 
 was safer than the bravest crew in the noblest battle ship 
 that ever sailed the ocean. The overshadowing wings of 
 God were over him ; angels ministered unto him. Pharaoh 
 miglit be swept from his throne, but Moses could not perish 
 in that ark. The cause that has God for its author, and 
 everlasting peace and prosperity for its issue, is a cause 
 which God looks to, and that he himself will ever defend. 
 
 There is a special, overruling Providence around the 
 cradles of the babes of England, as truly as around the ark 
 of bulrushes on the -Nile. 
 
EXODUS ir. 21 
 
 The duty of those that have the means, is to take the 
 children of those that have none, and nurse and educate 
 them for Christ. 
 
 How glorious is the victory of faith ! He steps down, 
 without ostentation or parade, from the palace into the brick- 
 maker's field, for Christ's sake.* 
 
 * See "Voices of the Dead," p. 175. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BURNING BUSH. THE LORD JESUS IK IT. GOd's SYMPATHY 
 WITH SUFEERERS. CHARACTER OE PALESTINE. BORROWING 
 JEWELS. 
 
 We have now the first and most impressive manifestation 
 of God to Moses, as a call, and by way of a preface to that 
 wonderful exodus, on the history of which we are now 
 entering. There appears in a bush, that burned and was 
 not consumed, a Being who is here called " the angel of the 
 Lord." I may state, that some of the most competent critics 
 and divines have agreed that this ought to be rendered, 
 " the Angel-Lord." The Hebrew words are Melech- Ye- 
 hovah, which do not mean " the angel of the Lord," but 
 literally, " Jehovah, the sent one." And hence it has been 
 thought that this was a manifestation of our blessed Lord in 
 one of these forms in which he sometimes appeared before 
 his incarnation, and that " the angel of the Lord," wherever 
 He appears throughout the whole of the Old Testament 
 Scripture, was none other than God now manifest in the 
 flesh. 
 
 That the Being who appeared on this occasion was God, 
 is obvious ; because, whilst in the second verse it is said, 
 " The angel of tlie Lord appeared unto him in a flame of 
 fire out of the midst of a bush ;" it is declared in the fourth 
 verse, " And when the Lord (Jehovah) saw that he turned 
 aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of 
 the bush, and said Moses, Moses ; and he said, Here 
 am L And He said, Draw not nigh hither; put off thy 
 
EXODUS III. 23 
 
 slioes from off thy feet, for the phice wlicreon thou standest 
 is holy ground. Moreover, lie said, I am the God of thy 
 fatlier, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God 
 of Jacob." It is, therefore, obvious that the being who ap- 
 peared here was a Divine Being, — the Melech- Tehovah, 
 " the Angel-Lord ; " and as the father is never spoken of as 
 sent, he is none other than the Angel-God, or God manifest 
 in the flesh, our only Saviour. 
 
 The bush that appeared in flames is, literally translated, 
 a thorn-bush, a whin-bush, or a bramble-bush. It is sup- 
 2:)0sed that this mountain, Horeb, is the same as Mount 
 Sinai. The Hebrew for a bramble-bush is seneh, and hence 
 it is related by some rabbinical writers, that, after this event, 
 the mountain ceased to be called " Horeb," and was called 
 Seneh, " the bramble-bush," or " Sinai," which is merely a. 
 modification of that word. 
 
 He was ordered to take his shoes off his feet, because 
 God was present. The word translated " thy shoes," ought 
 to be rendered "thy sandals" (sandelok). Some words 
 seem to have become incorporated into all languages. For 
 instance, the word " wine " is almost the same in every 
 ancient and modern tongue ; the same may be said of the 
 word " sack ; " and this word " sandal " seems to have come 
 down from the very earliest -ages, for the Hebrew word here 
 translated " thy shoes," is " sandaloh^^ being equivalent to 
 our w^ord " sandals." 
 
 The bush ever burning and never being consumed, is the 
 recognized symbol of the Church of Christ. It has been 
 for several hundred years the armorial bearing of the Church 
 of Scotland. 
 
 To take off the shoe, in the East, is equivalent to taking 
 off the hat in the West, and equally expresses reverence. 
 
 God said, " I have surely seen the affliction of my people." 
 How interesting is this fact, that God takes cognizance of 
 the afflictions of his people ; of one as of many ; of great 
 
24 SCRirXURE READINGS. 
 
 and small ! One sometimes is puzzled to determine whether 
 God appears greatest when he rides on the whirlwind and 
 directs the storm, speaks in the thunder, and manifests his 
 glory in the lightning, or when he descends to minister every 
 pulse to the minutest microscopic insect, and to notice the 
 pains, the sorrows, and the suiFerings of the humblest and 
 the lowliest of the human ftimily. I have no doubt that 
 God's greatness is more magnificently revealed by the 
 microscope, than it is by the telescope ; in creation and in 
 providence in little things, than in great things ; and that he 
 appears arrayed in a richer glory when his fatherly hand 
 lays its healing touch upon a broken heart, than when that 
 hand launches the thunderbolt, or gives their commissions 
 to the angels of the sky. God's people could not suffer in 
 the brickyards of Egypt, without drawing down the sym- 
 pathies, as they shared in the cognizance, of the Lord God 
 of Abraham. "I have surely seen the affliction of my 
 people." 
 
 " And I am come down to deliver them." All such lan- 
 guage applied to God, I need scarcely explain, is borrowed 
 from human habits appHed to the Deity. For instance, 
 when it is said that God repented, that does not mean that 
 he changed his mind, but that he changed his mode of pro- 
 ceeding or dealing with mankind. Again, when it is here 
 said, " I am come down," that does not mean tliat God was 
 in one place, and change and move from that to another, but 
 that he took notice of, interfered with or interposed, and 
 began a dispensation or a dealing peculiar to the emergency. 
 
 Now God said that he would bring them out of Egypt — 
 that was the first promise — and that he would bring them 
 " unto a good land, and a large, unto a land flowing with 
 milk and honey." It has been a favoriteobjection with per- 
 sons of a sceptical turn of mind, how Palestine could be 
 called so; but recent travels in that land have displayed 
 enough of its remaining magnificence and wealth, to show 
 
EXODUS III. 25 
 
 that the strongest expressions of its fertility in ancient times 
 are rather understated than otherwise. The Land is described 
 as a knd flowing with milk and honey. It has been proved 
 to be a country rich in pasturage and flowers, in flocks and 
 herds, and in large quantities of "wild honey. But if this 
 should be thought too severe an interpretation of the ^vords, 
 " milk " may be employed, perhaps, by the sacred writers 
 to denote all kinds of necessary food, and " honey " may 
 include whatever is agreeable and delightful to the palate. 
 The same proverbial expressions are very common in classic 
 writers. Euripides says, " The field flows with milk, with 
 wine, and wdth the nectar of bees." We may, from the 
 following passages from the writings of eminent travellers, 
 gather some idea of what Palestine was in a state of great 
 prosperity. " We left the road," says one traveller, " to 
 avoid the Arabs, whom it is always disagreeable to meet 
 with, and reached by a side path the summit of the moun- 
 tain, where we found a beautiful plain. It must be confessed 
 that if we could live secure in this country, it would be the 
 most agreeable residence in the world, partly on account of 
 the pleasing diversity of mountains and valleys, and partly 
 on account of the salubrious air which we breathe there, 
 and Avhich is at all times filled with balsamic odors from the 
 w^ild flowers of these valleys and from the aromatic herbs on 
 the hills." Dr, E. D. Clarke, speaking of the appearance 
 of the country betw^een Sychem and Jerusalem, says, " A 
 sight of this territory alone can convey any adequate idea 
 of its surprising produce. It is truly the Eden of the East, 
 rejoicing in the abundance of its w^ealth. The effect of this 
 upon the people was strikingly portrayed in every counte- 
 nance. Under a wise and beneficent government the produce 
 of the Holy Land would exceed all calculation. Its peren- 
 nial harvests, the salubrity of its air, its limpid springs, its 
 rivers, lakes, and matchless plains, its hills and valleys, all 
 these, added to the serenity of the climate, prove this land to 
 3 
 
26 SCRirXUKE READINGS. 
 
 be indeed a field which the Lord hath blessed. God hath 
 given it of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, 
 and plenty of corn and wine." Such is its remaining char- 
 acter. And I need not tell you that any land, were it like 
 the garden of Eden, would soon become turned into a desert, 
 were it treated as Palestine has been. The hoof of the 
 Moslem, the bare foot of the monk, the horse of the Arab 
 and the Bedouin of the desert, all sorts of savages and bar- 
 barians, now tread it underfoot ; and the nations of the 
 earth quarrel on it, and quarrel about it, whose it shall be. 
 I have often told you what I believe is its destiny. The 
 present occupants of Palestine are just like those who are 
 put into an empty house till it shall be let to the proper 
 tenant. God has placed them there to keep it for the pre- 
 destined tenants, the royal heritage of Abraham, and Isaac, 
 and Jacob ; and soon we shall hear of the march of that 
 people, great in their ruins, discrowned kings, a nation with- 
 out a home, proceeding to the land of their fathers, and there, 
 where they once shouted, " Crucify him ! Crucify him ! " 
 not saying, but singing, " Hosanna to the Son of David : 
 Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." 
 
 We read next in this chapter that God told Moses that 
 he would bring him to Pharaoh, and would require him to 
 demand of Pharaoh permission for the people to go forth 
 from the midst of Egypt. Moses naturally felt how un- 
 likely would be his success on such and so solemn an errand : 
 for you will recollect that a new dynasty had now come into 
 Egypt, a dynasty " which knew not Joseph," that is, did not 
 respect the people of God. And Moses felt that nothing 
 would be more dilficult than to persuade an Egyptian tyrant 
 that he ought to let go profitable slaves ; and he also felt that 
 he was likely to meet with but little success even amid his 
 own people : for he remembered that after he had interposed 
 to rescue an Israelite from an Egyptian, instead of receiving 
 an expression of courteous gratitude, he was repelled and 
 
EXODUS III. 27 
 
 driven away by two of his own countrymen as a mf ddler 
 with other people's matters. He therefore naturally asked, 
 " Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I 
 should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egy})t?" 
 So Paul said, in the prospect of preaching the Gospel, 
 " Who is sutRcient for these things?" A truly great mind 
 will always feel most humbled by the prospect of a solemn, 
 an arduous, and an important duty. 
 
 God then revealed himself to Moses, and said that the 
 Name he should use, when asked who sent him, was, " I am 
 that I am." See what a magnificent portrait is here ! This 
 is God's autograph, God's definition of himself. There is 
 no such definition in the pages of Paganism ; no such idea 
 ever entered into the human heart. It is the violation of all 
 grammar ; it is evidently language sinking and breaking 
 into pieces under the weight, pressure, and magnificence 
 of a Divine and glorious thought. John in the Apoca- 
 lypse uses it, " He that was, and is, and shall be," cloth- 
 ing these words in language utterly ungrammatical, but 
 evidently designedly so, in order to embody, as far as 
 possible, a Divine and infinite thought. And I know 
 not a greater proof of the essential Deity of our Blessed 
 Lord, than this. When the Jews were about to stone 
 him, he said, " Before Abraham was," not iyu r/v, I was, 
 but " eyw dfit, I am," that is, assuming to himself what 
 every Jew felt was the intransferable Name, Jeho\ ah — 
 " I am hath sent me unto you." It is not improbable that 
 Jesus alluded to this very definition of essential Deity in 
 this chapter. 
 
 The next passage I will notice is the LStli verse, where 
 God tells Moses to say to Piiaraoh, "The Lord God of the 
 Hebrews hath met with us ; and now let us go, we beseech 
 thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may 
 sacrifice to the Lord our God." Some have said thai that 
 was not stating the truth ; at least, the whole truth. It is 
 
28 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 quite true tliat God meant ultimately to emancipate tliem ; 
 but it is no less true that his first step was only to let them 
 go so far into the desert. The Israelites themselves did not 
 expect they would not return to Egypt. But God told 
 Moses that the king of Egypt would not let them go, until, 
 in consequence of signs and wonders, his fears should pre- 
 vail over his policy, and he should be compelled to let those 
 go whom he would otherwise retain. 
 
 The last verse has been very much misconstrued : " But 
 every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that 
 sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, 
 and raiment ; and ye shall put them upon your sons and 
 upon your daughters ; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians." 
 Now, it happens that the word here translated " borrow," 
 does not mean strictly that. It is the same word as that 
 rendered "ask," in the second Psalm: "Ask of me, and I 
 shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." It 
 is the word sJiaal, and you will find in the Lexicon of 
 Gesenius, who was not over prejudiced in favor of the 
 Bible, that it means, "to ask, demand, or insist upon." 
 It is also stated, that God would give them favor in the 
 sight of the Egyptians, so that they should give them what 
 they asked. But why should they ask jewels and gold ? If 
 a Hindoo goes to his temple, or an Eastern to his mosque, 
 he always arrays himself in his most splendid robes, and 
 puts on his best jewels. This being the universal custom in 
 the East, when the Jews told the Egyptians that they were 
 going to sacrifice to the great God, " I am that I am," they 
 would feel that it was their duty to go with all the signs 
 of dignity and rank, and therefore they gave tliem what 
 they asked, never expecting back again the "jewels of 
 silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment." Or, the Israel- 
 ites might not be sure they were never to return to 
 Egypt, and might ask Egyptian jewels, intending to restore 
 them. 
 
EXODUS III. 29 
 
 The scene described in this chapter is a meet preface to 
 the events that follow. It was the Divine consecration of 
 Moses ; the solemn inauguration of a work, in comparison 
 with which the retreat of the Ten Thousand is trifling, and 
 the Crusades puerile. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MISSION OF MOSES. HIS HESITATION. GOd's CONDESCEND- 
 ING ASSURANCE. INSTANCES OF DIVINE POWER. MIRACLES, 
 REAL AND ROMISH. PHARAOh'S HEART. 
 
 "We must often be struck, on reading the history of God's 
 deahngs with his ancient people, how much obstinacy in the 
 human heart required to be overcome, and what a fearful 
 amount of unbelief needed to be removed, before his most 
 gifted or favored servants could be induced to undertake the 
 mission that was assigned them. Moses naturally saw that 
 to march the Hebrew Helots from the midst of Egypt 
 across the desert without any visible and proved supply of 
 food, or caravans, or accompaniment of any sort that could 
 be a reasonable presumption to them that they should not 
 perish from hunger by the way-side, would be almost an 
 impossibility ; and when God asked him to undertake the 
 mission, his heart fainted, and his strength failed, and he 
 anticipated the evil that did more or less actually occur, 
 "They will not believe me." How will these degraded 
 slaves believe in the possibility of a heavenly maintenance? 
 How will they listen to me, seeing the only experiment I 
 made to do them good was a failure that gave no peace to 
 them, and brought trouble upon my own head? They 
 will stoutly deny that which I have witnessed — this 
 bright and glorious apocalypse of thyself in the burning 
 busli ; and they will tell me, " The Lord hath not appeared 
 unto thee." 
 
EXODUS IV. 31 
 
 Now what step did God take, not to persuade tliera, for 
 that was to be a subsequent act, but to persuade Moses to 
 undertake what God commanded ? How sad tliat he should 
 need any additional sign ! How sad that he, having seen 
 God, and heard him speak from the bush, should yet doubt 
 that God would give him strength for his journey, and suc- 
 cess in the enterprise that he had assigned to him ! To 
 make sure that any duty you engage in is clearly God's 
 will, and instantly to engage in it in God's strength, is far 
 higher humility than to hesitate for fear that you will fail if 
 you undertake it. God then showed him what he would do 
 for Israel, and how much of his almighty power he would 
 make actual before them, in order to persuade them that 
 Moses had a divine commission. He would convince them 
 by these unequivocal credentials — by these acts full of 
 omnipotence. He said to Moses, " I will give you an instal- 
 ment and instance of what you shall do. Cast your rod on 
 the ground." And it became a serpent. " And Moses," being 
 frightened, " fled from beibre it." How true a picture is this 
 of human nature ! How like is this to what we should have 
 done in the same circumstances ! How much of the angel 
 and the animal are struggling in man ! He who inspired 
 this book, and recorded this history, recorded fact, and 
 inspired truth ; and what is here written is so true to nature 
 that the story proves its own truth, and He only who made 
 the human heart could have so delineated its feelings. Moses 
 then took the serpent by the tail, and it became again a rod. 
 This was done to encourage him. 
 
 ' Again, God bade him put his hand into his bosom, and 
 when he took it out, it " was leprous as snow." That is 
 elliptical language, the meaning of which is, that it became 
 white as snow, which was the color of the leper. This was 
 to persuade Moses what God would do and could do before 
 the Israelites, in order to persuade them that Moses was 
 sent from God, and their instant exodus their duty. 
 
32 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Now wliat is the force of a miracle ? It does not }3rove a 
 truth because it is above nature ; for I cannot see any reason 
 to doubt that Satan has done and will do miracles. The 
 fallen spirit, it is not improbable, who has superhuman 
 wisdom, may have superhuman power. I do not see why 
 he who is able to reach the human mind and tempt it to 
 evil, may not be able to do things before the human senses 
 more than physical human power can accomplish. But if 
 Satan were to do some superhuman feat, whilst it would so 
 far be miraculous in that it is above what we ordinarily see, 
 it would not prove that Satan was God, or that a lie is truth. 
 The miracles of the New Testament had in them not only 
 superhuman power, but also superhuman bene'volence and 
 love, and they indicated that they were from God mainly 
 by that ; and, therefore, the miracles of the Bible, or of the 
 New Testament at least, have internal evidence that they 
 are the exponents or expressions of Divine love as well as 
 of Divine power, and therefore from above. Now Satan's 
 miracles, if such there be, or have been, can have no benev- 
 olence or love in them. His very nature is enmity to all 
 that is good, holy, benevolent, and true ; and therefore, his 
 aats, like his inspiration, must partake exactly of the same 
 character. 
 
 Now you are aware that a great dispute has been awak- 
 ened in the present day, chiefly by Romanists, about mira- 
 cles. Dr. Newman says that miraculous power is in his 
 church ; that he has seen, or can prove, miracles done there ; 
 that they are frequent as showers in April, and that the 
 whole of that church is just one mighty sea of miracles upon 
 miracles like wave after wave appearing every day. True, 
 he quotes very grotesque ones ; true, one is sometimes pro- 
 voked to smile when one reads the specimens that he gives ; 
 but a very simple way of ending all our scepticism about 
 the miracles in his church would be, not to perform them in 
 nooks and corners, to which that distinguished Oratorian 
 
EXODUS IV. 33 
 
 may have admission, but to perform tliem in Cheapside, in 
 the Strand, upon the highways, and let heretical eyes see 
 them as well as the orthodox ; because, if a miracle be an 
 appeal to the senses, and if the heretical be not deprived of 
 the use of their senses, they could judge of the miracles as 
 well as the orthodox. Any one who had eyes could see that 
 the serpent was turned into the rod, and the rod again into 
 the serpent. Moses did not doubt this ; he could not. There- 
 fore, if there be miracles performed in the Church of Rome, 
 the way to prove them is, not to deliver splendid lectures in 
 the Oratory, showing they w^ere and are, but to do them, 
 and then we shall be able to judge whether they be from 
 above, or from beneath, or whether they be shams and 
 pretences, and the merest mimicry of miracles, as some 
 of them unquestionably are. But it is fair to say, that 
 I do not believe all the so-called miracles of the Church 
 of Rome to have been shams or deceptions. I said that 
 Satan had superhuman power, and I am not sure that real 
 superhuman deeds have not been done by him in the Church 
 of Rome. I think that that church is just the correlative of 
 the Church of Christ. In fact, there are but two super- 
 human elements or forces upon earth: these are, "The 
 mystery of iniquity," and " The mystery of godliness." The 
 great error of Protestants is, that they think that the Church 
 of Rome has very little to say for itself. It is the most 
 magnificent though most wicked conception that ever ap- 
 peared on earth, except the only divine one, and, except 
 that, the most magnificent idea that ever was submitted or 
 embodied on earth to man. Satan is no blunderer. It 
 combines the archangel's power with all the fiend's deprav- 
 ity. It is the mystery of iniquity, the opposite of the mys- 
 tery of godliness. 
 
 And into one or other of tliese two great systems every 
 man is going. Each is assuming, in this day, his polarity; 
 and that polarity will lead him either to antichrist with them 
 
34 SCRIPTUKE KEADINGS. 
 
 that are his, i. e. the apostasy ; or to Christ with them that 
 are his, i. e. the Church of the living God. But were the 
 distinguished Oratorian, to whom I have alhided — dis- 
 tinguished for his great genius and powerful intellect — and, 
 aUis, for his eccentric course — to perform a miracle himself, 
 that would not convince me that Bonaventure's Psalter is 
 the inspiration of God, or that the Virgin Mary is to be 
 worshipped. No amount of miracles that could be done 
 before me, under heaven, would convince me that one syl- 
 lable of the Bible is false ; because, if Omnipotence became 
 the pedestal 1800 years ago, on which the truths of the 
 New Testament were set forth. Omnipotence cannot be the 
 pedestal in 1853, on which the lies of Satan, or the errors of 
 the world are exhibited. God cannot contradict himself. 
 If, therefore, the most gifted emissary of the communion I 
 have alluded to were to come, and raise a dead man from 
 the grave, my first remark would be : "I admit the miracle, 
 but what do you mean to prove by it ? " Every miracle in 
 the New Testament was, not a freak of power to display 
 omnipotence, but a pedestal to set forth a truth. He would 
 answer, that it was to prove that the mass is right ; that the 
 Virgin Mary is to be worshipped ; and that tradition is as 
 good as Scripture. What would be my reply, and that of 
 every Protestant ? First, I would recollect that in the last 
 days, it is said, " there shall arise false Christs, and false 
 prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch 
 that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." I 
 should recollect, again, that it is said, " Satan himself is 
 transformed into an angel of light." I should recollect also, 
 that it is said, that his coming, who " siltetli in the temple of 
 God, showing him?elf as if he were God," is " after the 
 working of vSatan, with all i:)Ower and signs and lying won- 
 ders — TEpam tfjEvdovg, that is, " wonders to demonstrate a lie." 
 I should recollect, again, that St. Paul says, " Tiiongh we " 
 (apostles) "or an angel from heaven, preach any other 
 
EXODUS IV. 35 
 
 Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto 
 you, let him be accui-sed." And then I should turn round 
 to the miracle woi'ker, in this way, and say, " Get thee 
 hence, Satan ; for it is written, Thou shah worship the Lord 
 thy God, (and not the Virgin Mary,) and him only shalt 
 thou serve." In this chapter," we have real and unequi\ocal 
 miracles, of which the human senses were the admitted and 
 competent judges. A miracle, to be of use, must not be done 
 in a corner. 
 
 Moses, we read, hesitated still to go, until Aaron was ap- 
 pointed to go with him, as having special qualifications. 
 Moses reluctantly consented. 
 
 Afterwards Moses said to Jethro, or Reuel, with that 
 deference to the old man's wishes which is ever due to 
 age, "let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren 
 which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. 
 And Jethro," either because he had confidence in Moses, or 
 under special inspiration so to decide, •' said to Moses, Go 
 in peace. And the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, Go, 
 return into Egypt : for all the men are dead which sought 
 thy life." Forty years had elapsed since he slew the 
 Egyptian. 
 
 God gives Moses his message in verses 21-23. "And 
 the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into 
 Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, 
 which I have put in thine hand : but I will harden his heart 
 that he shall not let the people go. And thou shalt say unto 
 Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my 
 first-born : and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may 
 serve me : and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will 
 slay thy son, even thy first-born." 
 
 Then there is a passage here wdiich we shall have the 
 opportunity of considering largely in subsequent chapters ; 
 " I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall not let the 
 people go." The answer to any objections to this statement, 
 
36 SCRirTURE READINGS. 
 
 which I give in the mean time, is, that in subsequent chap- 
 ters, it is said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. You 
 must not, therefore, take a profile view of any one truth, and 
 look only at the side that suits you, but you must look at 
 both sides. If it is said in one passage that God hardened 
 Pharaoh's heart, it is said in another passage tliat Pharaoh 
 hardened his own heart. There must, therefore, be some 
 intermediate explanation that will reconcile both. That 
 explanation is plainly this, that some things God does di- 
 rectly, and is the cause of; that other things God does indi- 
 rectly, and is the occasion of. For instance, Jesus came to 
 preach peace ; and yet he himself says, "I came not to send 
 peace, but a sword." Now, there can be no doubt that the 
 direct object of the mission of Christ was not to create war, 
 but peace. What he meant, therefore, was, that his mission 
 to create peace would be the occasion of war. Again, salva- 
 tion is said by the apostle to be to one " the savor of 
 death," and to another " the savor of life ; " that is, the 
 savor of death incidentally, — the savor of life directly. 
 So, God hardened Pharaoh's heart by submitting to him 
 those truths, arguments, and evidences, which he ought 
 to have accepted, but the rejection of wdiich recoiled 
 upon himself, and hardened the heart they did not con- 
 vince. Everybody knows, in the present day, that if 
 you listen, Sunday after Sunday, to great truths, and, Sun- 
 day after Sunday, reject them, you grow in your capacity of 
 repulsion and ability to reject them, and the more hardened 
 you become ; and thus, the preaching of the Gospel that 
 Avas meant to melt, Avill be the occasion of hardening your 
 heart — not because God hates you, but because you reject 
 the Gospel. The sun itself melts some substances, whilst, 
 from the nature of the substances, it hardens others. You 
 must not think that God stands in the way of your salva- 
 tion. There is nothing between the greatest sinner and 
 instant salvation, but his own unwillingness to lean on the 
 
EXODUS IV. 37 
 
 Saviour, and be saved. Moses evidently had the workin"- 
 hand, and Aaron the eloquent tongue. 
 
 Verse 24. Moses had incurred the anger of God by- 
 delaying to undergo the initiatory rite of circumcision. 
 Though it seems contrary to our feelings, the mother, under 
 a special inspiration, performed hurriedly the rite or sacra- 
 ment. A mother of old called a son being circumcised, a 
 spouse or husband. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SECURITT or niARAOH. IKTERVIEAV OF MOSES AND AARON WITH 
 PHARAOH. ROYAL DISCOURTESY. MILDNESS OF MOSES AND 
 AARON, ROYAL TYRANNY. SEVERITY OF LABOR. DISAP- 
 POINTMENT OF MOSES. 
 
 We learn from the 'chapter we have read, that Pharaoh, 
 the Egyptian king, sat upon his throne in possession of all 
 the pomp and magnificence of an eastern despot, fear- 
 ing no rival, and expecting no reversal. He had not the 
 remotest idea of that great transaction that was taking 
 place, invisible to hira, between Moses, Aaron, and the Lord 
 God of Israel, the issue of which would be his own dethrone- 
 ment, the destruction of his nation, and the deliverance of 
 those very slaves whom he was grinding to the earth by 
 .ojipressive tyranny and avaricious despotism. He recol- 
 lected Moses, no doubt, and the very wonderful story of his 
 early life. He had heard that he was picked up as a found- 
 ling ; that he was taken home by a royal daughter of an 
 illustrious predecessor of his own ; tliat he was brought up 
 in the palace, and learned there all the wisdom of the Egyp- 
 tians ; but that he was so foolish and headstrong a fanatic, 
 that he had left the advantages that he had, and the splen- 
 did preferment that he enjoyed, for what Pharaoh thought 
 a mere delusion, an idea, or sentiment, — of no weight or 
 worth when wciglied against tlie actual advantages of a 
 great kingdom, a splendid palace, and the power that he 
 might wield as the chief servant of Pharaoh. He thought 
 that this fanatic, though not dead, was too feeble and worth- 
 
EXODUS V. 39 
 
 less a personage, and too much carried away by his own 
 romantic notions of religion, to at all weaken his sway over 
 the Egyptian people. 
 
 It appears, however, that while these thoughts may have 
 been passing through his mind, Moses and Aaron went into 
 the palace, and si)ake to Pharaoh, and said, " Thus saith the 
 Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold 
 a feast unto me in the wilderness." What a majestic 
 preface to this humble, reasonable, and fair petition ! " The 
 God of Israel is our authority; we are simply his am- 
 bassadors, and we ask for him, and in his name, a boon that 
 will not materially inconvenience you, and that will very 
 materially bless our countrymen, and oblige us, — that thou 
 wouldst let the people of Israel go. We do not ask their 
 exodus, we simply beg a respite. We do not demand their 
 eventual escape, we simply ask that they may have a holi- 
 day, in order that they may be able to go into the desert so 
 far as to sacrifice unto the God of Israeli" It may be said, 
 that Moses ultimately contemplated more. So he did. But 
 if Pharaoh refused the little that he asked, he would have 
 refused more violently all, if he had ventured to ask all. 
 Moses asked in righteous principle, and yet with wise policy. 
 He asked an instalment of the whole ; and, if he could not 
 obtain that instalment, he knew that he was far less likely 
 to get the whole. Tlierefbre, he was satisfied to ask a por- 
 tion, and see what the result would be. 
 
 Now, Pharaoh's reply was neither dignified, nor cour- 
 teous : " Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice, to 
 let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let 
 Israel go." He might have, in words at least, respected the 
 religion of the people, even if he did not believe it. We 
 ought to respect every man's faith, whatever it be ; for it is 
 his all. We will try to undeceive him, if he be wrong ; but 
 the way to do so is not to pour contumely upon him, 
 or insult upon the religion that he holds; but by show- 
 
40 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 ing him, in contrast with it, the truth in love, and so 
 persuade him to renounce his errors, and embrace what 
 he was ignorant of, the more excellent way. But Pharaoh, 
 with all the despotism of an eastern prince, exclaimed, " I 
 know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." Pie gave 
 an absolute refusal, without the courtesy, or even the dignity 
 which became so great a monarch, to those who approached 
 him in the language of suppliance, and asked what was 
 neither unreasonable nor unfair. In all probability Pha- 
 raoh judged of the God of the Israelites by the Israelites 
 themselves, as some do of the poor man's Lord by the poor 
 man's state. They were degraded slaves, and must, there- 
 fore, have a feeble God. He thought there could be no 
 moral grandeur, unless there were material circumstance. 
 He fancied that such degraded Helots could not have a God 
 of great power, or at least, worthy of his confidence, or his 
 respect. Now, how did Moses and Aaron reply ? Just 
 mark the contrast between the Egyptian king, and the He- 
 brew or Christian messengers. Being threatened, they 
 threatened not ; reviled, they reviled not again. They took 
 meekly his remarks ; they entreated, but threatened not ; 
 for they said immediately, " The God of the Hebrews hath 
 met with us ; " speaking calmly, as if not one insulting ex- 
 pression had been used : " let us go, we pray thee, three 
 days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord 
 our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the 
 feword." Let us do the duty that he enjoins, lest we suffer 
 the consequences of neglecting that duty. Now, here is a 
 precedent for us. If Pharaoh forgot his place, Moses and 
 Aaron were not to forget theirs. If he laid aside the dig- 
 nity of a king when he addressed them, evidently in loss of 
 temper, as well as in irreligious language, they did not lay 
 aside the deference that subjects owed, or the meekness 
 that Christians felt. They spoke as if he excusably mistook 
 their object, or was ignorant of their meaning, owing to 
 
EXODUS V. 41 
 
 their imperfect expression of it. Tliey explained, that they 
 only wanted to go, that they might escape the righteous 
 judgment which disobedience would incur. And they 
 might have said, " If judgment begin at the house of God, 
 what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel ? " 
 It ought to have suggested to Pharaoh, If God's own people 
 suffer for disobedience to his laws, what will be the treat- 
 ment to be expected by those who insult him to his 
 face, and blaspheme the holy Name by which they are 
 called ? 
 
 The king of Egypt was not moved, but said, " Wherefore 
 do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works ? " 
 The word " let " is used in the old Saxon sense or meaning 
 of the expression, and is equivalent to " prevent ; " " Where- 
 fore do ye, Moses and Aaron, prevent the people from doing 
 their works ? Get you unto your burdens. And Pharaoh 
 said. Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye 
 make them rest from their burdens." He turned aside with 
 perfect contempt from Moses and Aaron, and spake to the 
 officers and exactors, and told them to see that the people 
 instantly attended to their work. Tlie expression, " the 
 people of the hind now are many," evidently denotes that 
 the produce of so many laborers' work was a very great 
 accession to the royal treasury ; and that if he were to 
 allow them to suspend their work for a very few days, it 
 would be the loss to him of a very great sum. He thought 
 only of two things — filling the coffers of the state by 
 grinding down the lives of his slaves ; and of degrading a 
 people, who he dreamed, in his folly, if they had strength 
 and opportunity, would rise up, resist his government, and 
 upset his throne. He therefore said, "They are many," 
 and insisted upon their going back to their burdens ; and, 
 very much like the eastern princes still, instead of being 
 softened by this appeal to his royal clemency, he seems to 
 have been more exasperated against them ; for he now re- 
 4* 
 
42 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 fused them straw, and yet insisted upon their producing in 
 the same time the ordinary number, or " tale " of bricks. 
 
 In the pyramid of Fayoum there are found bricks which 
 have been hardened in the sun containing short particles of 
 chopped straw mixed with the clay, their just idea being 
 that straw would give cohesion to the mass, the brick not 
 being submitted to the action of fire, but only to the heat of 
 the sun. Whilst these bricks would not be suitable for our 
 buildings, you can see their appropriateness in Egypt, where 
 there is no rain. In a dry and sunny clime the bricks 
 would last for thousands of years, whereas in our climate 
 they would be of no use. In others of the pyramids bricks 
 are found which have been subjected to the action of fire ; 
 and this has led some to think that the straw was used in 
 the furnaces. 
 
 Dr. Shaw, speaking of the bricks found in one of the 
 Egyptian pyramids, remarks, " The composition is only a 
 mixture of clay, mud, and straw, slightly blended and 
 kneaded together." In Cairo in Egypt a traveller remarks, 
 " The houses for the most part are of brick mixed with 
 straw to keep them firm." 
 
 There is at the same time abundant evidence, that bricks 
 were also hardened or burned in the fire. But whichever it 
 was, you can see the hardship suffered by the Israelites on 
 this occasion; because they were required to produce the 
 same amount of bricks in the same time, and yet they had 
 to go and collect the straw or the stubble for these bricks, 
 in order to satisfy the demands of the monarch. It was 
 therefore additional labor in the same time, without the op- 
 portunity and means of accomplishing it. 
 
 But the officers, when they saw it, came and complained. 
 Some think that while the taskmasters were Egyptians, the 
 subordinate officers were Hebrews. These last came and 
 complained, " Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy ser- 
 vants ? There is no straw given unto thy servants, and 
 
EXODUS V. 43 
 
 they say to ns, Make brick : and, behold, thy servants are 
 beaten, but the fault is in thine own people." In the East 
 it is still quite common to beat officers of some rank for 
 their misdemeanors, and it is not regarded as in any degree 
 sinful. 
 
 As they came forth from Pharaoh, they met Moses and 
 Aaron, and said to them, " The Lord look upon you, and 
 judge ; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in 
 the eyes of Pharaoh." You came professedly to do us good ; 
 you have done us harm. You have not helped one jot our 
 deliverance, but you have added immensely to the weight 
 and pressure of our burdens. The Lord therefore forgive 
 you. We deeply lament it ; but so it is. Often oppression 
 becomes heaviest as deliverance draws near. 
 
 " And Moses," grieved and pained, " returned unto the 
 Lord, and said. Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated 
 this people ? " He thought God had resolved to disappoint 
 him, since their burdens, instead of being mitigated by his 
 interposition, had been all the opposite way. Moses saw 
 but the preface, and rashly judged of the work. He saw 
 the beginning, and knew not the end : what God did he 
 knew not then, but he lived to know thereafter. 
 
 The language in this twenty-second verse is very remark- 
 able, and explains other passages of Scripture. Moses said, 
 " Lord, wherefore hast thou evil entreated this people ? " 
 But it was the taskmasters wdio evil entreated them, not 
 God. And this explains that passage to which I referred 
 last Lord's day morning about God hardening Pharaoh's 
 heart. In the Hebrew idiom, God is often said to do a 
 thing which he is only the occasion of being done. It is 
 said, for instance, that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart ; 
 that is, he applied those means that if not successful in sub- 
 duing that heart, would necessarily by their reaction even- 
 tuate in the hardening of that heart. So here, God did not 
 evil entreat the people ; but he used those means to effee- 
 
44 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 tuate their exodus, whicli at first added to the ^veight antf 
 pressure of their burdens. Thus, God is said to do a thing, 
 which he was only the occasion for a moment of being done. 
 Again, one of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer is, " Lead 
 us not into temptation." This does not mean that God ever 
 leads his people into circumstances of sinful temptation ; the 
 meaning clearly is, " Suffer us not to be led into temptation.'* 
 So here the idea is, " Wherefore hast thou suffered us to be 
 evil entreated ? " And again, " The Lord suffered Pharaoh's 
 heart to be hardened ; " the Hebrew idiom often ascribing 
 to God the doing of a thing, of which he is only the occasion, 
 by the instrumentality he employs for effectuating great and 
 permanent good. 
 
 God may be working gloriously for our land, when all 
 seems to be against it. Let us not judge by feeble sense. 
 Let us trust. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DIVISION OF THE BIBLE INTO CHAPTERS. THE DOUBTS AND 
 TEARS OF MOSES. GOd's CONDESCENDING LOVE. JEHOVAH. 
 god's covenant. MOSES STILL DOUBTS. 
 
 The first verse of the chapter I have read is plainly a 
 reply to the last verse of the previous one. This leads me 
 to repeat what I have mentioned before in the course of my 
 expositions of the chapters, that our division of the Bible 
 into chapters was done by a very awkward printer, when the 
 earliest printed impressions of the Bible were produced, and 
 therefore that some of the divisions, as might be expected, 
 are extremely unhappy and undesirable. It is plain that a 
 great portion of this sixth chapter ought to be attached to 
 the fifth. 
 
 Moses had made the objection at the close of the previous 
 chapter, " Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this 
 people ? Why is it that thou hast sent me ? For since I 
 came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to 
 this people ; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all ; " 
 that is, " I totally despair of the fulfilment of thy promise, 
 or of the success of thy power ; for the experiment I have 
 made has been so signal a failure, that I cannot be induced 
 to make a second." Well, God's reply, indicating forbearing 
 and bearing with a servant doubting where he ought to have 
 had perfect confidence, was this, "You are mistaken, Moses. 
 The failure of a first experiment — if failure you choose to 
 call it — is no proof that a second experiment will not suc- 
 ceed. At all events, it is your duty to follow out what your 
 
46 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 God Scays : it is my glory to see tliat what I have promised 
 and predicted will come to pass." We are all apt in all 
 things to intrude on God's province, thus losing force, instead 
 of concentrating all our disposable energy within the prov- 
 ince tliat God has assigned us. It is not ours to question for 
 a moment that God will fulfil his promises ; it is ours always 
 and everywhere to fulfil the obligations that he has laid upon 
 us. God says, that, so far from Pliaraoh succeeding, he will 
 be glad to let these poor brickmakers and slaves go forth 
 from his land. There is something very encouraging in this ; 
 that God, instead of rebuking strongly the unbelief of his 
 servants, gives another manifestation of his greatness to their 
 senses, in order to overcome by love, instead of repressing 
 by rebuke, their unbelief and suspicions. Therefore, God 
 here says to Moses, " I will turn over another leaf in my 
 character; I will unveil another ray of my glory. You 
 have known me, Moses, as the El Shaddai,'' that is God 
 Almighty, " but I wish you now to know me in a higher 
 relationship, and by a name expressive of a yet greater 
 character and glory ; that is, the name Jehovah." 
 
 El Shaddai means God Almighty ; but Jehovah means 
 He that was, and is, and is to be. You will find that the 
 name El Shaddai, God Almighty, is generally used when 
 God speaks of what he can do ; and that Jehovah is used 
 always with reference to the accomplishment of what God 
 had promised, and predicted that he would do. The name 
 Jehovah is applied to our blessed Redeemer in the Book of 
 Revelation : '• I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." 
 These words are a paraphrase upon the name Jehovah. And 
 this name Jehovah, I may mention, is still held to be so 
 sacred by a Jew, that he never mentions it. Wherever the 
 word Jehovah occurs in the Old Testament, he substitutes • 
 El Shaddai, Eloliim, or Adonai, that is, " the Lord," instead 
 of it. And if he should find a fragment of paper with the 
 name " Jehovah " upon it, he would lay it aside, as too sacred 
 
EXODUS VI. 47 
 
 to be jirofaned, containing as it does the incommunicable 
 name of God. 
 
 Here the question occurs, "Was not this name known to 
 Moses ? There are two classes of commentators on this 
 very text. Some say that the name Jehovah was not known 
 prior to the appearance of God in the burning bush. You 
 answer that statement by referring to the vision that Abra- 
 ham saw — the ram caught in the thicket, when he called 
 the place Jehovah-jireh, "The Lord will provide," or, "In 
 the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." Well, then, if 
 Abraham used the very name Jehovah, and if the word 
 Jehovah occurs several times besides in the course of the 
 previous chapters, how can it be said that this name was 
 not known to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob ? Those who 
 hold the opinion that it was not literally known to them, say 
 that, as Moses did not write Genesis till some two thousand 
 years after some of the facts recorded in it, he used the 
 name Jehovah because it was known to the Jews at the 
 time he wrote, though it was not known to Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob in the years in Avhich they lived. But this would 
 seem to be irreconcilable with some passages where the 
 name Jehovah must have been used, because it was given 
 with reference to special circumstances, to which the other 
 names of God would not seem to be applicable. And be- 
 sides, it would seem on this supposition, that Moses did not 
 write strictly and literally what was true, but wrote the 
 past with a borrowed light from the present, which would 
 not be the duty of a faithful historian. The other opinion — 
 and I think it is the just and the only interpretation — is, 
 that the name Jehovah was known to Abraham ; but that 
 its pregnant meaning, preciousness in its application, and 
 comfort, was so little known, that, in comparison, it was not 
 known at all ; that is, God had not manifested all his glory 
 as Jehovah to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as he would do 
 to Moses and to the children of Israel in after generations. 
 
48 SCKirTURE READINGS. 
 
 This seems to be the natural and fiiir interpretation of the 
 passage, " By my name Jehovah was I not known to them;" 
 that is, in all its fulness, emphasis, and precious signifi- 
 cance. But now it will be known to you by being more 
 fully and gloriously revealed and realized. 
 
 Then God repeats to Moses his promise, " I have also 
 established my covenant with them, to give them the land 
 of Canaan." " Why should you doubt, Moses ? This is an 
 absolute fixture; it must be. Go, therefore, and in the 
 confidence that that will be, take the place, and discharge 
 the duties that I have assigned unto thee. Say to the chil- 
 dren of Israel, I am Jehovah. That is the name that I 
 shall be known by. He who can make something out of 
 nothing; He who not only has all power, but creative 
 power. And I will bring you out from under the burdens 
 of the Egyptians. And tell them that I will bring them 
 into the land which I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob ; and I will give it you for an heritage ; for the 
 reason of it is, not your merit, nor their excellence, but 
 my own sovereignty. I am Jehovah, and that is the only 
 reason of it." 
 
 " Moses spake so unto the children of Israel ; " — he took 
 heart to engage in his mission again : " but they hearkened 
 not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage." 
 They had become degraded, depressed, debased ; and we 
 know that deep physical degradatign makes men insensible 
 to moral opinions. 
 
 Moses then " spake before the Lord, saying, Behold, the 
 children of Israel hearkened not unto me ; how, then, shall 
 Pharaoh hear me ? " " If they who have the deepest inter- 
 est in the message have turned a deaf ear to it, how can I 
 expect that Pharaoh, who has no interest in it, but the 
 very reverse, will listen to it ? " — the unbelief of Moses 
 breaking out in almost every expression that he uttered. 
 
 But " the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron," 
 
EXODUS VI. 49 
 
 taking no notice of their objection, " and gave" them a charge 
 unto the children of Israel, and unto Pharaoh, king of 
 Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of 
 
 Egyi.t." 
 
 In conclusion there is given an account of the ftxmilies of 
 the tribes of Joseph and of Jacob ; and, singular enough, 
 Moses takes scarcely any notice of his own family connec- 
 tions, but refers especially to Aaron, indicating that forbear- 
 ance, and that " in honor preferring one another," which are 
 so characteristic of the penmen of Sacred AVrit. We have 
 in the list of the progenitors of these men, persons of ques- 
 tionable character and conduct, which is evidence that 
 Moses and Aaron based their opinions, not upon their 
 descent, but upon the commission of Jehovah, who sent 
 them. 
 
 The expression, " father's sister," used in one verse, does 
 not always denote a sister in the literal sense of blood rela- 
 tionship ; it is often used to denote a distant relationship, a 
 kinswoman ; and it may be thus used here. 
 
 In the closing verse we find that Moses' unbelief was not 
 overcome ; for he said, " Behold, I am of uncircumcised 
 lips ; " evidently giving up all in despair. " I will go be- 
 cause thou commandest ; but I go with a heavy heart, and a 
 reluctant step." So difficult is it to overcome that evil heart 
 of unbelief, that leads us to depart from the living God. So 
 natural is it to suspect where we ought to confide ; to despair 
 wliere we ought to hope ; and even when God calls, to pre- 
 fer our own prejudices and prepossessions to his blessed 
 Word. 
 
THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH 
 
 OR, THE CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD. 
 
 " Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." — 
 Exodus i. 8. 
 
 I HAVE explained the first six chapters in the course of 
 our Sunday morning Expositions, or rather given such an 
 outline of them as could be submitted in the little space of 
 time assigned for that purpose ; but the verse I have read 
 seems to suggest a thought not unworthy of special analysis. 
 It explains the severity of Israel's sufferings in Egypt. It 
 sums up the reasons of the unprecedented persecution 
 endured from a dynasty, or a king, " which knew not 
 Joseph." It reveals the reasons why one so distinguished 
 for his piety, his sagacity, political prudence, and moral 
 worth, together with his people, should have been so depre- 
 ciated, despised, and evil entreated by any king of Egypt 
 acquainted with the years, and the peculiarities of the 
 years, that were coeval with Joseph. No doubt there was a 
 reason, and this would seem to be, that the kings of Egypt 
 had degenerated in their moral character, and thereibre 
 they elevated to position, place, and power, men far different 
 in tone and temper of mind and heart from the good and 
 great patriarch Joseph. It is said, the first dynasty recog- 
 nized in Joseph a distinguished patriot, an accomplished 
 statesman ; tiie second dynasty swept away Josepli and his 
 cabinet together, and elected for u corrupted court a more 
 
THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 51 
 
 corrupt and immoral ministry. The consequence was, that 
 Josepli, whose deeds in the past were so loudly and so em- 
 phatically appreciated, was laid aside, despised, forgotten — 
 his advice unsought, and his contributions to the well-being 
 of his country at a former day despised or at least passed 
 by. But the Christian patriarch was, no doubt, preserved 
 in the obscurity of private life with as equable and magnani- 
 mous a mind as that with which he was gifted when he trod 
 the high and perilous places of the land. He had that heart 
 which beat true to God in the palace of Pharaoh, and would 
 not cease to beat equally true when the new king came 
 " which knew not Joseph." Did the benefactors of the world 
 confer benefits for the sake of being thanked for them, they 
 would cease in numerous instances to be beneflictors at all. 
 We must confer good upon those who need it, and do ser- 
 vice to those whom that service will benefit, not in expecta- 
 tion of reward on earth, but because duty prompts us upon 
 the one hand, and religion consecrates that sense of duty, 
 making it felt more obligatory upon that account, on the 
 other. 
 
 It is said, Joseph was not "known" by this dynasty. 
 This is a strong expression, used to denote the perfect ob- 
 scurity into which this good and great man had fallen ; or 
 rather, the contempt in which this benefactor and true 
 patriot was held by those who were unable to appreciate 
 him. It was not that Joseph's character had waned in 
 beauty ; it was not that his intellect had lost its sagacity ; it 
 was not that he was less capable of holding the helm of the 
 State, and doing the duties of a statesman, under the new 
 dynasty, than he was under the old ; but the new dynasty 
 wished to pursue a course of action and conduct inconsistent 
 with that purity, integrity, and candor, which Joseph had 
 counselled, and which by reason of his previous recommen- 
 dation was exhibited by a former dynasty ; and therefore he 
 was cast off. Less worthy men were taken in his place. 
 
52 THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 
 
 But, what occurred to Joseph is just Avhat befalls Christians 
 still, in proportion as their Christianity ceases to be latent. 
 AYe are told by an apostle, that the world knoweth us not, 
 because it knew Christ not. If this be a universal law, 
 Joseph must have come under it in the patriarchal days 
 just as much as the apostles came under it in the early 
 dawn of the Christian dispensation. If it be a fact univer- 
 sally true in this dispensation, we must expect, in proportion 
 as we exhibit ourselves as Christians, to come under its 
 action also. In what respect, then, can it be said that they 
 did not know Joseph in the days of that new Egyptian 
 dynasty, or that the world, of which that dynasty was the 
 type, does not know Christians still ? " The world knoweth 
 us not because it knew Him not." The reason is just this. 
 The world has an eye that can appreciate and take in out- 
 ward and worldly greatness, beauty, rank, pomp, splendor, 
 but it wants the inner eye to appreciate that which will out- 
 last it all, — inward, moral and spiritual character. The 
 world, like the dynasty of Egypt, can understand perfectly 
 well external rank, and visible dignity ; but it cannot appre- 
 ciate that rank that relates to God, and that dignity with 
 Avhich they are invested who are by adoption made the sons 
 of God. The world can understand the wise after the 
 flesh, but not the truly wise. It can understand the rich 
 after the manner and standard of this world, but not the 
 rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom. It can see that common 
 beauty which the vulgar eye can admire ; but it cannot ap- 
 preciate, because it cannot see, that inner, s[)iritual beauty, 
 which is the clothing of the King's daughter, and which is 
 visible only to that new sense which the Holy Spirit im- 
 plants in them who are born again, who alone are able to 
 distinguish between the inner, moral grandeui' which has no 
 decay, and the outer, material pomp and splendor which, 
 like a vision, will vanish, and scarcely leave a wreck 
 behind. 
 
THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 53 
 
 The reason wliy the world does not appreciate the 
 Cliristian character is, that the Christian leads a higher life. 
 He walks, if we may so speak, on a loftier level. He is, in 
 proportion as he is a Christian, influenced by motives and 
 hopes, and guided by laws, and a sense of a presence, which 
 an unconverted, worldly man, such as was the new king of 
 Egypt who knew not Joseph, cannot at all understand, A 
 thorough worldly man would be amazed at hearing that a 
 person had made great sacrifices of certain profit to that 
 airy and transcendental thing, as he would call it. Christian 
 principle ; and he would wonder how any man could be so 
 destitute of common sense, as to give up £500 a year in 
 deference to that thing called " conscience," or to that book 
 called " the Bible ;" or in deference to the antiquated notion 
 somehow got into his head, "Thou, God, seest me." A man 
 who is thoroughly of the world, thoroughly in it, with no 
 appreciation of what constitutes true beauty, and true excel- 
 lence, and is in fact the Christian character, will wonder and 
 marvel how any man will give up a certain positive good 
 that can be held by the hand, in deference to any airy prin- 
 ciple, to conscience, or to religion, that cannot be weighed 
 in scales, nor meted by a yard measure, nor touched and 
 handled. Therefore, he thinks, there ought to give way — 
 principle to profit, — never, never profit to principle. Jo- 
 seph probably was called by this dynasty, and asked, " Shall 
 the king go to war with this nation ? " Joseph would natu- 
 rally answer, " What has the nation done ? " The answer 
 probably would be, "•' Nothing." " Then why go to war ? " 
 "In order to add to Egypt another province." Joseph 
 would then say, " That is aggressive warfare, and there- 
 fore wrong-doing." " But why," they would say, " do you 
 call it so ? " " Because," would be his answer, " God has 
 taught me so ; because I know from a higher teaching, what 
 you must feel in your consciences, if you have any of the 
 remains of its original light, that aggressive war for the 
 5* 
 
54 THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 
 
 aggrandizement of a nation, disguise it as you like, belongs 
 to the same category as the midnight burglar, or as the per- 
 son who breaks into a house, in order to add to his own 
 pomp and equipage." The king would then answer, " You 
 are not the pliable minister who is w^anted in these days of 
 Egypt. You must retire, and a more manageable character 
 must take your place : " and therefore the king " knew not 
 Joseph." 
 
 Another reason why the world does not appreciate the 
 Christian noAv is, that it judges a Christian by itself, and 
 thinks that he must be at heart, notwithstanding all his pre- 
 tences, w'hat it is. The world loves sin, delights in it. 
 Covetousness, malice, hatred, ambition, thirst for power, are 
 all passions that are not only cherished but nourished in the 
 Avorldly man's heart. AVe do not say all these passions are 
 in one heart, but one or other of them is in every worldly 
 man's heart. And when the world meets with a man who 
 professes to have laid his ambition at the foot of the cross, 
 and %vhose thirst for power is the noble thirst of doing good, 
 it will say, " This sounds very fine, but we do not believe it. 
 The only difference between you and us is, that we do not 
 .pretend to these things, and that you do ; for behind the 
 curtain you practice what we practice, and are exactly what 
 we are." Therefore, the world hates the Christian, not 
 simply for his Christianity, but because it cannot conceive 
 such a man to be any other than a thorough hypocrite. 
 Hence the world does not know, does not like, does not ap- 
 prove, in fact, condemns the Christian, and believes that he 
 accommodates himself simply to the outward eye, but that 
 at heart and in reality he is just as other men are. Now 
 this is not the fact. If a man be a Christian, he has got a 
 new taste, new sympathies and hopes ; he has got a new 
 standard of action, a new object dangling before him in the 
 distance, towards which he runs, and after which he aspires; 
 he lives a higlier life, breatlies a purer air, and is altogether 
 
THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 55 
 
 what the apostle calls " a new man." Therefore, the world, 
 judging that he is what it is, only with the added sin of 
 hvpocrisj, does not know that if he be a Christian at all, it 
 is as natural to him to love the right, as it is natural to the 
 world to prefer the wrong ; and that his change of character 
 generates a change of taste, which makes him hate what 
 once he loved, and love what once he hated. 
 
 The world, or the unregenerated man, for that is the defi- 
 nition of it, cannot understand either the sorrows or the joya 
 of a Christian. It can understand sorrow at being balked 
 of a great prize, or under bitter disappointment at not at- 
 taining an expected fortune ; the world can thoroughly 
 understand tlie pain of being outshone by a rival, or eclipsed 
 by another candidate for greatness ; but it cannot under- 
 stand sorrow at having done wrong, or grief that the world is 
 as it is, or pain that men should not be what the Gospel pre- 
 scribes they ought to be. The world cannot understand that ; 
 it cannot take such elements into its calculation at all. There- 
 fore such a sorrow is hidden from the world, and as truly 
 inappreciable by it, as if it were non-existent altogether. 
 
 A Christian's joys the world cannot understand. A 
 Christian's joy is derived from hearing that the cause of 
 truth and righteousness makes way, that the cause and king- 
 dom of Satan are depressed, that the kingdoms of this world 
 are more and more becoming the kingdoms of our God and 
 of his Christ, that the Bible is more read, and circulated 
 more extensively, that error is being rooted out, that truth 
 is prevailing over the earth. These are elements in a 
 Christian's joy. But the world cannot understand it. It 
 cannot see the least use in spreading Bibles, except more 
 employment for the paper manufacturer and the bookbinder. 
 It cannot understand the good of Christianity, except that it 
 takes civilization in its train. And therefore, a Christian's 
 joys are such as a mere worldly man cannot sympathize 
 with ; they are as much unknown to him, as if they did not 
 exist, or were not felt at alL 
 
66 THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 
 
 But this expression, "knew not," means more than, not 
 appreciate ; it means also, not approve, or, disapprove. 
 AVhen it says, therefore, that " there arose up a new king 
 over Egypt, which knew not Joseph," it implies that this 
 king positively disapproved of Joseph, as well as disliked, 
 slighted, or left him out. It is still the character of the 
 world, that it disapproves of Christians. It disapproves of 
 their separating from what it upholds ; it disapproves of 
 their protesting against what it applauds ; it disapproves of 
 them, because they run not to the same excess of riot, and 
 because they at times feel it their duty to express their dis- 
 approbation of that of which the world is most enthusiasti- 
 cally enamored. Thus, the world disapproves of Christians. 
 Only let us take care that its disapproval be of our Christian 
 character, and not of our frail prejudices that accompany it, 
 or of infirmities that are scarcely separable from it, or of 
 our imprudent or injudicious conduct. Christians are apt 
 to confound the world's disapproval of their injudiciousness 
 with its not knowing the Christian character. There are 
 many infirm Christians, and many Christians very little ad- 
 vanced in the way of godliness ; and you must not suppose 
 that the world is disapproving of the Christian character 
 every time it pronounces a verdict unfavorable to what you 
 have done, or to some feature that you have developed. It 
 may be a disapproval of }'ou, not of Christ in you. But 
 still, the character of the world is, that it disapproves of the 
 whole motives, character, separation, protest, principles, 
 career, and hopes, of a Christian. It first does not under- 
 stand them and cannot appreciate them, and next, as far as 
 it knows tliem, it positively disapproves of them. It says, 
 the world is not workable upon these principles. I have no 
 doubt that this dynasty told Joseph that his principles were 
 all very well for a Millennium, but they were not good for 
 Egypt ; that he would be a vcjiy good prime minister for 
 Millennial days, but that he was not a practical prime miu- 
 
THE KING THAT KXEW NOT JOSEPH. 57 
 
 ister for the dynasty of Pharaoh. And therefore, this kinf>' 
 not only did not appreciate the pure patriotism and lofty 
 morality of Joseph, but he positively disapproved of a Chris- 
 tian altogether as either a candidate for, or an occupant of 
 the office of prime-minister of Egypt. 
 
 But this expression "knew not" implies also hate, as well 
 as disapproval. " If the world hate you," says our Lord, 
 " ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were 
 of the world, the world would love his own : but because ye 
 are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, 
 therefore the world hateth you." Now it seems strange that 
 the world should hate the Christian ; and yet it is explained 
 in that Book which explains all the perplexities and incon- 
 gruities of human nature. It tells us distinctly that the 
 carnal heart, that is, the natural heart, that with which we 
 are born, is enmity against God. Therefore, if the world 
 be now what it was, though very much, I admit, improved 
 in its general tone ; and if the Christian be Avhat he once 
 was, then the same antipathy must exist still. It may be 
 differently developed, but it must still exist. The world is 
 not radically changed; it is improved — there is no doubt of 
 that, but still it is the world ; and the Christian is not radi- 
 cally different from what he was in St. John's days. If he 
 be what he was, he is a man born again, the Christian whom 
 the world knoweth not. If this be the case, these two are 
 opposites — light and darkness, truth and error, the king- 
 dom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan — and therefore, a 
 world that not only cannot appreciate the traits of your char- 
 acter, but that also disapproves of them, as far as it knows 
 them, will proceed a step further, and hate you, and a step 
 further, and show that liatrcd by trying to exterminate and 
 extinguish you ; but as it cannot kill in the present day, at 
 least, in this country, it will misrepresent you. Are you 
 earnest ? It will say, you have a heated imagination. Are 
 you strict and consistent ? It will say, you are a hypocrite. 
 
58 THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 
 
 Are you a professor of a purer and a nobler ereed ? It will 
 be said, it is because you seek applause, or reward of men. 
 Every thing you do will be misconstrued ; every thing that 
 you are will be misrepresented. But when the world has 
 the power, as it has in Tuscany, then it assu*mes another 
 and a sterner feature, — it puts you in prison, and would, 
 if it could, renew the massacres of St. Bartholomew, and 
 reproduce the scenes of an age that some thought had 
 passed away, but that seems in some parts of Europe to 
 be coming on again. Thus, the world cannot appreciate 
 our principles ; it disapproves of them ; it hates those who 
 are the exponents of them. 
 
 Well, what are we to infer from all this ? First, be com- 
 forted, it has been so from the beginning ; and therefore, 
 the world was and is the world still ; and the Christian, 
 whether in Joseph's days, or our own, was and is the Chris- 
 tian still. And let us recollect this, that if the world thus 
 treats the Christian, it so treated Christ. If they have done 
 so to the Master, we may expect they \vill do so to the ser- 
 vant. And if we are not so treated, we should examine 
 ourselves to see what is th-e reason. Has the world about 
 us become Christian? or are we become worldly? Why 
 has the contrast failed ? why has the antagonism ceased ? 
 Are we faithful, true, stcadfost, firm exponents of Chris- 
 tianity, living epistles, the lights of the world, the salt of 
 the earth? I speak as unto reasonable men: judge ye. 
 But let us recollect also for our comfort that, if we are thus 
 treated, the world passeth away ; it does not last for ever. 
 And let us recollect that one day we shall be manifest, for 
 the sons of God shall be made manifest. The Avorld will 
 then have passed away, and we alone shall inherit the king- 
 dom. Above all rejoice in tliis, that whoever hates us, God 
 does not. Whoever condemns, God acquits. " Behold 
 what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that 
 we should be called the sons of God ! " 
 
THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEm. 59 
 
 The world will be this year what it has been last ; let us 
 not fear it, or be alarmed on account of what man feels, but 
 see that in the world we are not of it, but superior to it in 
 life, in aim, in character, in hope. And let us go forth into 
 the years which are before us, just as Joseph left the palace 
 of Pharaoh, and went into obscurity, — his heart remaining 
 the same, his love to God and his allegiance to his law re- 
 maining unchanged. Let the world change, let us abide. 
 Let it alter its treatment of us, if it so be ; but let our posi- 
 tion in reference to it be held fast, the position of protest 
 against its evil, and of usefulness in efforts to do it good, and 
 awaken it to a sense of the need, the value, and preciousness 
 of the Gospel of Christ. And in going into the world, 
 whether into its ups or its downs, its shadow or its sunshine, 
 let us seek to have more and more manifested in ourselves 
 the character of Plim who is our Great Example, and run 
 the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and 
 the finisher of our faith. When he was reviled, he reviled 
 not again. " He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, 
 as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not 
 his mouth." " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which 
 is in heaven is perfect." " If you be reproached for the 
 Name of Christ, happy are you ; for the Spirit of glory 
 and of God resteth upon you." Let us never forget that 
 there is a distinction, not mechanical, nor visible, but real, 
 spiritual, and inner, between the Church and the world, 
 between one who is born again and one who is not. It is 
 very important that that difference, that mighty chasm, 
 should not be in imagination filled up, in fact it never can 
 be. Either we must go over to the world and be of it, or 
 the world must come over to us and be one of us ; but as 
 long as the world and the Church exist, so long it is light 
 and darkness, truth and error, and there will be opposition, 
 there must not be compromise. Let us be thankful when 
 that opposition is mild, let us be patient, when it becomes 
 
GO THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 
 
 severe ; and let us in the world remember that the world 
 passeth away, but that they who fear God shall endure for 
 ever, and they that by death or life turn many to righteous- 
 ness shall shine as the stars and the brightness of the sun 
 for evermore. Weep as though ye wept not, rejoice as 
 though ye rejoiced not. Use the world as not abusing it, for 
 the fashion of it passeth away. 
 
 We must never take office anywhere, or under any cir- 
 cumstances, at the exjDcnse of concealing our distinctive 
 principles, or compromising the higher service of our Mas- 
 ter in heaven. Allegiance to Him is first and last. Duty 
 to Him is the supreme and governing consideration. All 
 must give way to this, and this must give way to nothing. 
 Our light must shine in the world as in the sanctuary. Our 
 character must be distinct and definite in the outward as in 
 the inward circle. The world must come to us, we cannot 
 go to the world. We need not be sour, exclusive, bigoted ; 
 but we must be firm, steadfast, immovable. Great decision 
 may be combined with great gentleness. The firmness of 
 the rock and the flexibility of the w^ave are not contradic- 
 tions. For this purpose let us study the Great Example, 
 imbibe His spirit, and draw inspiration from that ever 
 accessible but never exhaustible fountain. We are in an 
 alien country — our quietest retreats are bivouacs, not 
 homes. Let us walk as pilgrims and strangers, looking for 
 a city and a better country. So patriarchs sojourned — so 
 martyrs lived of whom the world was not worthy. In due 
 time we shall reap if we faint not^ 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 gifts. the mission of moses and aaron. hardening op 
 Pharaoh's heart, miracles and marvels, rod turned 
 
 INTO A serpent. WATER INTO BLOOD. 
 
 You remember that, at the close of the previous chapter, 
 Moses had again expressed his doubts of success, by alleging 
 his conscious deficiency of eloquence or the power of utter- 
 ance ; and therefore that he was not fit to go in to Pharaoh, 
 and try to persuade him to let the people go. God ref)lies 
 to that objection in his own majestic and impressive terms, 
 which we may thus paraphrase : " The Lord said unto 
 Moses, this is the answer to all your difficulties ; this is to 
 be your encouragement ; I have made thee to be a god to 
 Pharaoh ; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet." In 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, magistrates, as representing a por- 
 tion of the jurisdiction of God, are called gods. The ex- 
 pression was very commonly applied to those who were 
 possessed of dignity or official power, " ye are gods ; " and 
 in this sense Moses is said to have been made a god unto 
 Pharaoh ; and Aaron his brother was to be his prophet. 
 You are already aware of the reason of this distinction 
 between the two brethren. Moses complained that he had 
 no power of eloquence, or was uncircumcised of lip ; and 
 God's reply to that was, " You, Moses, shall be the oracle 
 or depository of truth ; and Aaron, who has the gift of elo- 
 quence, shall unfold and express it." God did not alter 
 their constitutional characteristics ; but he made use of their 
 existing constitutional peculiarities to do his great work. 
 6 
 
62 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 So still, when God employs men to execute his purposes, he 
 does not recreate them, but he sanctifies them, he uses 
 them as they are. Anybody reading the New Testament, 
 will see that each writer has a style of his own ; so much 
 so, that if you were to read a few verses from one or the 
 other of the writers, I should be able to say whether they 
 were written by Matthew, or Mark, or Paul, or Peter. 
 God did not destroy the idiosyncracies of the sacred pen- 
 men, but he retained their variety of style, and consecrated 
 that variety to be the more eloquent vehicle of important 
 and precious truth. So, when God sent Moses and Aaron 
 to do his work in Egypt,^e did not make Moses eloquent, 
 which he was not, nor did he make Aaron learned, which 
 he was not ; but he made Aaron, the eloquent man, draw 
 upon the stores of Moses, the learned man, and thus each 
 did efficiently and naturally the work that God had assigned 
 them. So, at the era of the Reformation, Luther's eloquence 
 and energy would have been extremely defective, if he 
 could not have fallen back upon the rich stores of Melanch- 
 thon's learning. So in the Acts of the Apostles, the energy 
 and boldness of Peter were shown in his speaking ; and the 
 love, patience, perseverance, and piety of John, were shown 
 in his keeping silence. God thus takes different men of 
 different constitutional peculiarities for different purposes. 
 
 " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 
 . . . For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; 
 to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit ; to 
 another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of 
 healing by the same Spirit ; to another the working of mira- 
 cles ; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; 
 to another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the interpre- 
 tation of tongues ; but all these worketh that one and the 
 selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." 
 
 God instructs Moses and Aaron as to what they should 
 do ; but he adds, " I will harden Pharaoh's heart." I ex- 
 
EXODUS VII. 63 
 
 plained to yon, on a former occasion, that God is often said 
 in Scripture to do things directly, when the context shows 
 that he did them indirectly. To be the occasion of a thing, 
 is totally distinct from being the cause of a thing. I build 
 an hospital for the cure of the sick ; but in the course of its 
 erection, a scaffolding gives way, and a workman is killed. 
 The hospital was not the cause, but the occasion of that 
 death. Jesus came into the world, not to send peace, but a 
 sword. He came directly to send peace ; but he came indi- 
 rectly and incidentally to send war. The Gospel is not the 
 cause of war, but the occasion of it. And so, when God 
 said, " I will harden Pharaoh's heart," it implied, " I will 
 show^ such signs, and bring to his conscience such motives, 
 that if he is not moved, melted, and subdued, the reaction 
 of that influence will end in his being hardened more and 
 more." Another evidence of this would be the fact, that, in 
 some passages it is said that Pharaoh hardened his own 
 heart ; and in the 14th verse of this chapter, where our 
 translation unfortunately is wrong, we are told that " the 
 Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened;" it 
 should be translated, "is heavy;" and in the 22d verse 
 again it is said, " Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did 
 he hearken unto them." The 13th verse should be ren- 
 dered the same as this. You see a great variety of phrases 
 employed, but all imply that the influences that were em- 
 ployed by God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and not that God 
 did it directly. Nothing can be so absurd as to say that 
 God showed to Pharaoh reasons of repentance, which he 
 prevented him by physical power from accepting. That is 
 not, and cannot be the meaning. It means simply that God 
 was the incidental occasion of hardening a heart which 
 would not yield to forces, motives, and reasons, adequate in 
 themselves to melt and subdue it. 
 
 But God says, " While you shall not succeed in touching 
 Pharaoh's heart, my word shall not return unto me void ; 
 
64 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 for the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." The 
 message was sent to the monarch ; it failed in producing its 
 legitimate influence upon him ; but the residue of that influ- 
 ence reached the people, and many of the Egyptians knew 
 and learned for the first time that God was Jehovah. 
 
 At this time, we are told, Moses was eighty years of age, 
 and Aaron eighty-three. This was not old age. Moses 
 lived, as I have said before, to be one hundred and twenty. 
 He was, therefore, now just at the close of the meridian of 
 life. I mentioned also before, that there is no evidence in 
 the Bible that man's life has been shortened since Moses' 
 death ; and that, as far as we can gather from Divine inter- 
 position, one hundred and twenty is the proper age of man. 
 The 90th Psalm describes an abnormal state of life in 
 the wilderness. There Moses himself complains that their 
 life was shortened to threescore and ten, by the existing 
 severity and pressure of their circumstances, not by the 
 ordinance of God. And it remains a problem, Avhether, if 
 men were not less oppressed by anxious cares and thoughts, 
 ambition, vainglory, and pride, and wrath, and malice, they 
 would not live to a much greater age ; and whether it be 
 not true, that, in proportion as Christianity gains in its sanc- 
 tifying influence on the soul, the whole social and physical 
 system will not be correspondingly elevated and ameliorated 
 also. 
 
 Pharaoh said, " Show a miracle for you." Now that was 
 not at all an unreasonable request. When a new revelation 
 is made, you require, not simply that it shall be suitable and 
 agreeable to your judgment, but that it shall be accompanied 
 with such credentials as prove it to have come directly from 
 God. A miracle has always been regarded as the evidence 
 of a revelation from on high. It Is not itself the revelation, 
 but the evidence of it. The wax upon the deed, and the 
 seal of one of the parties, is not the deed ; but it is the evi- 
 dence that that deed is accepted and identifled by the party 
 
EXODUS VII. 65 
 
 whose seal is attached to it. The miracles in the Ne\7 
 Testament were, if I may so speak, the pedestals of great 
 truths. The miracles which our Lord wrought were not 
 mere freaks of omnipotence, but exhibitions of power and 
 benevolence, made to attest that a certain doctrine or a cer- 
 tain message was from God. In the case of Moses and 
 Aaron, every miracle that they wrought was, first, to prove 
 to Pharaoh that they had a Divine commission to call Israel 
 out of Egypt ; and next, if they had not beneficence in 
 them, they were all fitted to humble Egypt, by awakening 
 them to a sense of the idolatry in which it indulged, and to 
 prove to that nation, by overthrowing the ground and foun- 
 dation of their hope^, that they were worshipping only lying 
 vanities. For instance, the second miracle recorded in this 
 chapter — that of turning the river into blood — was not 
 simply an exhibition of God's power to be a credential to 
 Moses and Aaron, but it was also a punishment inflicted 
 upon the national deity of the Egyptians themselves. The 
 Nile was their god. Its water is recorded to have been the 
 sweetest that ever was tasted ; and it is said that, in these 
 modern times, the Turks are so fond of it, that they are 
 known to eat salt beforehand, in order that they may enjoy 
 this delicious water more. It was, no doubt, in the days of 
 Pharaoh equally delicious ; and it is this fact that gives 
 such emphasis to this expression, "The Egyptians shall 
 loathe to drink of the water of the river." 
 
 But the first miracle recorded here is that of turning the 
 rod into a serpent, or rather a crocodile — it is not nahash, 
 but tannin, — and the Egyptian magicians doing so likewise. 
 The question which will occur in the course of our subse- 
 quent reading of Moses' doings in Egypt, is. Did the magi- 
 cians really do supernatural things ? This has been a great 
 controversy in every age. Some passages seem to show 
 that they really did supernatural deeds, and others seem to 
 show that they only made the attempt to do them. I do not 
 6* 
 
OQ SCRIPTURE rp:adings. 
 
 see any difliculty in supposing that they did supernatural 
 deeds. Grant this, that the existence of Satan is a reality, 
 that he is a fiend armed with an archangel's force, and capa- 
 ble of wielding an archangel's wisdom, and I cannot con- 
 ceive it to be very diliicult to believe that he may do upon 
 the earth deeds that are supernatural, as well as what all 
 admit, succeed in touching the human mind at every point, 
 and persuade it to deeds and thoughts that are sinful. I 
 think it is even a greater miracle that Satan should be able, 
 in spite of my will, to touch my mind and tempt it, than 
 that he should be able to turn a rod into a serpent, or the 
 serpent back again into the rod. I think the former is evi- 
 dence of as great power as the latter any day. It is said 
 that Aaron's rod became a serpent, and that the magicians, 
 wise men, or sorcerers, for all these phrases are synony- 
 mous, " did in like manner with their enchantments." These 
 enchantments were supposed to indicate connection with 
 superior powers in the invisible world ; and the statement 
 here that their rods became serpents, but that the victory 
 was gained by Aaron's rod swallowing up their rods, seems 
 very literal and natural. One does not like to dilute and to 
 describe deeds done, not attempted, and waste down tho 
 force of express Scripture statements into figures, unless 
 there be very clear and satisfactory reasons for doing so. 
 
 But, then, the other miracle seems to tell in the opposite 
 direction. Aaron's rod was stretched over the river, and it 
 was turned into blood. What an awful spectacle it must 
 have been to the Egyptians to see the illustrious Nile, whose 
 waters were the source of the fertility of their land, and 
 whose deliciousness was to them so refreshing, and which 
 they worshipped and adored as a god, turned into blood, 
 and all its fish die ! If they drank, they died of poison ; if 
 they drank not, they died of thirst. The milder exhibition 
 did not melt the heart of Pharaoh. God has recourse to a 
 severer. I do not think that those rationalistic commen- 
 
EXODUS vir. 67 
 
 tafors arc to be followed, who say that the river merely as- 
 sumed the appearance of blood. The statement is express 
 and distinct ; and so many items are given of the resulting 
 consequences of this change, that one cannot suppose that it 
 was not literally turned into blood. 
 
 We then read, that "the magicians of Egypt did so with 
 their enchantments." Now here it seems as if they had not 
 power to do these miracles ; because if all the water was 
 turned into blood, what water was there left for the ma- 
 gicians to act upon ? What could they do that could at all 
 correspond with the stupendous feat that Moses and Aaron 
 had just performed? This last would seem, therefore, to 
 have been an attemjot on their part in which they failed ; 
 and this might lead one to suppose that their other supposed 
 miracles might have been merely attempts that beguiled and 
 deceived the few that were ready to be deceived, but not 
 really and truly miracles. 
 
 How interesting is the contrast to all this that is presented 
 in the Gospels ! The Levitical economy dawned in water 
 turned into blood, in judgment, in punishment. The Chris- 
 tian economy beautifully dawned in water turned into wine, 
 and the very first miracle that Jesus wrought was at a 
 marriage feast, as if he would go forth to sympathize with 
 nature's bright things before he went out to weep with them 
 that w^ept ; as if he would enter into life's sunny spots, in 
 order to show that Christianity sweetens and sanctifies them ; 
 before he went into life's darker and sadder ones, carrying 
 there those consolations that the world cannot give, and that 
 the world cannot take away. 
 
 But before we close our perusal of the miracles done in 
 Egypt, I shall have an opportunity of setting before you the 
 reasons that have been given on both sides — the one class 
 of reasons to show that the miracles were real ; the other, 
 that they were only attempts by the magicians to imitate the 
 miracles done by Moses and Aaron. The schoolmen say, the 
 magicians did mirum, a marvel ; not miracidum, a miracle. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PHARAOH A TYPE. GOD's DOINGS. NILE FOR SEVEN DATS IS 
 BLOOD. THE PLAGUE OF FROGS. EGYPTIAN OVENS. EFFORTS 
 OF MAGICIANS. SIN AND ITS PENALTIES INSEPARABLE. SWARM 
 OF GNATS AND BEETLES. PHARAOh's RELENTING. LESSON. 
 
 PnAKAOH is a too exact representative of the natural 
 man, in every age and phasis of human life and human ex- 
 perience. He is the representative of one determined to 
 have his own way ; and yet a specimen of one who must be 
 either subdued by Almighty grace, or made ultimately to 
 concur in the way and purpose of God. God might, by the 
 exercise of omnipotence, at once have laid him prostrate, 
 and let his people go ; but in doing otherwise he had a lesson 
 to teach to all mankind, as well as a benefit and a blessing 
 to secure for his people Israel. No fact in the history of 
 God's dealings with his people is a dead fact ; all He does 
 is meant for later ages, to be impressive to our hearts, and 
 to teach us lessons about ourselves, and of our responsibility 
 and lowliness, that no other fact could have so admirably 
 taught. 
 
 It appears, that during seven days the river had rolled 
 a current red witli blood, and tliat the whole land of Egypt 
 was in a state of dismay, terror, and alarm, at the awful 
 visitation that had fallen upon it. The reason why it 
 lasted seven days was, no doubt, to let Pharaoh see that it 
 was not an incidental phenomenon, but a clear and designed 
 and direct infliction of God. If it had occurred for an hour, 
 
EXODUS VIII. 69 
 
 and disappeared in an hour, it would have been said that it 
 was some coloring of some insect in the water, or that it was 
 some accidental tinge from the clay or soil of the mountains, 
 that it was some carbonate or muriate of iron, or other 
 chemical solution mixed with the waters. But when the 
 effects became so palpable as are here recorded, and these 
 effects lasted so long, there could be no mistaking that this 
 was a judgment from on high. 
 
 Well, when Moses went to Pharaoh, and aslv^ him to 
 let the people go, and he refused, then the judgment was 
 inflicted which is threatened in the third verse, namely, the 
 banks of the river brought forth frogs abundantly ; and so 
 universal was this infliction, that they went into Pharaoh's 
 house, and into his bedchamber, and upon his bed, and into 
 the house of his servants, and upon his people, and into 
 their ovens and kneading-troughs. One can conceive noth- 
 ing more horrible, or more offensive, or more completely an 
 infliction upon a great, wealthy, and powerful nation. But 
 it strikes one as a strange thing to speak of frogs going into 
 ovens. As our ovens are, of course, the approach of a frog 
 would be impossible from the intensity of the heat with 
 which the oven is charged, and its height from the ground. 
 But an Egyptian oven was a hole in the earth, in which 
 they put wood for a Are, over which they put an earthen 
 pitcher, and the bread was placed inside that, and baked by 
 the action of the fire in the hole beneath. It seems to us a 
 barbarous mode, but it was the Egyptian one. And you 
 caai conceive that when this hole was filled with frogs, the 
 preparation of bread would thereby become utterly imprac- 
 ticable. 
 
 "We read next, that " the magicians did so with their en- 
 chantments." Now there are two solutions of this. It 
 seems in some parts, that the magicians made the attempt to 
 do these things, and could not: for it is asserted in the 18th 
 verse, that " the magicians did so with their enchantments 
 
70 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 to bring forth lice, but they could not." But then it seems 
 in other passages, that they unquestionably succeeded in 
 doing so ; and it is the opinion of some of the best divines, 
 that they were enabled, by infranatural aid. And perhaps 
 the solution that has been suggested to me is true, that some 
 of these judgments were divine inflictions of what the magi- 
 cians had been in the habit of doing on a much smaller 
 scale. You are aware that in the Latin, Greek, and He- 
 brew ver#, there is the perfect, and also the imperfect tense. 
 For instance, docuit means that he taught, or did it at once ; 
 but docehat means that he was teaching, or was in the habit 
 of doing so. Now here, the words, " The magicians did so" 
 may mean that they were in the habit of doing a miracle, 
 not in quantity, but in effect, apparently as good as this. 
 And since Moses and Aaron had not done any thing much 
 superior to what the magicians had been in the habit of 
 doing, therefore Pharaoh's heart was hardened, such a mira- 
 cle not being sufl[iciently conclusive of Divine power. 
 
 However, " Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and 
 said," evidently pained and grieved at the extent of the last 
 affliction, " Entreat the Lord," recognizing Jehovah, " that 
 he may take away the frogs from me." Now that is human 
 nature thoroughly. Whenever man is in affliction, his 
 prayer is, " Take it away ; " but he never dreams, until he 
 is taught of God, of taking away the sin that brings on the 
 affliction. For instance, in 1849, many prayed, and prayed 
 most justly, "Take away the cholera;" but they did not 
 care to help to take away the provocative of it, — the 
 wretched habitations in which the poorer classes dwell. 
 Now, we have no right to pray God to take away an afflic- 
 tion which falls upon us judicially, paternally, or penally, 
 unless we show by our own acts that we are parting with 
 the sin which brings down the judgment upon us. And so, 
 in the time of the recent papal aggression, many prayed, 
 " Take away this offensive intrusion on the throne and 
 
EXODUS VIII. 71 
 
 jurisdiction of our country." But what brought that in ? 
 No doubt the very greatly tolerated Tractarianism that 
 overspread a section of the Church ; and if they who should, 
 had taken away the Puseyism, we never should have had 
 the Popery : if you had nipped the bud, you never would 
 have had the full-blown blossom. You must take away the 
 sin that provokes, and then God will take away the judg- 
 ment that follows that sin. So, if a man is visited with 
 affliction, he says, " Take away this calamity ; " but he does 
 not dream that all outward visitations of Providence have a 
 connection more or less remote with something that is 
 w^rong ; that they are not the afflictions of God, so much as 
 generated by the faults and sins of the individual himself. 
 
 Then we read, that when Pharaoh said, " Entreat the 
 Lord that he take away the frogs, but let my hardness 
 of heart remain ; take away the judgment, but let the poor 
 Israelites be ground to the earth in making me rich, and 
 prosperous, and great," Moses said, evidently bearing and 
 forbearing, " Glory over me ;" that is, " Very well ; I wish 
 you to get all the credit, if there be any at all, in making 
 the suggestion. I want no glory ; I desire only to do good. 
 And therefore, glory over me ; I give you every advantage. 
 And to show how anxious I am to accommodate my prefer- 
 ences to your comfort, when shall I entreat for thee, and 
 for thy servants, and for thy people? I will go at any 
 hour of the day or night." And Pharaoh said, " To-mor- 
 row." You will naturally ask, why to-morrow ? The 
 answer is, that the heart of Pharaoh, which after all was 
 but your heart and mine, intensified and magnified, was 
 essentially unbelieving, full of blasphemy and wickedness ; 
 and he had the latent persuasion that the frogs were not 
 really an affliction of God ; that they were, after all, a 
 natural phenomenon ; and he thought he would just wait one 
 day more, and see if the wind that brought them would 
 carry them away; since then he would be able more 
 
72 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 decidedly than ever to hold fast Israel, and defy the 
 attempts of Moses and Aaron to let them go. Moses, 
 however, said (and here is the Christian forbearance of the 
 minister of a people so much trodden down, afflicted, and 
 persecuted) " Very well ; be it according to thy word : that 
 thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our 
 God." Moses and Aaron accordingly cried or prayed unto 
 the Lord, and he did according to the word of Moses, and 
 the frogs were removed. 
 
 Then comes the fourth judgment, " Stretch out thy rod, 
 and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice 
 throughout all the land of Egypt." This is altogether a 
 wrong translation — there is not the least doubt that the 
 creature meant is the mosquito gnat. In the Greek Septua- 
 gint the word is aavccpeg, which denotes gnats. And those who 
 have been in warm climates know what a tremendously vex- 
 atious infliction would be, the whole atmosphere filled with 
 mosquito gnats, making life intolerable, and existence a per- 
 petual fever. There is no doubt that this was the real 
 infliction. The other is scarcely possible in Eastern cli- 
 mates ; and it led the magicians to say, when they could not 
 produce the same result, " This is the finger of God : " and 
 yet, you observe, Pharaoh's heart was still hardened, and he 
 hearkened not unto them ; as the Lord had' said. 
 
 We then read of another infliction, called in our transla- 
 tion " swarms of flies ; " but you wall find that the words 
 " of flies " are in italics, which denotes that those words are 
 not in the original, but have been interpolated by the trans- 
 lators to make the idea more clear. All that the original 
 says of this fiftli judgment is, in the twenty-first verse, " I 
 will send swarms ; " in the twenty-second verse, " No swarms 
 shall be there ; " and again, in the twenty-fourth verse, "The 
 land was corrupted by reason of the swarm." I think that 
 this was a swarm of beetles. You will sec in the British 
 Museum specimens of the Carabean beetle, which was 
 
EXODUS VIII. 73 
 
 almost worsliipped as a god by the Egyptians ; and it would 
 seem that the swarms that covered the land were swarms 
 just of the very deities that they worshipped. Every plague 
 had some alhision to the popular mythology of the Egyp- 
 tians, and was meant, while demonstrating the })0wer of the 
 Lord God of Israel, to pour contempt upon all the gods of 
 Pharaoh ; and as the beetle was one of the divinities of tlie 
 Egyptians, who were thus morally and spiritually degraded, 
 though intellectually great — striking proof how the intel- 
 lect may be filled with light, and yet there may be no 
 warmth in the heart, and no beauty in the life, and no purity 
 in worship — it was an infliction upon one of the deities that 
 they worshipped, and no less so on its worshippers ; and 
 was thus meant to demonstrate the power of God, and to 
 degrade an object of Egyptian worship. 
 
 Then Pharaoh called for Moses, evidently relenting a 
 little, every blow coming heavier upon the reluctant heart 
 of the king, and producing unexpected impressions and 
 effects ; and he said, " Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the 
 land." In the eighth vei'se he had promised this, and broken 
 his word ; but now he says he will fulfil that promise. You 
 recollect that the request was, " Let us go three days' jour- 
 ney into the wilderness." Pharaoh relents so far as to with- 
 draw his obstinate refusal of their request to offer a sacri- 
 fice, but he says, " You must not go so far into the wilder- 
 ness," being afraid of their escape, " but sacrifice in this the 
 land of Egypt." But Moses said, •' That we cannot do. 
 We must either have the whole, or we can have nothing. 
 And there is an obvious reason for it. If we were to sacri- 
 fice in this land, we should sacrifice a lamb, a heifer, or an 
 ox. Now you know that these be your gods ; and if, as we 
 are bound by law to do, we should sacrifice these animals to 
 the Lord Jehovah, then we should offer up what would be a 
 perfect abomination in your sight. We have no right to 
 give unnecessary oflfence to any. It is not the way to en- 
 7 
 
74 SCKIFTURE READINGS. 
 
 lighten those who are opposed to us, to pour contempt upon 
 them. It is not tlie way to win the victim of superstition 
 from his errors, to set tjiese errors in a ridiculous light. We 
 ought to try faithfully, and in love, to convince, to convert, 
 and to win ; but we are not warranted needlessly to oifend 
 the prejudices of any party whatever. Pharaoh said, " I 
 will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God 
 in the wilderness ; only ye shall not go very far away," — 
 his avarice relaxing, but still strong. He consents to let 
 them go into the wilderness at last, but instead of going 
 three days, he only wishes them to go three hours' journey ; 
 so that in case of their attempting to escape, he might bring 
 them back by his armies. "And Moses said, I will entreat 
 the Lord that the swarms of beetles may depart from 
 Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people to-morrow ; 
 but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting 
 thy peoj^le go to sacrifice to the Lord." — You have de- 
 ceived me so often, you have given promises made only to 
 be broken so frequently, that I must beg of you not to 
 deceive me any more. Moses went out and entreated the 
 Lord, and the Lord did what Pharaoh asked ; but the result 
 was, that " Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, 
 neither would he let the people go." 
 
 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you also an 
 evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 REASON FOR GOD S DEALIXG. A PRECEDENT. GOD S REVERENCE 
 TO THE CONSTITUTION OF HIS CREATURES. PLAGUE ON CAT- 
 TLB. ANIMAL SUFFERING. PLAGUE OF BODILY DISEASE. 
 PLAGUE OF HAIL. 
 
 I AM sure it will naturally suggest itself to every reader 
 and hearer of the remarkable series of judgments recorded 
 in this chapter, to inquire, why did not God at once, by one 
 stroke, prostrate all the power of Pharaoh, and emancipate 
 his people? Why did he send judgment after judgment, to 
 convince the unconvinceable, instead of wielding at once 
 omnipotent power, and setting forth his people upon their 
 majestic and glorious exodus ? The only available answer 
 is found in the analogies presented by God's dealings with 
 mankind. We may put many a " why," to which silence is 
 the only and the most reverend answer. It is recorded here, 
 as inspired matter of fact, and we are quite sure, that, as 
 certain as it was the doing of God, so certain it was worthy 
 of his justice, wisdom, goodness, mercy, and truth. But 
 may it not have been done, and stand recorded here, as a 
 precedent of his dealings with nations in all ages ? Do we 
 not find still, that, when a nation (for we are here speaking 
 of nations) sins, God sends one judgment, and if that does 
 not produce a due effect, that he sends another, and another, 
 and another still? Thus we read, in Amos iv. 6-12: "And 
 I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, 
 and want of bread in all your places : yet have ye not 
 returned unto me, saith the Lord. And also I have with- 
 
76 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 holtlen the rain from you, when there were yet three months 
 to the harvest : and I caused it to rain upon one city, and 
 caused it not to rain upon another city : one piece was rained 
 upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So 
 two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water ; 
 but tliey were not satisfied : yet have ye not returned unto 
 me, saith the Lord. I have smitten you with bLasting and 
 mildew : when your gardens and your vineyards and your 
 fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmer-worm de- 
 voured them : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the 
 Lord. I have sent among you the pestilence after the man- 
 ner of Egypt : your young men have I slain with the sword, 
 and have taken away your horses ; and I have made the 
 stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils : yet have 
 ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. I have over- 
 thrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Go- 
 morrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the 
 burning : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. 
 Th9refore thus will I do unto thee, Israel : and because 
 I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel." 
 It seems as if God Avould not force man by power, but per- 
 suade him by mercy, by love, by patience, by forbearance, 
 by truth. It seems, in all God's dealings, both in the Gospel 
 and in the law, as if He had that reverence for the creature 
 he has made, that he will ever treat that creature, not as a 
 machine, to be driven, but as a rational and responsible being, 
 to be drawn with cords of love, and with the bands of mercy. 
 It was said by one of tlie greatest orators of our country, 
 that such is our constitutional freedom, that all the winds of 
 heaven may enter at every cranny, and all the rains of the 
 sky may enter by every tile, in the humblest hut of the 
 humblest peasant, but not even royalty itself can enter 
 without that peasant's permission and consent. It looks as 
 if God would treat his creatures in the same way. It seems 
 as if even the prince of the kings of the earth will not force 
 
EXODUS IX. 77 
 
 an entrance into man's mind against his will. God made us 
 with the lofty attributes of responsibility, volition, feeling, 
 and he deals with us, not as an Omnipotent Being, who can 
 crush a frail and fragile creature, but as a Ruler, a Father, 
 and Friend, resolved to persuade, or to give up the effort 
 altogether. This explains, in some degree, his dealings with 
 Pharaoh in this and the previous chapter. 
 
 To turn more immediately to this chapter, Moses again 
 approaches Pharaoh, by the command of his God, and 
 beseeches him to let his people go; and then he tells him, 
 that, if he refuse again, there will be sent on all the cattle 
 of Egypt " a grievous murrain." This is some disease, our 
 English word for which is derived probably from the Greek 
 verb fiapan'ij, which means to wither and fade away ; or it 
 may be derived from the French word moiirir — " to die or 
 perish." It was, no doubt, some wasting or consumptive 
 disease that attacked all the cattle of the land, and that 
 emphatically and distinctively indicated that the hand of 
 God was upon them. But, at the same time, while this dis- 
 ease lighted upon the cattle that belonged to Pharaoh, the 
 cattle of the Israelites were not one of them touched. Now, 
 this was a very palpable distinction, meant to persuade 
 Pharaoh that these visitations were not accidents, that might 
 be explained by the laws of natural phenomena, but that they 
 were direct strokes of God, and that they were drawn down 
 by the sins of the one class, as they were averted by the 
 loyalty and fealty to God exhibited by the other. 
 
 It seems a very sad thing that the inoffensive cattle should 
 suffer ; and the sceptic will not be slow to ask. Why should 
 God smite the cattle ? But the great law, that seems to run 
 through all the dealings of God, is that man, the great lord 
 of creation, brought ruin, not only upon himself, but upon 
 all creatures, and still, as he sins, his subjects suffer 
 "Wherever you see an animal die, a leaf fall, or the lower 
 creation suffer, there you have, as in a faithful mirror, th^ 
 7 * 
 
78 SCRIE'TURE HEADINGS. 
 
 reflection of man's primal and great sin. Adam's sin brought 
 death, not only upon himself, but upon all creation. At the 
 flood, also, we read that animals perished ; and if we retire 
 from Scripture altogether, and take the ground that the 
 Deist will, at least, accept as proper, we shall find that if 
 war is waged, the beautiful horse suffers as w^ell as the 
 bravest soldier ; and we see everywhere, constantly, that 
 animals suffer from man's doings. Therefore, if it be an 
 argument against God's book, that animals are visited with 
 punishment because of man's sin, it will be an argument 
 against God's government of the world, that animals suff"er 
 because of man's misdoing. I am one of those who believe, 
 not that the brute creation will be raised from the dead, but 
 that a day comes, when the whole animal creation shall be 
 emancipated, and restored to its pristine happiness and 
 fellowship with each other and with man. There is no 
 doubt that all the animal creation is in an abnormal and 
 unnatural state; but there is express prophecy that a day 
 comes, when creation's lord shall be reinstated in his lost 
 prerogatives and dignity — when all that fell with him, 
 shall rejoice together with him. Nay, the Apostle Paul 
 says, (Romans viii. 22,) " Ttuaa rj ktIgic " — "all creation 
 groans and travails in pain, waiting for " — what ? — " the 
 manifestation " — that is, the perfect company and gathering 
 — " of the sons " — or people — " of God." 
 
 But notwithstanding this plague, Pharaoh's heart was still 
 hardened, and therefore another plague was sent. Ashes 
 were to be sprinkled towards heaven by the servant of 
 God, and disease should in an instant break out upon man 
 and beast throughout the land. The magicians were affected 
 by tliis plague, and, after this period, they disappear alto- 
 gether. Their services seem no longer to have been required 
 by their infatuated ruler. They, no doubt, felt themselves 
 perfectly humbled, by being afflicted by a disease, no longer 
 now outside themselves, but of which they were the suffer- 
 
EXODUS IX. 7^ 
 
 ing and helpless victims. They disappear from the stage ; 
 and yet, notwithstanding all this, Pharaoh was not changed. 
 It is said, in the 12th verse, "And the Lord hardened the 
 heart of Pharaoh." Now, from the beginning, the expres- 
 sion has been, " the heart of Pharaoh was hardened ; " and 
 as that is the common expression, we must explain this 
 peculiar and rare one in the light of the common one. 
 Clearly it means, as I said before, that these dealings of 
 God with Pharaoh, instead of softening his heart only hard- 
 ened it. God is said here to do that directly which he did 
 indirectly. It reads as if he were the cause of it, when 
 really he was only the occasion of it. Just as the gospel is 
 the savour of death to some — not the cause of it, but the 
 occasion of it. And this removes all possibility of impu- 
 tation upon God for these dealings with Pharaoh. 
 
 The 16th verse I have heard most erroneously quoted, as 
 if " for this cause have I raised thee up," meant, " For this 
 cause I made or created you at the first." Now, the words 
 " raise up " here, are the same as those used in the Epistle 
 of St. James, where he says, that the Lord shall raise up 
 the sick man — that is, restore him to health. So the Lord 
 says here, " For this cause I have raised you up once, twice, 
 thrice, out of the wreck of each successive judgment ; I 
 have spared you ; I have not suffered you to be utterly 
 destroyed, just in order that you may be the medium, in my 
 hand, of setting forth my glory, and declaring my forbear- 
 ing patience and goodness to all the nations of the earth." 
 
 We then read of a grevious hail and rain, that was 
 brought down upon the whole land of Egypt. Now, Egypt 
 has very little rain — it is not true that there is none, 
 though I read that thunder and lightning are rarer in that 
 land than in most countries. You can conceive, therefore, 
 what an impression must have been produced upon the 
 whole people of Egypt, when the electric fluid, that ruslied 
 along the ground, darted from the earth to the sky, and 
 
80 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 from sky to earth, with ceaseless corruscatlons, accompanied 
 with hail and rain, and the destruction of the herbs, and all 
 the trees — that is, all sorts of trees — throughout the 
 whole land. It seems that this judgment, from its over- 
 whelming majesty, made a very great impression upon 
 Pharaoh ; for he said, " I have sinned this time : the Lord 
 is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Entreat the 
 Lord (for it is enough) that there be no more mighty thun- 
 derings and hail ; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay 
 no longer." Now, there is really much in this confession of 
 Pharaoh, that looks like genuine repentance. First, his 
 confession was open, and this was most favorable ; secondly, 
 he showed a sense of sin — also very favorable ; thirdly, he 
 spoke of his sin as committed against God ; fourthly, he 
 owned God's justice in this matter — ''The Lord is right- 
 eous ; " fifthly, he indicated that he had some idea of Divine 
 mercy ; for he says, " Entreat the Lord " — evidently with 
 an idea that God might be merciful ; and sixthly, he formed 
 a good resolution, " I will let you go." Now, this looks like 
 genuine repentance. But where was the fault? In what 
 respect was it defective ? I answer, first, it was forced by 
 terror, not generated by love. Many persons have an idea 
 that repentance is the product of terror, alarm, dismay. 
 . Such is not repentance. Repentance springs from a saving 
 sight of Jesus Christ — the manifestation of God's love to 
 lost and perishing sinners. Repentance is not generated by 
 the thunders of the law, nor th.^ terrors of death, but by the 
 sight of Christ crucified for our transgressions. What does 
 the Bible say ? " They shall look upon Him whom they 
 have pierced," and then " they shall mourn." And again, 
 " Christ is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repent- 
 ance and forgiveness of sins." In other words, repentance 
 is not produced by the hail, thunder, or rains of judgment, 
 but by the gentle falling of the silent dew, that saturates the 
 soil upon which it falls, and creates responsive repentance, 
 
EXODUS IX. 81 
 
 love, -worship, and loyalty to God. In the second place, 
 Pharaoh's repentance here was destitute of" humiliation. 
 There was no real humbling of himself; and, in the next 
 place, there was no renunciation of his sin. His cry was 
 always, " Take away the frogs, take away the hail," but 
 never "take away the sin." And, lastly, it was temporary. 
 He no sooner felt it, than it was dissipated, and disappeared. 
 Now, wherever there is real repentance, remember it is 
 the result of faith in Christ Jesus; secondly, it humbles; 
 and, lastly, it is permanent. Let us learn this lesson from 
 the whole, that no preaching of terror, no infliction of judg- 
 ments, will ever make a person repent. That must be done 
 by Calvary, not by Mount Sinai ; by the sweet influence 
 of the gospel, not by the thunder and the terrors of a broken 
 law. 
 
 The following very illustrative observations, not, however, 
 exempt from difficulties, are by Hengstenberg, the German 
 divine : — 
 
 THE CONNECTION OF THE SUrEKNATURAL "WITH THE NATURAL IN THE 
 PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 
 
 The part of Exodus which we now proceed to examine, is of great im- 
 portance for our object, first and principally in that the supernatural 
 events described, all find a foundation in the natural phenomena of Egypt, 
 and stand in close connection witli ordinary occurrences, and also on ac- 
 count of the many separate references in the narrative, which show how 
 ver}-- accurate the author's knowledge of Egypt was. 
 
 As respects the first point, many have wished to make the connection 
 of the wonders with the natural phenomena of Egypt, an argument 
 against the Pentateuch. So, indeed, the English deists have done, as, for 
 example, Morgan. Among those more recent, V. Bohlen is conspicuous. 
 JMoses, he remarks, in order to avoid the suspicion of self-deception, was 
 at least obliged to express himself in the mildest manner possible among 
 his contemporaries, who Avere so well acquainted with Egypt, if he wished 
 to make the commonly observed natural phenomena avail as miracles. 
 But it is perfectly clear, that these occurrences, as they are related, not- 
 withstanding their foundation in nature, always maintained their charac- 
 ter as miracles, and consequently are sufficient to prove what they arc in- 
 tended to prove, and to accomplish what they did accomplish. Attempts 
 
82 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 to merge the supernatural in the natural, such as have been made by Du 
 Bois Ayme, and then by Eichhorn, -will not accomplish their design. In- 
 deed, the unusual force in which the common exhibitions of nature here 
 manifest themselves, and especially their rapid succession, while at other 
 times only a single one exhibits itself with unusual intensity, as well as 
 the fact that Eichhorn, notwithstanding all the unnatural misrepresenta- 
 tions in which he allowed himself, yet found material for a treatise on the 
 wonderful year of Egypt, — if we at the same time consider these events 
 in connection with the changing cause of them, and also take into account 
 the exemption of the land of Goshen, — bring us to the limits of the mirac- 
 ulous ; for the transition to the miraculous is reached by the extraordinary 
 in its highest gradation. 
 
 Moses' Rod changed to a Serpent. 
 
 After these general remarks, we turn to particular explanations. A 
 sign, which is of a harmless nature, precedes, in Exodus vii. 8-13, the 
 signs which are comprehended in the number ten as a perfect number, and 
 which are also plagues. Trial is first made, whether Pharaoh, in reference 
 to whom Calvin so strikingly says, " There is presented us in the person 
 of one abandoned, an example of human arrogance and rebellion," Avill 
 not become wise Avithout severe measures. INIoses' rod is changed into a 
 serpent; the Egyptian magicians accomplish, at least in appearance, the 
 same thing; but Moses' rod swallows up their rods. This counter won- 
 der of the Egyptian magicians is founded on the peculiar condition of 
 Egypt ; much more is the ]\Iosaic sign — the same by which indeed Moses 
 had already, by the Divine command, proved his commission from God, 
 among the elders of his people. Moses was furnished with power to per 
 form that which the Egyptian magicians most especially gloried in, and 
 by which they most of all supported their authority. 
 
 The incantation of serpents has been native to Egypt from the most 
 ancient even to the present time. The French scholars, in their descrip- 
 tion, have given the most accoi-dant accounts of it. Even those who 
 entered upon an examination of the subject with most absolute unbelief, 
 have been forced to the conviction that there is something in it — that the 
 Psylli are found in possession of a secret charm, which places them in a 
 condition to bring about the most wonderful consequences. " We confess," 
 it is said, that we, " far removed from all easy credulity, have ourselves 
 been witnesses of some things so wonderful, that we cannot consider the 
 art of the serpent tamers as entirely chimerical. "We believed, at first, 
 that they removed the teeth of serpents, and the stings of scorpions; but 
 we have had opportunity to convince ourselves of the contrary." That 
 they do not probably break out the poisonous teeth, llasselquist also testi- 
 fies, from personal observation. According to the account in the Descrip- 
 tion, the art passes from father to son. The Psylli form an association, 
 claiming to be the only individuals who are able to charm serpents, and to 
 
EXODUS IX. 83 
 
 free houses from them. Never does any other than the son of a Psylli 
 attaui to this abihty. Serpents, in Egypt, often conceal themselves in the 
 houses, and then become vevy dangerous. When any thing of this kind 
 is suspected, tliey have recourse to the Psylli. The French commander- 
 in-chief wished, at a certain time, to examine the afTixir to the bottom. 
 He called for the Psylli, and commanded them to produce from the palace 
 a serpent, -which, from traces discovered, was supposed to be there. The 
 moist phxces were especially examined. There the Psylli called, by imi- 
 tating the hissing, sometimes of the male, and sometimes of the female 
 serpent. After two hours and a fourth, a serpent truly presented itself. 
 In the religious festivals, the Psylli appear entirely naked, with the neck, 
 arms, and other parts of the body coiled around by serpents, which they 
 permit to sting and tear their breast and stomacli, and effectually defend 
 themselves against them with a sort of frenzj", pretending to wish to eat 
 ihom alive. Their sleight of hand is very various. They are able, accord- 
 ing to their assertions, to change the Haie — i. e. the species of serpent 
 which they especially make use of for their tricks — into a rod, and com- 
 pel them to feign themselves dead. When they wish to perform this ope- 
 ration, they spit in the throat of the animal, compel it to shut up its 
 mouth, and lay it down upon tlie ground. Then, as if in order to give a 
 last command, they lay their hand upon its head, and immediately the 
 serpent, stiff and motionless, falls into a kind of torpor. They wake it up 
 Avlicn they wish, seizing it by the tail, and rolling it roughly between the 
 hands." Du Bois Ayme gives his testimony to the same thing. 
 
 Whatever opinion they had of it, this is certain, that even in the first 
 three signs, the superior power of the God of Israel made itself sufficiently 
 known to any one who did not studiously seek a support for his unbelief 
 and rebellion. They change, it matters not whether really or in appear- 
 ance, their rods into serpents, but the rod of Moses swallows up their rods; 
 they also change, at least on a small scale, water into blood; but they are 
 not able to restore the blood to its former state. In like manner, imitating 
 on a small scale the miracle of Closes, they brought up frogs upon the 
 land, but they were not able to free it from the plague of frogs. " For the 
 punishment of the Eg\^ptians," says Theodoret, " God gave also to magi- 
 cians power, but not for removing punishment, since the king had not 
 enough of his plagues, but even commanded the magicians to increase the 
 chastisement; so God also punished him through these. Thou art not yet 
 satisfied with the punishment inflicted by my servants, so punish I thee 
 also by thine own." And the relative power of the Egyytian magicians 
 in the beginning, must serve to show in so much clearer light their entire 
 impotence, as it was first exhibited in the little gnats, and then continued 
 invariable. The contest was first intentionally carried on in a sphere to 
 which the Egyptian magicians, as we certainly know with reference to the 
 first sign, had hitherto shown their principal power. After they had there 
 been vanquished, the scene was changed to a sphere, in which they could 
 
84 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 not at all further contend, and the doom, >vhich in this way came upon 
 them, fell through them upon their gods. 
 
 The first Plague — the Water of Egxjpt changed to Blood. 
 
 We turn now to the second sign, Avhich is also the first j)lague. It con- 
 sists in changing the waters of the Nile, and the other watei-s of Kgvpt 
 into blood. It appears from Joel, iii. 4, according to which, the moon shall 
 be changed into blood, that there is no reason to suppose that literal blood 
 is here meant. On the contrary, the change into blood can properly only 
 have reference to the blood-red color; so that the blood here is the same 
 as the water, red as blood, in 2 Kings, iii. 22. The designation is here ev- 
 idently chosen for the sake of the symbolic character which this plague 
 benrs, as also the water, red as blood, in the passage referred to in the book 
 of Kings has a symbolic significance, announcing destruction to the ene- 
 mies of Israel. To the Egyptians shall the reddened water be blood, re- 
 minding them of the innocent blood which they have shed, and pointing to 
 the flowing, guilty blood to be shed. In this characteristic, this plague is 
 coupled with the darkness Avhich afterwards covered the whole land, as 
 both also appear connected in Joel, iii. 4: " The sun shall be turned into 
 darkness, and the moon into blood." In the symbolic colors, arranged by 
 the Egyptians, black was the color of death and mourning; for that which 
 is base and its author, the red color was chosen, probably as the color of 
 blood. 
 
 This explanation of Hengstenberg is very doubtful in- 
 deed, and scarcely compatible with the sacred narration. 
 "What he adds, on the Nile, is well Avorth reading : — 
 
 The threat of Moses, and the described inconveniences which its fulfil- 
 ment brought upon the Egyptians, is foimded on the importance which 
 the Nile water has for the Egyptians, and upon the enthusiastic love of the 
 inhabitants of Egypt for it. The Nile water is almost the only drinkable 
 water in Egypt; for the water of the few wells is distasteful and unwhole- 
 some. The Turks, according to Mascrier, find the water so pleasant, that 
 they eat salt, in order to be able to drink more of it. They are accustomed 
 to say, if Mohammed had drunk thereof, he would have asked immortality 
 of God, so that he might always drink of this water. If the Egyptians 
 undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca, or travel elsewhere, they speak of noth- 
 ing but the delight which they shall experience Avhen, on their return, 
 they again drink of the Nile water, etc. It is very justly said, after these 
 circumstances have been referred to, " He who has never understood any 
 thing of the pleasantness of the Nile Avater, and docs not know how much 
 of it the Egyptians arc accustomed to drink, will now find in the words of 
 Moses, ' The Egyptians shall loathe,' etc. — a meaning which he has not 
 before perceived. The sense is, they loathe the water which they at other 
 
EXODUS IX. 85 
 
 times prefer before all the water in the world, even that which they have 
 previously longed for. They prefer to drink well water, which, in their 
 countr}', is so unpleasant." 
 
 In verse 15 it is said, " Go to Pharaoh in the morning: behold, he goeth 
 out to the water, and meet him on the banks of the Nile." In like man- 
 ner, in chap. viii. 16 (20), " Rise up early in the morning, and stand before 
 Pharaoh: behold, he goeth forth to the water." Both passages are founded 
 on tlie divine honors which the Egyptians paid to the Nile. Moses is com- 
 manded to meet Pharaoh, with a commission from the true God, whom 
 Pharaoh wickedly resists, just when he is preparing to bring his daily 
 offering to his false gods. In the first passage, this moment appears to be 
 the more fitly chosen, since the threatened demonstration of the omnipo- 
 tence of Jehovah is exhibited directly upon the false god. The I-gyp- 
 tians, even in the most ancient times, paid divine honors to the Nile. Es- 
 pecially was he zealously honored, according to Champollion, at Nilopolis, 
 where he had a temple. Herodotus mentions the priests of the Nile. 
 Lucian says, " Its water is a common divinity to all of the Egyptians." 
 The monuments bear witness to the same eff'ect as the ancient authors; 
 they indeed very particixlarly represent, that even the kings paid divine 
 honors to the Nile. According to Champollion, there is, in a chapel at 
 Ghebel Selseleh (Silsilis) a painting, of the time of the reign of Remeses 
 II., which exhibits this king "offering wine to the god of the Nile, who, in 
 the hieroglyphic inscription, is called Hapi Moou — the life giving father 
 of all existences." According to the inscription, this chapel is specially 
 dedicated to this god. Remeses is called in it, " beloved of Hapi Moou — 
 the father of the gods." 
 
 The Second Plague— The Frogs. 
 
 The account of the second plague, the frogs, furnishes us far less abun- 
 dant spoil than that of the first. It is implied in the account itself, in 
 chap. viii. 5, that the waters of Egypt, even in ordinary circumstances, 
 contain many frogs; and from the nature of these waters, we could 
 scarcely imagine it to be otherwise. The statements of travellers, in 
 regard to this, are, however, very scanty. Hasselquist mentions frogs 
 among the Mosaic plagues, which even now visit both natives and foreign- 
 ers. According to Sonnini, the stagnant waters about Rosetta are filled 
 with thousands of frogs, which make very much noise. 
 
 The Third Plague — the 'D^'J Gnats. 
 
 As respects the third plague, it is now generally agreed, that by ^jp^^ 
 Mnnim, gnats are meant. These are, even in ordinary j'ears, very trouble- 
 some in Egypt. Herodotus, as early as his time, speaks of the great 
 trouble which the gnats cause, and of the precautions which are taken to 
 guard against them. Hartmann observes : " All travellers speak of these 
 gnats as an ordinary plague of the country. In cool weather they are es- 
 
 8 
 
86 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 pecially bold. They pursue the men, prevent them from eating, disturb 
 their sleep, and cause swellings which are sensibly painful." What Son- 
 nini says of these gnats, in his account of his abode in Rosetta, is of pecu- 
 liar interest: " It is asserted that the multitude of gnats with which the 
 streets and the inside of the houses were then filled, owe their origin to 
 this employment (the drying of rice about the end of October). Indeed, 
 there are fewer of them at other times. After the rice harvest, they go 
 forth in multitudes from the overflowing fields, in which the preceding 
 generation laid their eggs. They come to trouble men; they make 
 "wounds, in order to suck their blood, not less burning than those of the 
 Maringonins of South America." These passages show that the time of 
 the extraordinary public calamities corresponded nearly to that of the 
 extraordinary plague. The first plague, the changing of water to blood, 
 transfers us to the period of the increase of the Nile, the gnats begin to 
 multiply at the end of the inundation. 
 
 The Seventh Plague — (he Temjoest. 
 
 The seventh plague was a severe tempest, attended with hail and rain. 
 In the narrative itself — chap. ix. 18-24 — it is said that the phenomenon 
 v.'as unexampled only in degree ; and it is implied that it is not uncommon 
 in Egypt in a milder form. Other accounts agree with ours in showing, 
 that tempests in Egypt are not unfrcquent, and that they in general differ 
 from the one under consideration only in severity. These notices are 
 explanatory of our account insomuch as they i-epresent that tempests are 
 most abundant just at the time in which, according to verse 31, the tem- 
 pest here described occurred. The accounts of ancient travellers con- 
 cerning tempests in Egypt, in January and ]\Iarch, are found carefully 
 collected in Nordmej'-er, and especially in Hartmann. Coutelle says, 
 " Natural phenomena succeed each other in this land with a constant uni- 
 formity. The same winds return regularly at the same time, and continue 
 equally long. In the Delta it does not rain at all in summer, and scarcely 
 at all in winter. We have very seldom seen it rain in Cairo. Rain in Upper 
 Egypt is a wonder. A higher temperature than that designated below, a 
 harder frost, and more copious rains, are extraordinary occurrences." 
 Jomard, upon the climate of Cairo, says, " Rain fiills by no means so sel- 
 dom in Egypt as is commonly asserted. First of all. Lower Egypt must 
 evidently' be excepted, as it covers a much more extended surface than the 
 rest of the country, and lies where its greater or less proximity to the sea 
 produces a more variable climate than that of the Said. All phenomena, 
 with the exception of hail and snow, follow there as in other counti-ies 
 •which are -washed hy the Mediterranean Sea. I have several times seen 
 even hail at Alexandria. At Cairo the state of the atmosphere begins to 
 be more settled, and in Upper Egypt it is almost invariable." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PIIAEAOh's HEAliT STILL HARDENED. ANOTHER APPEAL TO PHA- 
 RAOH, THE CONFESSION OF PHARAOH. THE LOCUST PLAGUE. 
 THE PLAGUE OF DARKNESS. PHARAOH'S TERMS. 
 
 "We now approach the last of the plagues or judgments 
 that were dealt upon Pharaoh, and upon his subjects and 
 his kingdom, because of his own wilful refusal to let the 
 children of Israel go. I explained in the course of previ- 
 ous expository remarks on the chapters that precede this, 
 that " the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," is an expression 
 obviously intended to denote that the measures which God 
 pursued were productive, not of a softening and subduing, 
 but of a hardening effect upon the mind, heart, and con- 
 science of Pharaoh ; that God was the occasion of his heart 
 being hardened, not the cause of it ; that he did it through 
 the means that he employed to convince him. Just as the* 
 Gospel preached unto us is, if not the savor of life, the 
 savor of death ; and yet the God of the Gospel is not to be 
 blamed for these its necessary effects. You will perceive 
 that it is added twice in this chapter after the words, " The 
 Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them 
 go." It is not said that he could not, which would have 
 been the result, if God by omnipotent power had prevented 
 him ; but it is said that he would not, which shows that the 
 resistance to the will of God was his own volition, and that 
 alone. 
 
 God says to Moses, evidently bearing and forbearing with 
 
88 scuirruuE rkadixgs. 
 
 Pharaoh, and "witli a desire that the means employed should 
 be productive of their just and legitimate effect, " Go into 
 Pharaoh's presence, and tell him to let my people go, in 
 order tliat they may serve me in the way that you pointed 
 out in the commencement of your intercourse with him." 
 Moses and Aaron then came unto Pharaoh — Moses mighty 
 in action, Aaron eloquent in words — the one the gifted 
 orator, the other the devoted, persistent, and holy servant — 
 and they said, " Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, 
 How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me ? " 
 This reminds us of the just and fair interpretation that I 
 presented of the passage in the previous chapter, where 
 Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron, and said, " I have sinned 
 this time ; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are 
 wicked." I showed you that there were certain features in 
 that confession almost significant of genuine repentance ; 
 but I noticed that the element of humility, which is always 
 the necessary accompaniment of true repentance, seemed 
 then and there to have been wanting. Now here we find 
 the servants of God expressly declaring that he had refused 
 to humble himself. No confession with the lip is enough 
 without lowliness and humility of heart. No prayer can 
 rise with acceptance from a proud heart ; and what Pharaoh 
 needed was not the removal of the judgment, was not simply 
 a sense of danger, or of suffering, or even of death, but 
 that he should humble himself, confess his sin, acknowledge 
 the sovereignty of God, and submit to his will, and walk in 
 his ways, as he should be pleased to prescribe. Tliis he 
 would not do ; and therefore the servants of God were told, 
 and told him, that there would be brought upon him another 
 judgment, tliat would finish what the hail had begun ; that 
 every green tree, and herb, and fruit, and flower, that the 
 hail, the lightning, and the tempest had spared, would be 
 now consumed by devastating inroads of locusts, which 
 should spread over the land. 1 have read of travellers 
 
EXODUS X. 89 
 
 who have witnessed there the inroads of immense bodies 
 of locusts. They have noticed the very air to be darkened 
 by the immense mass, or locust cloud, and they have heard 
 even the sound of their wings, as they approached the 
 scene of devastation. They have seen them cover the 
 whole earth round about for a great many yards, one, two, 
 or even three inches thick; so that the horses could not 
 pursue their route without treading upon them ; and they 
 have remarked that such a plague, if universal, would be 
 one of the greatest inflictions that could be suffered by any 
 land. Hence the allusion in Scripture, with reference to 
 devastating armies, and the incursions of lawless conquerors, 
 that what was the garden of Eden before is made a wilder- 
 ness and a desert behind. 
 
 This plague evidently made a very deep impression upon 
 Pharaoh, and he was disposed to relent and give way a 
 little ; for, whilst it is said that God hardened the heart of 
 Pharaoh, it is quite obvious that after each plague (and the 
 word " plague," whether derived from the Greek, which is 
 its origin, or the Latin, means a blow), he evidently relented 
 a little; and w^as more anxious for terms, and, if it could 
 only be done compatibly with his wounded pride, to come to 
 a close of this very serious and severe treatment. lie now 
 proposed that the growm up men should only go away, and 
 leave the mothers and their children behind ; because he felt 
 that when the old slaves were thus got rid of, that would not 
 be a very great loss, since the young slaves would take their 
 place, and that thus his treasury would not be exhausted by 
 their secession. He therefore tried to come to terms with 
 Moses and Aaron, which terms, like those of an avaricious 
 miser, were the most satisfactory and profitable to himself. 
 When he saw the frightful visitation of the locusts — all 
 that was green devoured, all that was beautiful blasted, the 
 whole land threatened with a plague that would depopulate 
 it by destroying all the grass eaten by the cattle, and every 
 
90 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 herb for the service of man — he rushed to Moses and 
 Aaron, and said, " I have sinned " — the old story — the 
 mere expression of the lip, and not the feeling of the 
 heart — "against the Lord your God," as if he impHed, 
 " I have nothing to do with him, he is not my God, and I do 
 not owe allegiance to him ; yet I see that he is your God, 
 and that he has great power." " Now therefore forgive, I 
 pray thee, my sin only this once." He now almost becomes 
 a Romanist; for he asks forgiveness of Aaron the priest, 
 instead of seeking it where it could then, and can now be 
 found, from the God of Moses and Aaron. 
 
 Then " Moses entreated the Lord. And the Lord turned 
 a mighty strong w^est wind, which took away the locusts, 
 and cast them into the Red Sea. But the Lord hardened 
 Pharaoh's heart," that is, this blow, instead of subduing 
 Pharaoh, ended in his being hardened, " so that he would 
 not," not could not, " let the children of Israel go." 
 
 The Lord then told his servants to stretch out their hands, 
 and darkness should overspread the land; and to show 
 Pharaoh that this was miraculous and had a moral signifi- 
 cance, as well as a physical calamity, there was light in all 
 the dwellings of the children of Israel. Now this could not 
 be a mist, or a fog, or a very heavy and dense cloud ; it 
 must have been some miraculous distribution of the light in 
 one place, and an equally miraculous arrest or prevention 
 of it in another place, by which it was evidently intended 
 that Pharaoh should see that moral excellence has light 
 irradiating it with its splendor, and that wickedness has 
 darkness as the congenial element for it to live in ; and that 
 he might thus learn that the God of Israel was not a God 
 displaying mere freaks of omnipotent power, but a God dis^ 
 tinguishing now, as he will distinguish at the judgment-seat, 
 between them who are the lights of the world, and them 
 who are the children of night, and love the night, because 
 their deeds are evil. 
 
EXODUS X. 91 
 
 Pharaoli then tried to come to terms again, and he said, 
 *' Go ye, serve the Lord ; only let your flocks and your 
 herds be stayed ; let your little ones also go with you." He 
 gives •vvay one notch ; he comes down one peg, as it were ; 
 for instead of saying, "Your little ones shall not go with 
 you," he now says, "I find I cannot hold out any more;" 
 but still he is determined to hold all that he can, and to give 
 up only in obedience to irresistible force Avhat he would like 
 to retain ; and he now comes to the point of saying that all, 
 fathers, mothers, and children shall go, " only let your flocks 
 and your herds be stayed." I want only a few of your 
 cattle left, so that I may have something to propitiate my 
 own pride, and that will make me look as if I had had a 
 hard fight, and had not altogether lost the day, with the 
 God of the Hebrews. Let me keep your cattle. But 
 Moses acted just as the servant of God should ever act. 
 What is right do ; what is wrong do not ; but whenever 
 men attempt in religion, politics, or any thing else, to make 
 a compromise between truth and error, between duty and 
 expediency, there is sure to be a disastrous issue. There- 
 fore, the servants of God said, "No. Fathers, mothers, 
 children, and cattle shall go out of this land, and serve God. 
 We will have all, or none. It is not our asking, but God's 
 command." Concede a prejudice, but never compromise a 
 duty. Give up your own likings, profits, or preference, but 
 never dare to surrender the sacred obligations of everlasting 
 truth, or to compromise one jot or atom of what conscience 
 enlightened by the Bible tells you to be duty to God. 
 
 But the result was that all this hardened his heart more 
 and more ; and then we have the last solemn parting, which 
 introduces us to that most impressive and suggestive plague 
 that followed — the slaughter of the first-born of Pharaoli, 
 and the sparing of the first-born of Israel, " Pharaoh said 
 unto him. Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my 
 face no more" — he evidently lost his temper, and got ex- 
 
92 SCRirXUKE READINGS. 
 
 asperated, and uttered this speech, which was thought a 
 great degradation by a king to his subjects in those times ; 
 " for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die." Moses, 
 with all the grandeur of a prophet, with all the dignity that 
 duty ever inspires, said, '' Thou hast spoken well, I will see 
 thy face again no more." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EXPLANATIONS. THE PROPHECY OP THE LAST PLAGUE. THE FAIL- 
 URE OF ALL IN SOFTENING THE HEART OF PHARAOH. 
 
 You will perceive at once that the first three verses of 
 the chapter I have read, are, not an interpolation by a mere 
 human authority, but an interpolation or a parenthesis clearly 
 and obviously relating to something that had been said before, 
 and to a commission that Moses had received from God on 
 a previous occasion ; and you will notice that the 4th verse 
 of this chapter, after making allowance for the parenthesis 
 which recapitulates what evidently had been recorded before, 
 ought strictly to come after the 29th verse of the previous 
 chapter ; because in the 28th verse of that chapter, " Pha- 
 raoh said unto Moses, Get thee from me, take heed to thy- 
 self, see my face no more ; for in that day thou seest my 
 face thou shalt die. And Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, 
 I will see thy face again no more." If this chapter which we 
 have read this morning were not connected with the previous 
 chapter, and not evidently a transaction that took place at 
 the very same interview, it would be contradictory to the 
 speech of Moses, " I will see thy face again no more." 
 Evidently after he had uttered that saying, he continued the 
 narrative as it begins in the 4th verse of this 11th chapter, 
 while he still stood before Pharaoh. After having said, " I 
 will see thy face again no more," that is, " This shall be the 
 last interview," in order that that interview might not be 
 spent, if possible, unprofitably, he announces the last and 
 most consuming judgment that God would pour out upon 
 
94 SCKirTURE HEADINGS. 
 
 him and upon his people, if he would not let the children of 
 Israel go. And therefore, the 4th verse of the 11th chapter 
 is the continuation of Moses' statement at the very same 
 interview with Pharaoh, at which he said, " I will see thy 
 face again no more." One proof of this is, that the opening 
 words of the first verse of this chapter might be rendered 
 in the preterpluperfect tense, " And the Lord had said unto 
 Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh." 
 It is thus evident that these three verses are divinely inter- 
 polated in order to give a full account of the judgments pro- 
 nounced upon Pharaoh. 
 
 Having thus then seen the connection, let us notice that 
 after all the plagues had fallen, and after each had rebounded 
 from Pharaoh's heart like seeds from the hard pavement, 
 like hail upon the flinty rock, God said, " I will add one 
 more judgment, that will have its effect, not indeed in soften- 
 ing his heart, but in emancipating my chosen heritage with 
 a high hand, and an outstretched arm." 
 
 There is something very striking in the apparent similarity 
 of the judgments denounced upon Pharaoh, to the plagues 
 given in the Apocalypse, and in the inflictions which God is 
 stated to bring upon a disobedient people in many parts of 
 Scripture. For instance, in the book of Amos, iv. 6-12, 
 God says, in dealing with a people who had transgressed his 
 laws, " 1 have given you cleanness of teeth in all your 
 cities, and want of bread in all your places : yet have ye 
 not returned unto me, saith the Lord. And also I have 
 withliolden the rain from you, when there were yet three 
 months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one 
 city, and caused it not to rain upon another city : one piece 
 was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not 
 withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to 
 drink water ; but they were not satisfied : yet have ye not 
 returned unto me, saith the Lord. I have smitten you with 
 blasting and mildew : when your gardens and your vine- 
 
EXODUS XI. 95 
 
 yards and your fig-trees and your olive-trees inereased, the 
 pulmerworm devoured them : yet have ye not returned unto 
 me, saith the Lord. I have sent among you the pestilence 
 after the manner of Egypt : your young men have I slain 
 Avitli the sword, and have taken away your horses ; and I 
 have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your 
 nostrils : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. 
 I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom 
 and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of 
 the burning : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the 
 Lord. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel : and 
 because I wall do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, 
 O Israel ; " death being the crowning stroke in the series of 
 plagues denounced upon a guilty people. So in the plagues 
 denounced upon Pharaoh we find that the last is a fatal one 
 — it conies and smites the first-born, from the monarch upon 
 the throne to the maid-servant who was grinding corn behind 
 the mill. 
 
 God says in the 2d verse, " Speak now in the ears of 
 the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and 
 every w^oman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels 
 of gold." I explained in a previous chapter that the word 
 here translated " borrow," whilst it is so translated in one, 
 or at most, two other passages in Scripture, is generally and 
 justly translated "ask." For instance, the same Hebrew 
 w^ord is used in the 2d Psalm, where God the Father speaks 
 to the Messiah, and says, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee 
 the heathen for thine inheritance ; " and the word rendered 
 here " borrow," ought to be translated as in the 2d Psalm, 
 " ask." 
 
 Then you will notice that when they asked for these jew- 
 els, the Israelites had favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. 
 We read in the previous chapter that Pharaoh pursued a 
 despotic course, and that some of his ministers, courtiers, 
 and people, remonstrated with him ; but his heart was not 
 
96 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 only liardened against the administrations of God, but it 
 was also impenetrable to the sound suggestions of his min- 
 isters and people. It is plain, therefore, that Pharaoh's ca- 
 reer in this matter was not a popular one, and that some of 
 the ICgyptians did pity the Israelites : for " the Lord gave the 
 people favor in the sight of the Egyptians ; " and the Egyp- 
 tians, therefore, when the Israelites asked them for jewels of 
 gold and silver, most abundant in that country, freely gave 
 them, partly, it may be, because they pitied them, and partly 
 because they were glad to get rid of them at any price. Jo- 
 sephus says that the Egyptians honored the Israelites with 
 gifts — some in order to get them to depart quickly, and 
 others on account of neighborhood and good friendship. 
 So that the historian, Josephus, gives what would sug- 
 gest itself to any one as the right reason for the Egyp- 
 tians giving up their property, in order to oblige the Is- 
 raelites. 
 
 Then this last judgment, which is strictly detailed in the 
 next chapter, for this chapter is the prophecy, the next the 
 accomplishment of it, the one the voice, the other the echo, 
 was evidently the most awful and distressing one that fell 
 upon the whole population of the land. If the whole pop- 
 ulation had been swept away by some desolating flood, or 
 by the earth opening to receive them, there would have 
 been none left to mourn the catastrophe ; but when the first- 
 born child, the hope of the house, the nearest and dearest to 
 the heart, and in whom the whole progress and expansion of 
 the house, whatever was its position or its rank, was centred 
 — when that first-born one was smitten, from the first-born 
 child of Pharaoh on the throne to the first-born child of the 
 humblest menial in his realm, in a night, the universality of 
 this stroke, and its occurring at midnight, when each would 
 be awakened by the calamity that took place, and the neigh- 
 bor in one house would rush out to seek sympathy from 
 her next neighbor, and meet her next neighbor coming to 
 
EXODUS XI. 97 
 
 seek sympathy from her. I say, the universality of this 
 would make an impression upon the whole popuhilion 
 of Egypt that none of the other plagues could effect ; 
 and it is therefore alluded to more frequently tliroughout 
 the Sacred Volume than any other plague recorded in this 
 Book. 
 
 But whilst this took place with reference to the Egyp- 
 tians, God's people were protected in perfect safety : for we 
 read, " There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of 
 Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it 
 any more ; but against any of the children of Israel shall 
 not a dog move his tongue" — even the brute creation 
 should reverently look on — "that ye may know and see, by 
 an irresistible fact, as painful as it is irresistible, that God 
 puts a difference between them that fear him, and them that 
 fear him not." 
 
 Blood sprinkled on the lintel alone was the safety of 
 Israel. Not deeds — not race — not any thing inside 
 the house — but wholly the blood outside was safety. 
 There might be fears within, but those did not weaken 
 the protection. The blood of Jesus is our safety — and it 
 alone. 
 
 Moses then repeats w^hat God had said to him, — "All 
 these thy servants shall come down unto me," that is, unto 
 God, for Moses is only the spokesman, "and bow down 
 themselves unto me," saying, " Get thee out, and all the peo- 
 ple that follow thee" — Moses is alluded to there — "and 
 after that I will go out." And then it is said, " Moses went 
 out from Pharaoh in a great anger." Now on first reading 
 this, it would seem as if Moses had got into a passion un- 
 called for by the circumstances of the case, and unwarrant- 
 able in one who professed to be the immediate servant and 
 messenger of the Most High. And yet, if it was so, there 
 is no sin in anger. I believe man was made to be angry, 
 as much as he was made to smile. There is no more sin in 
 
 9 
 
98 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 being angiy than there is in being hungry. The Apostle 
 himself says, " Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." 
 *' Be angry, and sin not." Christianity does not profess to 
 root out human nature ; it only undertakes to sanctify, ele- 
 vate, ennoble, and improve human nature. The risk of sin 
 in anger is in its degenerating into malice, when it becomes 
 sin. AVe have a striking evidence of sinless anger in the 
 chapter we shall read this evening, (Mark, iii.), where it is 
 said, " When Jesus had looked round about on them with 
 anger," but it is beautifully added, " being grieved for the 
 hardness of their hearts ; " as if His anger was mainly sor- 
 row or grief at the hardness of their hearts. Moses had 
 perhaps more of the passion of human nature than the sor- 
 row of a Christian, and he may have felt, as he once spake, 
 unadvisedly and sinfidly, for who is he that sinneth not ? 
 Yet still there was enough in the conduct of Pharaoh, and 
 -in the maltreatment of the children of Israel, to arouse the 
 temper of any man ; and it needed the grace of God 
 mingled with that temper or passion to make it as much 
 pity for a misguided king, as indignation at his atrocious 
 tyranny. 
 
 " And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not 
 hearken unto you." Lest you should expect too much from 
 this last plague, I w^arn you that Pharaoh will not hearken 
 unto you. Now this seems a sort of inexplicable inconsis- 
 tency. Why should God bid Moses to do things to persuade 
 Pliaraoh, when he told Moses all throughout that he would 
 not listen ? The answer is, it is ours to do the duties that 
 are assigned by the Most High ; it is God's to determine 
 the results. If every soldier who marched into the field of 
 battle were to say, " What is the use of opposing that 
 mighty force ? I know we shall fail," there would be speedy 
 defeat. It is by each feeling that there is a* duty assigned, 
 and having confidence in him who assigns it, that any work 
 will be most efficiently done. God determines results ; it is 
 
EXODUS XT. 99 
 
 ours to use the means. God metes out tlie harvest ; it is 
 ours to sow the seed. Moses had nothing to do with the 
 effect of what he wrought : he had only to do what was 
 bidden, and to commit the result to Ilim who judgeth right- 
 eously. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PHARAOH RELENTS. CHILDREN SUFFER FOR PARENTS A FACT IN 
 HISTORY. TRANSUBSTANTIATION. THE SACRIFICE AND FEAST. 
 TRAINING AND TEACHING CHILDREN. BORROWING JEWELS. 
 
 We have seen in the course of successive chapters of the 
 truly interesting Book we have been reading, that one 
 plague after another fell with consuming vengeance upon 
 Pharaoh and those who were associated with him ; that he 
 relented occasionally for a moment, but only to return to his 
 inveterate obstinacy more than ever. At last a plague 
 comes, so desolating in its nature, so sudden, and from the 
 midnight in wliich it was dealt, so mysterious, that it at once 
 relaxes all the feelings of Pharaoh, dissipates all the obdu- 
 racy he had shown, and makes him too thankfid to get rid 
 of a people in the midst of Egypt, about wliose profitable- 
 ness to his realm he must think no more, and about getting 
 rid of whom in the quickest manner, and with the least mis- 
 chief to himself, must be now his only consideration. 
 
 It has been often said. Does it not seem almost an unjust, 
 not to say were it not irreligious, a cruel thing, that because 
 of the obstinacy of the monarch the poor babes, some of 
 whom were sittting on their mother's knee, and others hav^- 
 ing readied no more years than boyhood, should all be 
 smitten with one dread stroke? It is only anotlier page of 
 God's providential dealings witli mankind. Even the heathen 
 could say, "The king sins, and the Greeks are punished;" 
 and we find, when the curtain is lifted in the sacred Volume, 
 
EXODUS XII. 101 
 
 that national sins committed by national rulers arc visited, 
 not only upon them, but also upon the people. It may be 
 unjust in the estimate of some ; I believe it to be just, be- 
 cause it is the doing of God ; but we are sure that if we 
 cannot see the justice of the procedure, it is not because 
 God is unrighteous, but because we are so blind. At all 
 events, it is not simply a revelation in God's Word, but it is 
 a fact illustrated in the history of every nation upon earth. 
 Read the history of man, and there you have just the echo 
 of the Word and the prophecies of God. It is not a de- 
 claration of a principle peculiar to Christianity, but the 
 announcement of a fact embodied in the history of every 
 nation whose annals are accessible to us. And it is, per- 
 haps, a more merciful law than some imagine. It only 
 makes the responsibility of the parent or ruler more solemn, 
 and is fitted to make the sense of that responsibility deeper, 
 greater, and more lasting. 
 
 We read in the commencement of the chapter that this 
 event was so memorable, that the very current and order of 
 the year was to be changed in consequence. The Jewish 
 year began before in September and October ; it is now to 
 begin in the months of March and April. God says that 
 the last half of March and the first half of April shall be 
 the commencement of the Jewish year. 
 
 The provision here made was that the Israelites and 
 whosoever would, should take a lamb, that lamb being typi- 
 cal and significant of the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
 the w^orld : that lamb they were to kill, and sprinkle its 
 blood upon the lintel, and wherever the destroying angel 
 saw this, from that house he should reverently retire, hold- 
 ing it and its inmates safe and sacred things. This was not 
 that God required blood sprinkled on the lintel to let his 
 messenger know who were his people, and who were Pha- 
 raoh's, but it was to be a typical and significant rite. While 
 it answered the great purpose of distinction for the day, it 
 9* 
 
102 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 was to endure as a lasting and expressive lesson book incul- 
 cating a great truth, until the fulness of the times should 
 come, when the Passover, like a dim morning star, should 
 be merged in the splendor of the rising and increasing Sun 
 of Righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ. The fears and 
 terror of the inmates weakened their comfort but not their 
 safety! The blood on the lintel alone was safety. We may 
 have doubts and fears, but these do not dilute the efficacy of 
 Christ's blood. Not the strength of our faith, but the effi- 
 cacy of his blood, is our safety. 
 
 There is one fact about this w^hich is very striking, and 
 which has not been noticed with the usual accuracy of our 
 translators. It is in the 26th verse, where it is said, "And 
 it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, 
 What mean ye by this service?" Now in the Hebrew 
 original in this place there is no word for " mean ; " and 
 this verse is, literally translated, " What by this service ? " 
 or " What is this service ? " And the answ^er that shall be 
 given is, " It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover." Now 
 have you not in this passage, the meaning of which our 
 translators thoroughly appreciated, though they have not 
 put the word " mean " in italics, as they usually do when 
 they add expletives — have you not here the word "is" 
 used in the sense of "represent?" It is plain that the 
 original language is " is," and the answer is, " It is the sacri- 
 fice of the Lord's passover ; " but yet you see clearly that 
 the idea is, "What mean ye by this service?" and natu- 
 rally the answer is given, "It means the sacrifice of the 
 Lord's passover." Now then, transfer that idea to the 
 words of our Blessed Lord, when he took bread, and after 
 he had blessed it, he brake it, and the institution of the sup- 
 per exactly corresponds with this, and said, " This is my 
 body." He meant clearly, "This means my body;" and 
 again, "This cup is the new testament," he meant, " This 
 represents or signifies the new testament." If you ask for 
 
EXODUS XII. 103 
 
 the analogy that shows it, you have it here in this chapter. 
 It never could be supposed by an Israelite that when the 
 father said to the child, " This is the sacrifice of the Lord's 
 passover," that he meant to convey the idea that roasted 
 flesh was transubstantiated into a destroying angel passing 
 through Egypt, smiting the first-born of Pharaoh, and spar- 
 ing the first-born of Israel. The child would never dream 
 of such a thing : it was left for the schoolmen of the middle 
 ages, and even for popes, councils, and canons, to suppose 
 such things. The Israelites must have understood "This 
 is," to imply " This means ; " just as it is said, " The seven 
 candlesticks are," that is, mean " seven churches." " That 
 Rock was Christ." — " That Rock meant or signified Christ." 
 But it will be said, Was there not in this passover a sac- 
 rifice ; and if the Lord's Supper comes in the place of the 
 passover, may we not infer that the Lord's Supper is a sac- 
 rifice too ? I answer, No. There were two parts in this 
 passover ; there was first the slaughter of the lamb, and the 
 shedding of its blood ; and subsequent to that there was the 
 roasting of the lamb, and the eating of its flesh upon the 
 table. There were two parts in the ancient passover ; there 
 was the painful or the sacrificial part, and there was the 
 pleasant or the festival part. Well, Jesus is the antitype of 
 the lamb slain ; and when Jesus died upon the cross and 
 shed his blood, he took to himself and endured all the pain- 
 ful part, and thus fulfilled all its sacrificial import ; and then, 
 the Lord's Supper answers to the joyous feast that succeeded 
 the sacrifice. It is no part of the sacrifice itself, but is a 
 festival based upon it, and commemorating the sacrifice as a 
 finished sacrifice. How beautiful is this ! The Jew had 
 the painful, as well as the pleasant part ; but in our econ- 
 omy Jesus took all the pain, and bequeathed to us only the 
 pleasure. He endured all the sorrow, and he has given to 
 us to enjoy the glad festival that follows. Hence, the Com- 
 munion table is of all spots in Christendom the most joyous. 
 
104 SCRIPTUllE READINGS. 
 
 If there be sunshine in the sanctuary, it ouglit to be there ; 
 and the id'ea that prevails so much in some minds of com- 
 ing to the Lord's table with feelings of awe, terror, dread, 
 dismay, as if it were spread on Mount Sinai, with the thun- 
 ders of the Law rolling over it, and the flashing of its light- 
 ning only to illuminate it, is more Jewish than Christian. 
 We are to come to that table as to a glad and joyous festi- 
 val, commemorating the grandest fact in the universe, the 
 great truth that the Lamb has been slain, that the sac- 
 rifice is finished, that its efficacy is in our hearts, and 
 that this festival is the memorial and the pledge that it 
 is so. 
 
 AYe must notice another fact, for in so long a chapter I 
 can only allude to one or two, " And it shall come to pass 
 when your children shall say unto you. What mean ye by 
 this service ? that ye shall say. It is the sacrifice of the 
 Lord's passover." Here is the first school that we read of 
 in the ancient Jewish economy. The first teacher was the 
 father or the mother, and the first pupils were the children 
 who were taught. If you want a precedent for schools, 
 here it is. Children are inquisitive ; they are meant and 
 made to be so. They will often ask more questions than a 
 parent can answer ; but they will often ask questions that a 
 parent should answer ; and therefore when they ask what 
 you mean by any thing you engage in, you ought always to 
 be ready to give answer for a fact that you do, as well as 
 for the faith that is in you. Parents should not say, " You 
 are too young to learn this." Every thing has a part that 
 can be explained to a child, Avhilst it has darker parts that 
 are not intelligible to an angel ; and whatever we can teach 
 it is our duty to render as plain as possible. Lessons that 
 are learned in infancy are often not forgotten in old age. 
 The law is, " Train up a child in the way he should go," not 
 " in the way he would go," as some practically render it, 
 " and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Some 
 
EXODUS XII. 105 
 
 parents, instead of falling back upon their own inconsistency, 
 as the explanation of filial misconduct, blame God's Word. 
 They quote this passage, and then they say that God's Word 
 has failed ; whereas, it is their duty that has failed. Again, 
 it is said, " Train," not teach only. The gardener is not sat- 
 isfied with pointing out the course tluit a vine is to take, he 
 trains it. And so, in all eHicient teaching (and I rejoice to 
 say that this idea is prevailing more and more in the public 
 mind than it did some years ago), there must not only be 
 pointing out, but practically exhibiting. There must be giv- 
 ing tone to the conduct, as well as teaching lessons for the 
 memory. 
 
 After this dread stroke, when in the silence of midnight, 
 unexpected by the Egyptians, the angel looked into the face 
 of every first-born one, from Pharaoh's down to the mother's 
 that ground at the mill, and it drooped, and died, " there was 
 a great cry in Egypt." And people, whenever th(;y cannot 
 explain a catastrophe, exaggerate it; and therefore they 
 said, " We be all dead men." " This is but the beginning 
 of an epidemic that will spread throughout Egypt. We see 
 that the cause of it is the obstinacy of our rulers ; there- 
 fore, let the Israelites be driven out as speedily as possible, 
 for we be all dead men." Pharaoh felt as they felt ; for in- 
 stead of haggling with them, if I may use the expression, 
 like a bargain maker, as he did before, saying. Leave your 
 children behind you, and then your cattle, he is now only 
 too glad to get rid of them cattle and all, because a judg- 
 ment was on him too terrible to be repeated, and too severe 
 to be longer borne. 
 
 The Israelites marched out, after they kept the passover, 
 and ate of the roasted lamb, in a way not usual with East- 
 ern nations, namely, with their shoes or sandals on, and each 
 with their staff in their hand, ready to take their journey 
 into the promised land. We, too, are pilgrims and strangers 
 looking for a better country ; and if we are not to have the 
 
106 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 pilgrim robe or the pilgrim stafF, we oiiglit to have the pil- 
 grim spirit which consists in having our heart where our 
 treasure is, and both in heaven at the right hand of God. 
 
 We find next what I need not again explain, that they 
 borrowed from the Egyptians gold and silver. The word 
 " borrow " ought to be translated " ask." I gave you last 
 Sunday the evidence of it in the 2d Psalm, where we have 
 the same Hebrew verb thus rendered, ^^Ask of me, and I 
 shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Then it 
 is said that the Egyptians " lent" these jewels to them. The 
 passage strictly translated is, " They caused them to ask of 
 them such things as they required," that is, told them what 
 they would want, and freely gave them, because they were 
 too glad to get rid of them, and no doubt in some cases they 
 gave as tokens of good-will, because they had found them 
 good neighbors, although holding a religion different from 
 their own. 
 
 The following illustrations are worth special elucidation : 
 
 Verse 4. 
 Accordij^g as the number of the souls. — As to the requisite mimber 
 necessary to constitute what was termed the "Paschal society," which 
 Moses docs not specify, some hg-ht is gathered from the following pas- 
 sage of Josephus (J. W. b. vi. chap, 9, v. 3), " These high priests did 
 go upon the coming of that feast which is called the Passover, when 
 they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the eleventh; but so 
 that a company of not less than ten belonged to every sacrifice, (for it 
 is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves ;) and many of us 
 are twenty in compyuny ! " 
 
 Verse 5. 
 
 Without blemish. — Ileb. ^>^^^, /am/m, perfect, i. e., entire, whole, 
 sound, having neither defect nor redundancy of pai'ts, unsoundness of 
 members, or deformity of aspect. See this more fully explained. Lev. 
 xxii. 21-24, This has a typical reference to Christ, wlio is called, 1 
 Pet. i. 19, "A lamb without blemish and Avithout spot," 
 
 A male of the first year. — Ileb. n3"ii;"n;n> hen-shanah, son of a year, A 
 male, as being accounted more excellent than a female, ]\Ial. i, 14 ; 
 and of the first year, because it retains during that period its lamb- 
 
EXODUS XIT. 107 
 
 like harmlcssncss and simplicity. The phrase implies rather a lamb 
 that fulls somewhat short of a full year than one that has rcarhcd it. 
 It was probal)ly taken at the age when its Hesh was most tender and 
 grateful. 
 
 Yekse 6. 
 
 In the evening. — That is, in the afternoon, between the time of the 
 snn's beginning to decline, which was called the first eveiiing, and 
 that of his setting, which was tei-med the second. The usual time, 
 doubtless, was the middle point between noon and sunset, or about 
 three o'clock in the afternoon. Thus Josephus, speaking of the Pass- 
 over : " They slay their sacrifices from the ninth hour (three o'clock.)" 
 Thus also the Talmud : "They slew the daily (evening) sacrifice at 
 the eighth hour and a half (or half past two), and offered it up at the 
 ninth hour and a half, (or half past thi-ee). But on the eve of the 
 Passover they slew it at the seventh hour and a half (or half past one), 
 and offered it up at the eighth hour and a half, (or half past two.)" 
 jNIaimonides informs us that the paschal lamb was slain and offered 
 'up immediately after the usual time of killing and offering up the 
 evening sacrifice. In like manner, our blessed Lord, who is the " true 
 Passover slain for us," was condemned soon after the sixth hour, 
 John xix. 14, i. e., our twelve at noon, and he died soon after the 
 ninth, Matt, xxvii. 46, 50, i. e., after our three in the afternoon. 
 
 Verse 8. 
 
 Boast witlijire. — Because it could sooner be madeready by roasting 
 than boiling. This circumstance constituted a marked difference be- 
 tween the Passover lamb and all the other peace-offerings, the flesh of 
 which Avas usually boiled, in order to be eaten both by the people and 
 the priests as something additional even at the Paschal solemnity. In 
 2 Chron. xxxv. 13, the two kinds of offering are accurately distin- 
 guished. " And they roasted the passover with fire according to the 
 ordinance, bi>t the other holy offerings sod they in pots, and in cal- 
 drons, and in pans." 
 
 And unleavened bread. — This also was ordered for the sake of expe- 
 dition, Deut. xvi. 13 ; as both xibraham and Lot in preparing a hasty 
 meal for their visitors, caused unleavened cakes to be made. The 
 original term is supposed to be derived from a Avord signifying to 
 press, squeeze, or compress, and is applied to bread destitute of the 
 fermenting matter, because it has its parts closely compressed to- 
 gether, and becomes "what Ave commonly call heaA-y. So, on the other 
 hand, our English Avord " leaven " is formed from the French 
 
108 SCRIFTUJRE KEADIXGS. 
 
 "Icvain," Avhich is derived from the verb "leA'cr," to raise up, the 
 effect produced upon doughy leaven, rendering the bread light and 
 spongy. The use of unleavened bread, as a perpetual observance in 
 the Taschal celebration, may have been designed to remind the chosen 
 people of their leaving Egypt in such haste as to be obliged to carry 
 their unleavened dough with them. It is also not unreasonably to 
 be inferred from one or two passages in the New Testament, that a 
 mystical meaning was couched under this circumstance. Leaven is a 
 species of corruption caused by fermentation, and tending to putre- 
 faction. For this reason it is said of our Saviour, Luke xii. 1, "He 
 began to say unto his disciples, first of all. Beware ye of the leaven 
 of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." Paul also, in 1 Cor. v. 7, 8, 
 says, " Purge out therefore the old leaven ; for Christ our Passover is 
 sacrificed for us ; therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old 
 leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and Avickedness ; but Avith 
 the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 
 
 Verse 38. 
 A vxixed multitude. — Heb. ^>-i ^'iji, ereh rah, a great mixture; a 
 multitude composed of strangers, partly Egyptians, and partly natives 
 of other countries, who had been prevailed upon by the miracles 
 wrought in behalf of the Israelites, and from other motives, to em- 
 bark with them in the present enterprise of leaving Egypt. Thus, 
 Zech. viii. 23, " In those days it sliall come to pass that ten men shall 
 take hold, out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of 
 the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying. We will go with you, for we 
 have heard that God is with you. " It can hardly be supposed, how- 
 ever, that the major part of them were prompted by considerations so 
 creditable to their piety. Self-interest Avas most likely the moving 
 spring Avith the great mass. Some of them Avere probably Egyptians 
 of the poorer class, AA'ho Avere in hopes to better their condition in 
 some Avay, or had other good reasons for leaA'ing Egypt. Others 
 were, perhaps, foreign slaves, belonging both to the HebreAvs and 
 Egyptians, Avho Avere glad to take the opportunity of escaping with the 
 Israelites, others again a mere rude, restless mob, a company of 
 hangers-on, that foUoAved the croAvd, they scarcely kncAV Avhy, perhaps 
 made up of such vagabonds, adventurers, and debtors as could no 
 longer stay safely in Egypt. Whoever or Avhatcvcr they were, the Is- 
 raelites Avere no better for their i)resence, and, like thousands in all 
 ages, that turn their faces towards Zion, and run avcU for a time, Avhen 
 they came to experience a little of tlic hardships of the Avay, they 
 quitted the people of God and returned to Egypt. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ••'HE GREAT EXODUS. NUMBERS OF THE EMIGRANTS. 'JIIE MIRAC- 
 ULOUS NATURE OF THE EXODUS. THE FIRST-BORN. UNLEAV- 
 ENED BREAD. WRITTEN TEXTS. GOD's DISCIPLINE. JOSEPIl'S 
 BONES. 
 
 • 
 
 Here -sve liave next to the resurrection of our Lord from 
 the grave the most impressive exodus that ever occurred in 
 the annals of mankind. We have a whole people redeemed 
 by a special miracle, a miracle, however, that unfolded the 
 great idea that was needed to be impressed upon all, that 
 without shedding of blood, without the Passover's sacrifice 
 slain, there was no remission of sin. We have this people 
 brought out by a high hand and an outstretched arm from 
 the bondage, wretchedness, and idolatry of Egypt, and 
 marched through the wilderness amid shining miracles, until 
 at last they were planted in the land of Canaan according to 
 the promise of God. 
 
 It appears that 600,000 men able to bear arms went forth 
 m this exodus from Egypt ; and if we may at all judge from 
 the multitude that always follows in the train of an eastern 
 army, where the camp followers are far more numerous than 
 the army itself, we may very well imagine that a very large 
 body of the Hebrew population accompanied the upwards 
 of half a million of fighting men. Allowing that for every 
 man capable to bear arms there were two old and two young, 
 besides the females and children, we may estimate that a 
 population exceeding the population of London three mil- 
 lions, or two millions and a half, rose in the land of Egypt 
 10 
 
110 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 at once, and emerged from it into the wilderness, with their 
 faces Zionward, and their trust in the Lord God of Abra- 
 ham. Now, one can see that nothing but a special miracle 
 of protecting Omnipotence could have enabled such a multi- 
 tude to rise, and to carry with them things suitable for so 
 long, perilous, and unknown a journey. And I cannot con- 
 ceive that Moses could be otherwise than directed by tlie 
 Spirit of God, when he made the experiment. No man in 
 his senses would have made such an attempt, unless there 
 had been an Omnipotent Power to go with him, and an Om- 
 niscient Presence to direct him ; and the very fact that a 
 Hebrew sheplierd, brought up for forty years in the court 
 of Pharaoh, afterwards for forty years a shepherd on the 
 hills, and afterwards doubted and despised by his people ; 
 the very fact that he marched two millions and a half of 
 craven, spiritless slaves out of Egypt, is an evidence that he 
 had a light more than human, and a presence that was Di- 
 vine. We know that such was the case, and that he under- 
 took this great work, because he had the command and 
 promise of the Omnipotent Deliverer. 
 
 In the former chapter we read of the illustration of Christ 
 our Passover sacrificed for us, corresponding to the Good 
 Friday of Christians. We read now of the very next act, 
 which was, no doubt, typical of a yet greater and grander 
 one. I never can conceive that all these historical facts that 
 are recorded here were accidental events in the chapter of 
 things. I believe that they were prefigurations of good 
 things to come, and that there was not a fact in the history 
 of Israel that had not then, and has not now, a counterpart 
 and an illustration in the experience of the people of God. 
 The first thing that was to be done was to sanctify the fii'St- 
 born of every creature, and to keep that holy and sacred for 
 ever. Hence, the word " first-born " in the Scriptures al- 
 ways denotes the most excellent thing ; and in all the usages 
 of nations the first-born is still the heir, and the preeminent 
 
EXODUS XTII. Ill 
 
 one, as if a shadow of God's Divine institution still lingered 
 amid nations that know not the truths of the Gospel. And 
 in order to show that ^ve have our first-born children, and 
 the first-born cattle, and the best of every thing that we 
 have, not by right, but by a gratuitous tenure, we have it at 
 the expense of sacrifice. It was to be had at the expense 
 of the sacrifice of a lamb slain for that purpose amongst 
 the Jews ; and we have it now as the result of the sacrifice 
 of Christ our passover. We are not original proprietors, 
 but stewards. What we have is not our own, except for 
 use, and we are answerable, he that has little, and he that 
 has much, for the use or abuse of it. We are not our own, 
 and we are not redeemed with gold, or silver, or any such 
 corruptible thing, but with the blood of a lamb without spot 
 or blemish. 
 
 Then they were promised that God would bring them 
 into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the 
 Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which was 
 Palestine, the mark of which would be, " flowing with milk 
 and honey," that is, the choicest things taken as a represen- 
 tation of all the rest. And it is said that this service of un- 
 leavened bread subsequent to the slaughter of the lamb 
 should be observed as a memorial for all generations. The 
 reason of the use of unleavened bread was not that there 
 was any thing in it that connected the Jewish mind with the 
 fact it commemorated, but it was just an arbitrary sign 
 appointed to be for ever associated with this deliverance. 
 Whenever the Jew ate the unleavened bread, he thought of 
 the origin of it. Just as in the rainbow appointed at the 
 flood, there Avas nothing in it connected with the deluge, but 
 it became by God's consecration the symbol that reminds us 
 of it. So in bread and wine, there is nothing necessarily 
 connected with the death of Christ, but by God's association 
 of these elements with it, they become significant, and point 
 back to that great and blessed event. 
 
112 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 We tlien read tliat when their cluldren should ask them, 
 •when they came into the promised land, what they meant 
 by all this — it is in the original Hebrew, " What this ? " 
 which plainly we are to interpret, " What means this ? " 
 just as " This is my body " means " This represents my 
 body" — when they asked what they meant by this, the 
 answer of the parent should be, " By strength of hand the 
 Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bond- 
 age." You see here, as I mentioned on the previous chapter, 
 the provision that the school shall always subsist in the 
 family, that the teacher and the taught shall be a relation 
 reciprocated and sustained there. It assumes the curiosity 
 and inquisitiveness of the young, and it insists upon the duty 
 of the parent to gratify that curiosity by explaining Divine 
 truths, facts, and institutions, as they ought to be explained. 
 
 And so important were all these things, that God says, 
 they shall be hke a token stamped upon the hand, and so 
 present to them, that they shall be like the phylacteries, or 
 pieces of parchment, hanging over the forehead, and between 
 the eyes. The Pharisees carried this out literally, but evi- 
 dently it is the spirit, and not the parchment of it, that was 
 obligatory upon God's people. 
 
 " God led them not" through the way of the land of the Phil- 
 istines, although that was near ; for God said. Lest per- 
 adventure the people repent when they see war, and they 
 return to Egypt." Now you might say, could not God, Avho 
 could miraculously lead them out of P2gypt, and feed them, 
 and make a pillar of fire guide them through the darkness of 
 the night, have armed their hearts wiih courage enough, and 
 their weapons witli success enough, to destroy the Pliilis- 
 tines? Wliy should he lead them by a circuitous, and not by 
 a straight route into Canaan ? If you will trace upon any of 
 the maps in Bagster's Bible the route from Egypt into Ca- 
 naan, you will find that it was purposely and deliberately 
 circuitous. And if }'ou ask why, the same answer, perhaps, 
 
EXODUS XIII. 113 
 
 must be rendered that you must give when you ask, " Why 
 have I been led to my present position by a route so circuit- 
 ous ? AYhy have I reached my present relationship, my 
 present state, by so circuitous a route ? The answer is, that 
 you never could have reached it by a straighter one, God 
 knows best what is, not the nearest, but the surest way and 
 which is most for your good and for his glory. In the beau- 
 tiful language of the Prophet, He leads the blind by a way 
 that they know not. It is our business to look at the pillar 
 of cloud by day, and at the pillar of fire by night. We are 
 to run the race " set before us." We did not set it before 
 ourselves, God set it before us. Whether it be circuitous or 
 straight, long or short, rough or smooth, we are to run the 
 race set before us with only one anxiety — " looking unto 
 Jesus, the author and the finisher of our fliith." The Israel- 
 ites in their exodus from Egypt were to pursue their route 
 through the wilderness, not inquiring, nor complaining, 
 whether it was circuitous or straight, but looking to the pil- 
 lar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. If we 
 can only look at the right guide, lean upon the right arm, 
 contemplate the right object, all the rest should never trouble 
 us. As our day is, our strength shall be. " My grace is 
 sufiicient for thee." 
 
 But there is another idea suggested by this, and it is a 
 very important one, that on God's part there never is a pro- 
 fusion of miracles ; open a chapter of the Bollandists, or the 
 annals of the beatification and canonization of the Romish 
 saints, and there is such a profusion of miracles, that they 
 are sparkling all day and all night, until you are weary of 
 reading of them. But in God's Word you never find a 
 miracle unless a miracle be actually required ; and when 
 the miracle is done, it carries its own majestic credentials 
 upon its own brow ; there can be no doubt about it. Now, 
 you will notice here that God treated the men as rational, 
 responsible, intelligent beings. If it had been all miracles, 
 10* 
 
114 scraPTURE readings. 
 
 man might as well have been an automaton ; but as man 
 was a responsible ereature, that God wished to train, to in- 
 doctrinate, to shape and mould after his own Divine model, 
 God dealt with him as a rational being, and only stej)ped in 
 when there was absolute necessity for it. Even a heathen 
 poet could say 
 
 "Xec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus." 
 
 " Never should a God step in unless there be a difficulty 
 •worthy of the interposition of a God." That is acted upon 
 throughout the whole of Scripture. God never steps in 
 with supernatural power, except when the natural is at its 
 wits' end. God was training a race of craven, spiritless, 
 broken-hearted slaves. He would not substitute for tliem- 
 selves Himself; but he would school them, as a nurse leads 
 a child, helping it only when it is about to fall. How beau- 
 tiful is this thought, that the Great Father should thus bend 
 over his family as a mother watches her infant cliild, help- 
 ing it only when it needs it, knowing that to help it too 
 often would be to frustrate Avhat she has in view, as not to 
 help it at all would be to expose it to danger. God deals 
 with his people, too, according to their growth. He gives a 
 dispensation to one state that he does not give to another. 
 He regards men as progressive creatures, and fits his deal- 
 ings and dispensations accordingly. 
 
 It is said that they " went up harnessed out of the land of 
 Egypt," that is, in companies, or battalions, so many abreast. 
 It does not mean that they were armed with weapons for 
 battle. 
 
 In the 19th verse there is a reference to Joseph's bidding 
 his brethren swear that they would carry his bones out of 
 Egypt into Canaan. You see how they recollected the good 
 and great patriarch's dying request. And what did Joseph 
 mean by it ? It was a pledge to the slaves in Egypt that 
 they would yet be in Canaan ; it was a declaration that 
 
EXODUS XTII. 115 
 
 thougli his bones might rest for a season in the tombs of the 
 Pharaohs, his heart beat towards Canaan. It is a lesson to 
 us that this is not our rest, that there remaineth a Canaan, 
 a true rest, for the people of God. It was not a mere piece 
 of caprice, but a suggestive, prefigurative, and significant fact, 
 showing that Joseph looked ibrward to that day when his 
 bones, like the bones of his nation in the valley, seen by 
 Ezekiel, should again be clothed in flesh, and come bone to 
 bone, and he should rise again. 
 
 We see next, God's guidance of the people by a pillar of 
 cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. We can form 
 an idea of the gigantic size of this phenomenon by the fact, 
 that two millions and a half of people had to see it. You 
 can conceive what an immense space of ground this number 
 must have covered. I believe that, when the first ranks 
 had reached the Red Sea, the last had hardly escaped from 
 Egypt. The shape of this pillar is supposed to have been 
 like ascending smoke ; and mathematicians might easily 
 calculate the height it must have risen to, in order to be 
 seen by all this mass of people. One may suppose that it 
 must have risen nearly a mile into the skies. I shall take 
 another opportunity of explaining that that pillar was the 
 presence of God Avhich afterwards rested on the ark. It 
 was called the Shechinah, from a Hebrew verb meaning " to 
 dwell ; " and we can see that it was the great type of the 
 Incarnation of the Son of God. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE ROUTE OUT OF EGYPT. THE BED SEA. DESPAIR OF THE 
 ISRAELITES. HEROISM. SLAVERY. MOSES PRAYS. GOD RE- 
 PLIES. PILLAR OF FIRE. SIIECHAN. THE DIVIDING OF THE 
 SEA. DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH. 
 
 The chapter I have read records one of the most stupen- 
 dous miracles in the whole annals of the Christian history. 
 We read that Pharaoh so far submitted, vrhen the death of 
 the first-born struck every heart with terror and dismay, 
 that he let the Israelites go out a few days, as he thought, 
 into the wilderness, in order to sacrifice ; in the hope, upon 
 his part, that after they had done so they would return to 
 the brickkilns, and continue the productive slaves of Pha- 
 raoh and of Egypt. But when word came, that the Israel- 
 ites had not simply gone out for a holiday, but had begun 
 their final exodus from Egypt, with their faces towards the 
 the land of Canaan ; and when he heard that they had been 
 directed, not by the straight route that seemed to man the 
 nearest, but by the route that God knew to be best ; — just 
 as it is still : for what we think the best way to the accom- 
 plishment of an end is not always so ; and it is well that 
 God sometimes leads the blind by a way they know not, and 
 brings them to the result by a route unexpected and incom- 
 prehensible to them, but in the end most for their good and 
 for His glory — he determined to pursue them. It appears 
 that the Israelites encamped upon the west side of the Red 
 Sea, some twenty or tliirty miles, at tlie very lowest, below 
 what is now called Suez ; and if any one will look at their 
 
EXODUS XIV. 117 
 
 position there, especially if acquainted with the geological 
 and geographical structure of the country, he will see that 
 they were literally " entangled in the land." And when 
 Pharaoh heard thi& joyous news, that a mass of people, 
 amounting, as we have seen, to about the population of 
 London — two millions and a half — with their baggage and 
 their wagons, containing, as they thought, nutriment for a 
 few days in the desert, had got into a sort of Khybar Pass, 
 if one might so call it, with no boats, or bridges, or other 
 means of crossing the sea, he determined to go forth with 
 all the might of Egypt, and to come upon them when they 
 least expected it, and between his soldiers and the sea, to 
 exterminate the slaves, who, under the pretext of enjoying 
 a holiday, had bade a final farewell to Egypt. 
 
 The Israelites, when they came into this position, were 
 extremely overwhelmed by a sense of the difficulties that 
 environed them, and they showed the most craven and cow- 
 ardly spirit, as well as hearts that had lost all confidence in 
 the Lord God of Israel. 
 
 When they heard the roar, and saw the white crests of 
 the multitudinous waves before them, and heard the tramp 
 of the steeds, and the rush of the chariots of Pharaoh be- 
 hind them, and when they looked up at the enveloping 
 mountains that they could not climb, they gave up all for 
 lost. Instead of looking to the pillar of cloud that had 
 guided them, as they ought to have done ; instead of re- 
 membering that the God who saved them out of Egypt was 
 their God still, they " cried out unto the Lord, and they said 
 unto Moses," in language that must have been painful to 
 him, but that did not depress so wise, so intrepid, and so 
 inspired a leader, " Because there were no graves in Egypt, 
 hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness ? " Well, 
 suppose it had come to that, better have died free men in 
 the desert, than have pined a few years longer as slaves in 
 
 Egypt. 
 
118 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Heathen men would liave felt this ; and it was a deep 
 shame and a great sin for a number of Hebrews, far more 
 enlightened, to utter such a remonstrance to a leader who 
 had sacrificed so much for their sakes. But mark the firm- 
 ness of this great leader. When they said so, Moses said 
 to them, " Fear ye not." What calmness ! He loses not 
 his self-possession, he does not break forth into passionate 
 remonstrance or reply, but with a calm that indicated an 
 inspiration that was Divine, he said, " Fear ye not, stand 
 still " — do not lose your self-possession — " and see," what 
 I know will pass before you in all its magnificence and tri- 
 umph, " the salvation of the Lord." It is wonderful, even 
 in this world, apart from the inspiration that was here, how 
 much in an army, or a navy, the whole issue depends upon 
 the calmness, the self-possession, the magnanimity, the fear- 
 lessness of one. Let the leader tremble and all is gone. 
 Let him remain, like Moses, firm, and the very spectacle of 
 strength is strength, the sight of a hero gives heroism, con- 
 fidence displayed by a leader puts confidence in the hearts 
 of those who follow h-im. 
 
 One may remark, as an excuse for the Hebrews on this 
 occasion, that slavery had broken their hearts ; and we see 
 here in their faltering, and in their chiding of Moses, how 
 thoroughly their spirits had been broken by slavery. We 
 often say, the slaves are so bad that they are not fit to be 
 emancipated ; but it was slavery that made them bad ; and 
 to plead the sin that destroys, as a reason for ceasing to de- 
 liver, would not be just. These were slaves in Egypt; 
 they had lost all the dignity of free men, and all sense of 
 independence ; and they showed that they were neither fit 
 to fight, nor fit to take this exodus, nor to enjoy, as they 
 could not realize, their position, till God taught them subse- 
 quently better. 
 
 God said unto Moses, " Wherefore criest thou unto me ? " 
 It is plain, that while Moses spoke with such calmness and 
 
EXODUS XIV. 119 
 
 self-possession to the agitated and terrified crowd, his heart 
 was busy meanwhile in fervent and earnest prayer to God. 
 It is not said here that he prayed, but God's reply, " Where- 
 fore criest thou to me ? " is evidence that the heart of 
 Moses was praying whilst his lips were uttering encourage- 
 ment to the people. There is a time for prayer, and a time 
 for action ; and this shows that time may be spent in the 
 one that should be spent in the other. There is a time to 
 seek the grace and guidance that we need, but there is a 
 time also to draw upon the capital that God has given us, 
 and turn it to good account. Moses here, instead of con- 
 tinuing to pray, was told to begin to act, " Lift thou up 
 thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide 
 it." 
 
 Here you will notice how this pillar of cloud by day, 
 which must have extended upwards of a mile into the air, 
 in order to be seen by so many people, was a blazing fire by 
 night. This pillar is sometimes called " the angel of God," 
 sometimes " God," and sometimes " the Lord ; " and this 
 evidently shows that it was a symbol or type of our Blessed 
 Redeemer, and that He was in it ; for when the temple was 
 built, we read that the cloud or the glory came and rested 
 upon the mercy-seat ; and we read, too, that Jesus dwelt in 
 the flesh, or literally " shechinaed" in the flesh. The pillar 
 of cloud by day and of fire by night, when it settled between 
 the cherubim, as a perpetual bright light, and token of the 
 presence of God in the temple, was named the " shechinah," 
 so called from the Hebrew verb shachan, which meant " to 
 dwell." Our Lord was thus the " shechinah " 'incarnate ; 
 and when the Bible speaks of his second coming, it speaks 
 of his coming " in the cloud." The apostles were told that 
 he would come in like manner as they had seen him go. So 
 that this pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, seems 
 to have been the dwelling-place, or the place of special 
 manifestation of God our Saviour before he became man, 
 and was incarnate. 
 
120 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 I need not explain to you the hardening of Pharaoh's 
 heart, on which I have so often spoken ah-eady. 
 
 We then read that " Moses stretched out his hand over 
 the sea : and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a 
 strong east wind." If you will look at the maps that de- 
 scribe the Red Sea, especially as the Arabian Desert was 
 divided in ancient" times, you will notice that the Israelites 
 were on the left side of the sea. The sea runs north and 
 south ; the Israelites were upon the west side of it ; the 
 east wind, therefore, must have penetrated the sea, and cut 
 it like a knife. If the wind had come from the north, it 
 would have driven the sea towards the main ocean, but by 
 coming from the east it cut the sea like a sword. This 
 shows how specially miraculous it was. The effect was not 
 produced by the waters subsiding or receding ; but the effect 
 of it was dividing the waters into two. It blew right against 
 the Israelites ; and if it had been a natural wind, blowing, 
 as we say, accidentally, it w^ould have bloAvn the whole 
 volume of the waters of the Red Sea over the hosts of 
 Israel, and thus have drowned them ; but as it blew across 
 the water, it cut the sea in two, as with a knife, and the 
 water stood, as if it had been ice, in solid majestic walls on 
 each side, when the Israelites passed through. What an 
 impression must have thrilled every heart, when the intrepid 
 leader stretched forth his rod, having in itself no virtue, 
 except God's command, and the great sea waves listened to 
 the bidding of Him who made them, as if they had been 
 children gathering round a loving mother's knee to do her 
 will without a moment's hesitation. 
 
 We read that when they did so, the Israelites marched 
 through, and the Egyptians determined to follow in pursuit. 
 Then Moses, at the command of God, stretched out his rod 
 upon the sea again, after the Egyptians had passed into the 
 middle of it ; and the same water that divided, and stood up, 
 and opened a promenade for the people of God, collapsed, 
 and became a grave to their Egyptian pursuers. 
 
EXODUS XIV. 121 
 
 Let us here notice the calmness with which this is recorded. 
 If this Avere the writing of an uninspired man, there would 
 be a great many interjections, and marks of astonishment, 
 as if conscious tliat he was recording some grand tiling; but 
 the very quietness of the words here that disclose so stu- 
 pendous a miracle is to me a proof that there was in it not 
 the guidance of the human, but the inspiration of the Divine. 
 
 We read, then, that the Israelites not only passed through 
 dry-shod, and reached the opposite shore in safety, but that 
 they were also permitted to see the Egyptians dead upon the 
 banks. Surely, after such a wonder as this, after such a 
 clearly Divine interposition, there was no more murmuring. 
 Surely, surely, they never lost confidence in such a God as 
 this. Alas for poor human nature, they murmured and re- 
 pined again and again ; disbelieved the God that redeemed 
 them, and presented a perfect portrait of what you and I 
 are, if it were not for the grace of God. 
 
 The Red Sea occupies a basin, in general deep and rocky, 
 and extends about eleven hundred and sixty miles in length 
 from north to south, with a mean breadth which may be 
 stated at one hundred and twenty miles. Throughout this 
 great extent it does not receive the waters of a single river. 
 The western coast is of a bolder character, and has a greater 
 depth of water than the eastern. The gulf abounds in sunken 
 rocks, sand-banks, and small islands, together with numerous 
 coral reefs, which in some places rise above the water to the 
 height of ten fathoms. The bottom is covered abundantly 
 with the same substance, as well as with marine plants, 
 which in calm weather give that appearance of submarine 
 forests and verdant meadows to which the sea probably owes 
 its Hebrew name of Yam Suph, as well as its present Arab 
 name of Bahr Souf Burckhardt observes, that the coral is 
 red in the inlet of Akaba, and white in that of Suez. The 
 11 
 
122 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 remarkably beautiful appearance which tins sea exhibits 
 has attracted notice in all ages ; and among its other char- 
 acteristics, the far more than ordinary phosphorescence of 
 its waters has been mentioned with peculiar admiration. 
 The width of the gulf contracts towards its extremities, and 
 at its mouth is considerably narrower than in any other 
 part. The strait of Bab-el-Mandel is there formed, and 
 does not exceed fourteen miles in breadth ; beside which it 
 is divided, at the distance of three miles from the Arabian 
 shore, by the island of Perim. The high land of Africa and 
 the peak of Azab give a remarkably bold appearance to the 
 shore in this part. At its northern extremity the Red Sea 
 separates into two minor gulfs or inlets, which inclose be- 
 tween them the peninsula of Sinai. The easternmost of 
 these is that of Akaba or Ailah, called by the Greeks and 
 Romans Allanites ; this is only about half the extent of the 
 other, and is rendered very dangerous by shoals and coral 
 reefs. The westernmost gulf is called the gulf of Suez, 
 anciently, Heeropolites : the ancient and modern names of 
 both inlets being from towns that formerly did, or do now, 
 stand at their extremities. It is the latter, the western gulf, 
 which was crossed by the Hebrews. It is about one hundred 
 and sixty miles in length, with a mean breadth of about thirty 
 miles, narrowing very much at its northern extremity. The 
 mean depth of its water is from nine to fourteen fathoms, 
 with a sandy bottom ; and it is of much safer navigation 
 than the other. There are many indications which place it 
 beyond a doubt that the Arabian gulf was formerly much 
 more extensive and deeper than at present. One of the 
 most certain proofs of this is, that cities, which were formerly 
 mentioned as seaports, are now considerably inland. This 
 is particularly the case in the gulf of Suez, where the shore 
 is unusually low. That the sea formerly extended more 
 northward than at present there is much reason to conclude, 
 not only from the marine appearances of the now dry soil, 
 
EXODUS XIV. 123 
 
 but from tliis fact, among otlier^:, that Kolsoum, wliidi was 
 formerly a port, is now tliree quarters of a mile inland. 
 There is certainly nothing in the appearance of the soil 
 about the Isthmus of Suez to discountenance the hypothesis 
 that the Red Sea was formerly no other than a strait uniting 
 the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean ; and that the 
 isthmus which is now interposed between the Ked Sea and 
 the Mediterranean was formed by drifts of sand from the 
 adjoining deserts. This, however, is an hypothesis : but 
 there is nothing hypothetical in the statement that the gulf 
 once extended more to the north than at present ; and this 
 fact is of importance, because it enables us to see that noth- 
 ing less than a miraculous interposition of the Divine power 
 could have enabled the Israelites to cross the bay even at 
 the highest of the points which has been selected by those 
 who, perhaps, were influenced by the wish to diminish the 
 force of the miracle, or to account for it on natural principles. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SONG OF MOSES. MURMURING. THE BITTER WATER. THE BRANCH. 
 
 In the chapter that precedes the one we have read we 
 had the sublime and impressive record of the complete over- 
 throw of the pursuing hosts and chariots of Pharaoh, and of 
 the magnificent exodus, or escape of the children of Israel 
 along the channel of the divided Red Sea drj-shod, and 
 without the loss of a single child, or injury to one indi- 
 vidual. And, at the close of such a deliverance, what be- 
 comes a Christian people ? Surely, surely, thanksgiving 
 and song. But who was the Being to whom Miriam, and 
 Moses, and the children of Israel, lifted up this magnificent 
 hallelujah, perhaps the most magnificent on record ? It was 
 not to Moses, the earthly deliverer, it was not to the spirit 
 of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, or the sainted ones that pre- 
 ceded them ; it was only to the Lord God : for he says, " I 
 will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously : 
 the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." 
 
 This song is three hundred years older than any song or 
 anthem that exists in any language whatever ; and though so 
 old as to date, there is no hymn of praise composed in ancient 
 times, and one may add, in modern times, tiiat in regard of 
 poetic merit, of true beauty, of deep, rich, and suggestive 
 expression, can for one moment be compared with it. The 
 master musician of the world has exhausted all his genius 
 in trying to embody in strains of music what is so magnifi- 
 cently expressed in human speech. Some of the figures 
 almost speak. It is scarcely reading, it is almost hearing. 
 
EXODUS XV. 125 
 
 " They sank as a stone." " With the blast of thy nostril3 
 the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright 
 as an heap, and the deptlis were congealed in the heart of 
 the sea." The language is most expressive of the reality, 
 and throughout indicates that it was no accidental occurrence, 
 no kicky wind, or extreme ebb-tide, but an actual miracle 
 that indeed can be proved by geographical inspection, by 
 historical evidence, and by the Scripture's own account, to 
 have been the result of the interposing omnipotent power 
 of God. 
 
 And when the children of Israel thus sing, they say that 
 this same God, who has thus triumphed gloriously, is "our 
 strength and our song, and he is become our salvation." 
 " He is," says one, " my God," and all say, " He is our God, 
 and our Lord." 
 
 He says in the 3d verse, " The Lord is a man of war." 
 That expression is a Plebraism. " A man of words " means 
 an eloquent man ; " a man of strength " means a powerful 
 man ; " a man of war " means one who is mighty in battle, 
 and against whom victory is impossible, should he be pleased 
 to will it the contrary. 
 
 It then describes what God did: "Pharaoh's chariots 
 and his host hath he cast into the sea : his chosen cap- 
 tains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths 
 have covered them : they sank into the bottom as a 
 stone," unable to extricate themselves any more than a 
 stone is able to lighten its weight, and rise to the surface of 
 the water. 
 
 But why this triumph over Pharaoh ? It was not that 
 God had pleasure in Pharaoh's ruin, but that he had a pur- 
 pose of Israel's deliverance. I am sure any one who has 
 listened to the chapters we have read describing God's bear- 
 ing and forbearing dealings towards Pharaoh, the efforts 
 made to convince him, and the miracles that were wrought 
 before him, must come to the conclusion that one so repro- 
 11* 
 
126 SCnil'TURE READINGS. 
 
 bate, so infutuatcd, so obstinate before God, and so cruel to 
 man, met with that doom which the retributive providence of 
 God itself seems to demand. 
 
 Tlien he describes the scene, how, "with the blast of thy 
 nostrils the waters were gathered together ; " and then, the 
 still irrepressible pride of Pharaoh, " The enemy said, I 
 will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; my lust 
 shall be satisfied upon them;" but in answer to all this, 
 *' Thou didst blow with thy wind ; the sea covered them ; 
 they sank as lead in the mighty waters. "Who is like unto 
 thee, O Lord, among the gods ? " It was this very text that 
 Queen Elizabeth had inscribed upon the coins that were 
 struck in her reign, to commemorate the remarkable defeat 
 of the Spanish Armada, and the deliverance of this great 
 land from the instruments of torture with which the ships 
 were laden, for purposes of wickedness and crime peculiar to 
 Rome. She struck on her commemorative medals, " The 
 Lord blew with his winds, and they were scattered." We 
 may depend upon it, my dear friends, that it is because in 
 this land God has his peoi)le, and because, with all its faults, 
 there is in it a deeper and wider spread of true religion than 
 elsewhere, that we have been so sheltered and so preserved 
 during so many years. 
 
 You remember that, in the Book of Revelation, harpers 
 are re})resented as standing upon a sea of glass, singing the 
 song of Moses and of the Lamb ; showing that this song of 
 Moses shall mingle at the last day with the song of the 
 Lamb, and constitute one grand anthem of praise to God for 
 having delivered Jew and Gentile not only from Pharaoh 
 and from Egypt, but from sin, Satan, and the world. You 
 remember, also, that I told you how Mr. Elliott, in his HorcE 
 Apocalypticce^ very satisfactorily shows that that event prob- 
 ably refers to this country during the last sixty or seventy 
 years of its history, when the llame of fire and war swept 
 all Europe ; and this country, so fur from being visited by 
 
EXODUS XV. 127 
 
 these judgments, began its Bible Societies, Missionary So- 
 cieties, and Tract Societies. Whilst the nations on the 
 continent of Europe were scourged and smitten most 
 awfully, tlie people of this country only touched their 
 harps with more joyous fingers, and sung a song of praise 
 to that God who had shielded us, and been our refuge and 
 defence. 
 
 We read that when Moses had finished his hymn, Miriam, 
 that is the Ilc^brew rendering of the Greek word Mapla, 
 and the English name " Mary," '' the prophetess, the 
 sister of Aaron, took a "timbrel," that is, a sort of small 
 drum, " in her hand, and all the women went out after 
 her, with timbrels and with dances." When the roll of 
 the deep bass had ceased, the beautiful and more bril- 
 liant trebles began, " Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath tri- 
 umphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown 
 into the sea." 
 
 " So," it is said, " jNIoses brought Israel from the Red Sea, 
 and they went out into the wilderness of Shur." But, alas ! 
 alas ! for your heart and mine, we no sooner get mercies, and 
 thank God for them, than we forget them ; and when a dilfi- 
 culty comes we did not anticipate, we fancy that the God who 
 delivered us from the Red Sea is unable to give us a little 
 fresh water to satisfy our thirst. These very children of Is- 
 rael, so stupendously and magnificently delivered, and so 
 thankful for it, three days afterwards, when they had crossed 
 the sea, and gone into the desert, broke out in passionate 
 recriminations against Moses, for what surely he was not to 
 blame, for he showed that he had a Divine call to lead them 
 forth, and forgot what God was able to do, and said, " What 
 shall we drink ? " Moses, the meek legislator and leader of 
 his people, did not reply in recriminating language, but ever 
 mindful that a soft answer best turneth away wrath, and 
 not forgetting whose he was, and in whom was his help, 
 " cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, 
 
128 SCRirTUKE READINGS. 
 
 which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were 
 made sweet." 
 
 It is noticed in " Bartlett's Forty Days in the Desert," 
 that there is a well still called the well of Moses, that may 
 fairly be concluded, by the progress of the children of Is- 
 rael each day, to be the very well that they came to. It is 
 just about three days' quiet journey from the part of the 
 Red Sea at which the Israelites must have landed when they 
 crossed it. And he tasted the waters, and found that they 
 were excessively offensive to the taste. Some portion of the 
 water was analyzed by a chemist, and he stated that what he 
 discovered chiefly in it was sulphate of lime. The waters 
 are plentiful, but extremely bitter to the taste. He inquired 
 of the natives of the desert wliether there was any tree 
 which, if cast into the water, would make it sweet ; but they 
 had no recollection of such a thing by tradition, nor did 
 they know of any tree fitted to do it. The fact is, the use 
 of the branch by Moses was not because there was any vir- 
 tue in it, but because God always accompanies a miracle by 
 a significant sign of it. The miracles of Jesus were always 
 preceded by something very simple, not in itself having any 
 virtue, but merely to show that it was his doing. He 
 touched the ears of the deaf, the eyes of the blind, and the 
 tongues of the dumb, and they were healed. So here, God 
 bade Moses cast a branch into the water merely to shoAV the 
 connection between God the cause, and the result, not be- 
 cause there was any virtue in the branch. And then he 
 makes the miracle the basis of a new lesson, " If thou Avilt 
 diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and 
 wilt do that Avliich is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to 
 his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none 
 of these diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyp- 
 tians : for I am the Lord* that hcaleth all thy diseases, 
 pardoneth all tliy sins, reneweth thy youth like the eagle's, 
 and crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercy." 
 
EXODUS xy. J 29 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MURMURING FOR BREAD. GOd'S MERCY AND GOODNESS. MEAN- 
 ING OF MANNA. TECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLES. THE 
 SABBATH. 
 
 It appears after the chapter which -we read last Lord's 
 day morning, that when on their murmuring because of the 
 bitterness of the water in the well they arrived at, they had 
 no sooner got that want supplied in mercy, and not in judg- 
 ment, than they began, like human nature still in all its 
 phases, to murmur that they had not the enjoyment of all 
 that was j)ossible, as well as all that was desirable. 
 
 They arrived, it seems, at the wilderness of Zin, as it 
 ought more properly to be called, the wilderness stretching 
 north-east from the sea which they had crossed, on the loth 
 day of the second month after their exodus from the land 
 of Egypt ; and there we read, " the whole congregation of 
 the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron," 
 upon this ground, that they had not a supi)ly of the bread 
 that they needed, or at least of the sort of food that was 
 palatable to their taste ; and they said in a most craven and 
 criminal manner, " Would to God we had died by the hand 
 of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the llesh- 
 pots, and when we did eat bread to the full ; " that is, they 
 said they preferred the gratification of appetite, even in 
 degradation, to the safety of the soul and the enjoyment of 
 freedom. They would rather be without God, with plenty 
 to eat, than be the friends and heirs of God, and suffer a 
 
EXODUS XVI. 131 
 
 little temporary inconvenience. But how often is the same 
 principle developed, fullilled, and acted on, amongst us, and 
 the solemn and impressive testimony forgotten, " AVhat shall 
 it profit a man, if he gain the whole world" — not Only 
 bread for a day, but the whole world — " and lose his own 
 soul ? " 
 
 Now mark, after this, an instance of the great mercy and 
 forbearance of God, when least deserved. They murmured, 
 rebelled, remonstrated, regretted that they had taken a sin- 
 gle step in what they kncAV to be the right direction ; but 
 God, instead of judging them as he might have done, and 
 visiting them for their transgressions, as they most richly 
 deserved, graciously said, " Behold I will rain bread from 
 heaven for you." lie pardoneth our sins. Where sin 
 abounds, grace doth much more abound. He comes over 
 the mountains of our transgressions, and shows himself gra- 
 cious to us in spite of them. 
 
 Then Moses and Aaron said to them, "Why should you 
 murmur against us? We are but the instruments ; we have 
 a duty to discharge, a mission to fulfil ; we have done it to 
 the letter ; we are but the instruments in God's hands. Do 
 not murmur against us as if we were the cause of this mo- 
 mentary inconvenience ; but see if it be not the doing of 
 that God who has done all so beneficently in the past, and 
 w^ho will never do any thing that will permanently injure 
 you in the course of the future. Your murmuring is not 
 against us, but against the Lord." 
 
 And immediately the Lord told Moses and Aaron to come 
 near to him, and hear him ; and the glory of the Lord that 
 shone from the pillar as fire by night, and that app(;ared in 
 the same pillar as a cloud by day, was that tabernacle or 
 sanctuary, out of which God spake, and promised mercies 
 and blessings to the children of Israel. Then it came to 
 pass that tliere descended from heaven, first the dew of the 
 morning, and alter that dew had evaporated by the sun's 
 
132 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 heat, there lay round about a small hoar frost upon the 
 ground, like, as it is described in another passage, "corian- 
 der seed, white; and the taste of it," as they afterwards 
 proved, " was like wafers made with honey." 
 
 The children of Israel said, " It is manna." This is a 
 very unfortunate translation, and is not at all the meaning 
 of the original. The Hebrew word which our translators 
 have rendered "It is manna" is Man-hii? and the direct 
 translation of that is, " What is it ? " You can see the ab- 
 surdity of our translation in this case by the very succeed- 
 ing words ; for they first say, " It is manna," and then it is 
 added, " for they wist not what it was." How could they 
 know it was manna, if they did not know what it was ? The 
 passage itself is so palpable a contradiction, that one can 
 see there is something wrong. The meaning of the original 
 is, that the children of Israel, surprised by so extraordinary 
 a phenomenon, exclaimed, partly out of wonder, and partly 
 out of a desire to be informed, " What is this ? " 3Ian-ku ? 
 "And Moses said unto them. This is the bread which the 
 Lord hath given you to eat ; " and from the interrogatory, 
 3Ia7i-hu? "What is it?" it came to be called "Manna." 
 So that wherever the word " Manna " occurs, you have an 
 interrogation made a positive or affirmation, and turned into 
 ■ the name of the substance that fed the children of Israel 
 throughout the desert. 
 
 We then read the record of the nature of this food, and 
 the way in which it was to be used. Some of the children 
 of Israel gathered more, and some less ; but by a beautiful 
 providential provision, he who gathered much had nothing 
 over, and he who gathered little had no lack. Is not this 
 realized in a Christian mind, that he who in this world is 
 prospered mightily, finds he has not an excess which he can- 
 not dispose of; and that he who has the grace of God in 
 his heart, having little in this world, finds he has just enough, 
 and so finds in his case the performance of that prayer, 
 
EXODUS XVI. 133 
 
 " Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food 
 convenient for me," in the quiet and blessed contentment 
 that finds much in httle, and in much nothing over. 
 
 Notwithstanding, it is said that Moses told them they 
 must not leave it till the morning. It seems as if that had 
 some connection with the petition, " Give us this day our 
 daily bread." What a beautiful and regulating princii)le is 
 in that clause ! Do not give me bread for to-morrow — I 
 may never see it; nor for yesterday — I do not require it; 
 but give me to-day daily bread. That is the petition of all 
 flesh. It is the petition of the poor, for they are dependent 
 on every day's supply ; and it is more the petition of the 
 rich than we sometimes think, because there are two things 
 requisite in having food ; there is not only the food that we 
 need, but there is the appetite to enjoy it, and to be bene- 
 fited by it ; and if the poor man has little bread, or not of 
 the best kind, he has generally the healthiest appetite ; and 
 if the rich man has the best bread, he has often the most 
 defective appetite ; and, therefore, rich and poor have need 
 to pray, " Give us not only bread, but health to get nutri- 
 ment, strength, and vigor from it." Thus, the Israelites had 
 no supply for to-morrow, but plenty for to-day ; and as long 
 as we live in a constant sense of dependence upon Him 
 who satisfieth the wants of all flesh, so long we shall be 
 satisfied. 
 
 We read, however, that on the Friday they were to 
 gather a double quantity, because they were not to go out to 
 toil upon the Sabbath day. Now, it has been held by many 
 that the Sabbath is purely a Jewish institution. I hold that 
 the fourth commandment is simply the institution of the 
 Sabbath, not of the day, that Sabbath to be enjoyed upon 
 each seventh day ; but whether the day be the first or the 
 seventh, is for subsequent thought. The essential require- 
 ment of the Sabbath is a seventh portion of man's time dedi- 
 cated to the cultivation of his mind, improvement of his 
 
 12 
 
134 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 heart and soul, study of Divine things, communion with God, 
 and preparation for glory, happiness, and immortality. The 
 fourth commandment is, " Remember," not the seventh day 
 to keep it holy, but " the Sabbath day to keep it holy." 
 Six days shalt thou work, and then the seventh day, not 
 the seventh in order, but one day in the seven, shall 
 be consecrated and dedicated as the Sabbath of the Lord. 
 And when it was altered to the first day, it was not 
 repealing the Sabbath and giving another ; it was sim- 
 ply lifting the light from the Jewish candlestick, which was 
 the seventh day, to the Christian candlestick, which was the 
 first day. It was not the extinction of the light, but the 
 transference of the light of the Sabbath from one day to the 
 other. I showed on a previous occasion that that trans- 
 ference must either have been to the first day of the w^eek, 
 or the seventh still continued, in order that God's whole law 
 might be kept and honored ; because God's law is as rigidly, 
 " Six days shalt thou labor," as it is, " Thou shalt rest on 
 the seventh day." If any man will not work, he breaks the 
 fourth commandment, just as truly as the man who dese- 
 crates the Sabbath day. Well, when Jesus transferred the 
 Sabbath, as we believe he did, to the first day of the week, 
 he must either have transferred it to the first, or have left it 
 on the seventh day, in order that the fourth commandment 
 might be observed. If he had transferred the Sabbath to 
 the fourth day of the week, then once it would have 
 occurred, "Three days shalt thou labor, and the fourth day 
 shalt thou rest ; " but by transferring it to the first day of 
 the week there were but two Sabbaths in the fourteen days ; 
 and the six days' labor, and the seventh day's rest, were 
 thus perpetuated without the least infraction. Should you 
 ask how we know that the Sabbath was transferred to the 
 first day, I answer, just in the same way as we know that 
 the apostles were enjoined to write the Scriptures. 
 
 You will be told by the members of the Church of Rome 
 
EXODUS xvr. 135 
 
 tliat tlicrc was no commandment given to the apostles to 
 write the truths of the Gospel. We answer that by saying, 
 first, that it is matter of fact that they did write ; and it is 
 also matter of fact that they declare they did write. John 
 says, " These ani written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
 is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might 
 have life through his name ; " and the fact that they wrote 
 is the presumption, nay, the Cei'tainty, that they were in- 
 spired to do so ; for if they were n.ot inspired to write, as 
 well as to think, then the apostles did what was contrary 
 to God's mind, which cannot be admitted. So the Sabbath 
 was observed on the first day of the week, we find from the 
 Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, in the earliest in- 
 spired Church. I am not speaking of the ante-Nicene 
 Church, but of the time when the apostles were living, and 
 directing all ; and the fact that that day was observed for 
 Christian worship is to us a sufficient precedent to warrant 
 us in also doing so. But what I wish to notice here is, that 
 the Sabbath was not a Jewish institution. Many persons 
 say it was part and parcel of the law of Levi ; but here 
 w^e find the Sabbath observed before the giving of the ten 
 commandments or the rites of Levi ; here we have the 
 Sabbath recognized, not as a thing then first instituted, but 
 as an observance that had been from the beginning ; and 
 though it had been interrupted in Egypt, as in all proba- 
 bility it was, yet the instant they were emancipated from 
 the thraldom of Pharaoh, that instant the Sabbath resumed 
 its place, and was regarded with all its wonted sacredness. 
 
 And we find that they who went out to gather manna on 
 the Sabbath expended their strength for nought, wdiilst those 
 who gathered double on the Friday, found that they had 
 suflficient on the Sabbath without any working. And 
 you will find still that if you w^ant a horse to do the 
 greatest work, you must give him one day to rest on. 
 Whether the horse rest on the first, second, third, fourth, 
 
136 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 fifth, sixtli, or seventh day is of no consequence, but he is en- 
 titled to one day out of seven. And you will find that if a 
 man work seven days at the same employment, his life will 
 not last so long, nor will he be able to do his work so well, 
 as if he works only six days. God seems to have struck 
 the institution of the Sabbath into the very nature of man ; 
 for we find that there is not a single nation in the world that 
 has not a day of rest. The heathens had weeks of seven 
 days, an artificial division, and evidently the remains of a 
 primitive tradition. And when the French in 1793 tried to 
 have Decades, or a Sabbath on each tenth day, in order to 
 expunge every vestige of Christianity, human nature rose 
 true to its aboriginal instincts, and reverted again to the 
 seventh day, as if man could not live happy or peaceable 
 without the Sabbath day. 
 
 We then read that the children of Israel enjoyed this 
 manna forty years, until th3y reached the land of Canaan ; 
 then it ceased. Means last till the end comes. 
 
CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 THE NEAREST WAT. MURMURING. THIRST. DIVINE GOODNESS. 
 THE ROCK. REPHIDIM. WAR, PRAYER, AND BATTLE. THE 
 GLORY OF THE VICTORY. 
 
 It seems to us at times inexplicable how God should lead 
 his people into difficulties that appear to have accumulated 
 the more nearly they approached the land of promise, which 
 was the burden of all their hopes, and the culminating issue 
 of all their expectations. It would se-em that God had 
 some great sanctifying, or at least useful, design in his thus 
 leading the children of Israel, not by the straight route into 
 Canaan from the midst of Egypt, but by a most circuitous 
 one — one so circuitous, so zigzag, that one cannot but infer 
 it must have been so appointed of God for some special and 
 wise purpose. Yet this explains what frequently is the case 
 in individual life. God leads the blind in a way that they 
 know not. What seems to us a roundabout way will be 
 found in the end really the nearest ; for invariably, not what 
 seems to us, but what God himself strikes out, is the shortest 
 way to any given issue. 
 
 We read in the previous chapter that the children of Is- 
 rael were almost starved for want of bread, and that God in 
 answer to their murmuring prayers, forgiving the unbelief, and 
 listening to the cry that it embosomed, gave them, or rained 
 upon tliem, bread from heaven. We now find that they had 
 no sooner been miraculously fed than they were thirsty and 
 needed a miraculous supply of water for drink ; and God 
 12* 
 
138 SCRirXURE READINGS. 
 
 again stepped in, forgiving the unbelief, and pitying the 
 wants, however sinfully uttered, of his children, and like a 
 beneficent Father, in spite of their sins, he opened his hand 
 and satisfied all their desires. When there was no Avater to 
 drink in the wilderness of Zin, very near, probably, to Mount 
 Sinai, and in the valley of Rej)hidim, a very bleak and desert 
 glen, the people, instead of remembering the mercies that had 
 strewed their path in the past, and how often Omnipotence 
 had interposed for them — at one time by means of a branch 
 making bitter water sweet — at another time opening the 
 great deep itself, and making it a promenade for his people, 
 whilst it was a grave for his foes ; and again, raining down 
 manna from the very clouds of heaven, rather than that his 
 own should want for a little bread — instead of thinking that 
 this good God, whose beneficence was only equalled by his 
 omnipotence, would again surely interpose, and give them 
 water, they fell upon Moses, and asked him to give them 
 water to drink, as if he were God. The people went to the 
 priest, instead of to the God of the priest; they looked to 
 the instrument instead of raising their hearts beyond him, 
 and exercising the privilege of asking a supply from the 
 Blessed Master. They said to Moses, " Give us water that 
 we may drink." And Moses said unto them, " Why chide 
 ye -vvitli me ? " I am not God ; w^hy should you be so unbe- 
 lieving and forgetful ? " Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord ? " 
 But the people thirsted for w^ater, and, therefore, they still 
 murmured against Moses; and the craven and miserable 
 slaves, bowed down by their thraldom in Egypt, and scarcely 
 able to think a free thought, or to indulge the hopes of free 
 men, said, " Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up 
 out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children, and our cattle with 
 thirst ? " How strange a phenomenon is man ! He is inex- 
 plicable except in the light of God's Holy AYord ; and this 
 picture is not an ancient, obsolete sketch, but it is you, it is 
 I, it is all in the nineteenth century ; for human nature is now 
 
EXODUS XVII. 139 
 
 what human nature was then ; and if there be a difference, 
 give the glory to the grace of God, not to the sceptic 
 prophesied perfectionism and progress of humanity, as it is 
 called. 
 
 Moses, instead of answering them severely, cried unto the 
 Lord — the minister at his wits' end laying low every spirit 
 of retaliation, and showing the weakness that became him 
 — "What shall I do unto this people? they be almost 
 ready to stone me." One would have expected, if God's 
 ways had been our ways, that He would have instantly 
 poured out judgments upon such a people ; but what an ex- 
 ample is there here for a magistrate, or for a ruler ! God 
 bears and forbears with them, gives them miracle upon 
 miracle, and ever as they murmured, another miracle still. 
 Truly judgment is his strange work. He might have re- 
 taliated, retribution was richly deserved ; it was most deeply 
 provoked ; but instead of doing so, He whose ways are not 
 our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts, said unto Moses, 
 " Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders 
 of Israel ; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river " 
 in Egypt, and turned it into blood, " take in thy hand and 
 go. Behold, I will " do what ? Not smite the people with 
 the rod that smote all Egypt, and that in my hand is still 
 capable of terrible effect ; but I will make the rod that was 
 the executor of judgment upon Egypt to be only the opener 
 of springs and fountains in the rock, for what was death to 
 others shall be life to Israel. " Thou shalt smite the rock," 
 the most unlikely thing, " and there shall come water out of 
 it, that the people may drink." How gracious is the Lord ! 
 and like us, he is still the same. If He had dealt Avith us 
 as our sins deserved, we should have been cut off; but He 
 delights in mercy. Oh ! that we could only realize that 
 beautiful thought, that God has infinitely more than a father's 
 love with omnipotence to wield it, and omniscience to see 
 where, when, and by whom it is most needed '■> and ever 
 
140 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 ready, ever waiting, ever willing to bless ! I could easily 
 engage to persuade all London that God is a wrathful and 
 revengeful tyrant, ready to punish all men : and I could 
 easily induce them to undergo any penance or process that 
 would be said to propitiate his wrath ; but the ditficulty is 
 to persuade men that God is a Father, that we are welcome 
 to nestle in his bosom, and to feel the happiness of reconciled 
 children ; that he waits to receive us, and continues still to 
 pity us. 
 
 We read that Moses, as a memorial of Israel's sins, 
 " called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because 
 of the chiding of the children of Israel." I have been read- 
 ing the accounts given by travellers of the valley of Rephi- 
 dim ; and I find that they unanimously testify to the pres- 
 ence of a rock remaining geographically just about the place 
 that is indicated in the Scriptural account, and having such 
 unequivocal traces of a miraculous structure and character, 
 that they are all persuaded that i^ is the very rock that was 
 smitten by the rod of Moses. I quote the leading facts stated 
 by Pocock, Shaw, and Dr. Olin of America. It is a red 
 granite rock, fifteen feet long, ten feet wide, and twelve feet 
 high; there are huge fissures or rents in it, and these fissures 
 are not perpendicular, as we might expect if it had been an 
 accidental rending, but horizontal. They are two or three 
 inches in breadth, and a foot or eighteen inches in length, 
 and of such a strange character, that it is impossible to ex- 
 plain their existence, except upon the supposition that the 
 rock is the very one struck by the rod of Moses. The Be- 
 douins and Arabs in the desert have a tradition respecting 
 it confirmatory of the Scriptural account ; and although I 
 would not attach much weight to tradition, yet, when con- 
 nected with the biblical history, it may have some value. 
 They call the rock " the stone of Moses ; " and the last 
 American traveller, Dr. Olin, thus describes it, " This stone 
 made more impression upon me than any natural object 
 
EXODUS XVII. 141 
 
 claiming to attest a miracle ever did. Had any enlightened 
 geologist, utterly ignorant of the miracle of Moses, passed 
 up this ravine and seen the rock as it now is, he would luive 
 declared, though the position of the stone and the present 
 condition of the country around should have opposed any 
 such impression, that strong and long continued fountains of 
 water had once poured their gurgling currents from it and 
 over it. He could not waver in his belief for a moment, so 
 natural and so perfect are the indications. I examined it 
 thoroughly, and if it be a forgery, I am satisfied for my own 
 part that a greater than Michael Angelo designed and exe- 
 cuted it. I cannot differ from Shaw's opinion, that neither 
 art nor chance could by any means be concerned in the 
 contrivance of these holes, which formed so many fountains. 
 The more I gazed upon the irregular mouth-like chasms 
 in the rock, the more I felt my scepticism shaken, and at 
 last I could not help asking myself whether it was not a 
 very natural solution of the matter, that this was indeed the 
 rock which Moses struck, that from it the waters gushed 
 forth, and poured their streams down Wady Leja to Wady- 
 esh-Sheikh, along it to Rephidim, where Israel was en- 
 camped, perishing with thirst." In Finden's " Illustrations 
 of the Bible," edited by Hartwell Home, you will find en- 
 gravings of the rock ; and all seem with one consent to 
 concur in the belief that it is the very granite rock that was 
 smitten by the rod of Moses, and that these horizontal 
 fissures, so peculiar in their character, give proof by their 
 rounded lips, that water must have gushed from them for 
 many years. 
 
 We then read that Amalek met Israel, and opposed them. 
 You will observe, that in one case God discomfits his foes 
 by a miracle, and in another case by ordinary means. Now 
 here, when Amalek opposed the children of Israel, God might 
 have caused the earth to swallow them up, just as the ocean 
 swallowed up the Egyptians ; but instead of that he author- 
 
142 SCRirTURE READINGS. 
 
 ized Moses to act the part of intercessor, as tlie type of the 
 great Prophet like unto him, that is Christ ; and He com- 
 manded Joshua to do the part of the warrior, and do battle 
 on behalf of Israel. Some people whom I meet, and others 
 from whom I receive letters, think that w^ar is positively 
 unlawful, and that no Christian nation may in any case 
 engage in it ; and I am even told by some, that it is im- 
 possible to suppose a soldier to be a Christian. I can con- 
 ceive nothing more monstrous than such an opinion : for 
 here is an express command from God, when a miracle 
 might have dispensed with the uecessity, to Joshua to be a 
 commander-in-chief, and to Moses to be a wrestling pleader 
 on behalf of the victory of the children of Israel. And it is 
 a singular fact that the most distinguished Christians in the 
 New Testament were many of them soldiers. There may, 
 therefore, be in a hero's composition a sensitive and sus- 
 ceptible Christian heart. We know it has been so, and we 
 cannot see why it should not be so. And I am quite sure 
 that the courts of law and chancery have been the scenes of 
 more broken and bleeding hearts than all the battle fields of 
 Europe. If, therefore, it be sinful to be a soldier, it must 
 be yet no less so to be a lawyer ; but it is not sinful to be 
 either, because necessary to the existence of society ; each 
 has his duty, and each as a Christian may fulfil it. 
 
 From the part that Moses acted in this transaction you 
 can see that the battle depended partly upon the valor of 
 Joshua, but very much upon the interceding or lifting up of 
 the hands of Moses. Now Moses, we are told, was expressly 
 a type of Christ ; and this is intended to teach us that in de- 
 fensive warfare, for I am not vspeaking of aggressive war, 
 battles are gained by nations as much through the interced- 
 ing prayers of the people at home, as by the skill and 
 bravery of the soldiers in the field. We have here the bat- 
 tle going against Israel when Moses ceased to supplicate, 
 and we have Joshua victorious when Moses continued to do 
 
EXODUS XVII. 143 
 
 so. But Moses was an intercessor whose arms might be- 
 come weary, and whose strength might be exhausted ; but 
 we have a great High Priest, who has passed into the 
 heavens, who is more touched with the feeHng of our infirmi- 
 ties than ever Moses was, and who is ever willing, and, 
 what Moses was not, ever able to make intercession for us. 
 
 But when victorious, did Joshua say, " I give all the glory 
 to my own good sword, to my stratagems, or to the heroism 
 of my troops ? " No ; but when the battle was finished, and 
 when victory was perched upon his banners, he gave the 
 glory, not to himself, his shield, his sword, or his soldiers, 
 but he built upon the field an altar, and he inscribed upon 
 it the truly Protestant inscription, " Jehovah-nissi " — not 
 Joshua, not valor, not skill, not chance, but the Lord is our 
 banner, and while ours is the benefit, his be all the glory of 
 the victory. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THIS CHAPTER AN EPISODE. EARLY COURTESY AND HOSPITALITY. 
 JETIIRO'S GOOD ADVICE. THE CABINET OF MOSES. 
 
 In the previous chapter, read last Sunday morning, we 
 had laid before us an account of the unhappy murmurings 
 of tlie children of Israel, because there seemed to them no 
 prospect of water. "VVe read also of God's miraculous sup- 
 ply from the rock struck by the rod of Moses, which gushed 
 forth refreshing streams to satisfy the wants of a people that 
 murmured when they were in want, were unthankful when 
 they had plenty, and assuredly deserved none of the great 
 and unrivalled mercies which had been poured upon them 
 and followed them day by day. 
 
 The chapter I have now read has been supposed by the 
 most competent interpreters of the Book to be a sort of in- 
 terlude, or episode ; because there are in it indications which 
 show that the occurrence recorded in the chapter must have 
 taken place after Israel had reached Sinai, and heard the 
 Law, and not before they had arrived at that Mount, and 
 received the statutes and ordinances of God. The first 
 reason assigned for this is the allusion in this chapter to 
 burnt- offerings and sacrifices, which were not yet instituted 
 according to the Law of Moses. There is also reference 
 clearly to a state of things which indicates national organi- 
 zation, and not the nomadic state in which the Israelites 
 were in the desert. And on looking at the chapter which 
 succeeds this, we sec plainly that the 19th is the proper con- 
 
EXODUS XVIII. 145 
 
 tinuation of the 17th chapter, and that tlicrefore this 18th 
 chapter is introduced in an earlier phice, though it alhi(l(-s 
 to a later event, from the single fact that Jethro came from 
 among the Amalekites, against whom Josliua waged success- 
 ful warfare as written in the preceding chapter; and as the 
 historian was speaking of the destruction of the Amalekites, 
 it seemed to him proper and natural to state that Jethro his 
 father-in-law was one of those beautiful exceptions which, 
 like flowers in the wilderness, or like oases in the desert, are 
 found in the Avorst and most degraded population of the 
 globe. This alone accounts for this episode appearing in 
 this place, containing allusions to events, rites, and ceremo- 
 nies of subsequent occurrence. 
 
 What will strike most readers here is, the beautiful cour- 
 tesy exhibited by Jethro and Moses when they met together. 
 There is something beautiful in the forms of courtesy, and 
 when they are the channels of real and Christian feeling, 
 they become not only beautiful, but even sacred. There is 
 given also in this chapter some description of primitive hos- 
 pitality and Christian love, friendship, and good-will, when 
 Moses took his father-in-law into the tent, his only palace, 
 and set bread before him, and they both thanked God for 
 the mercies of the past, recognized his hand, and expected, 
 as they justly might, his blessing for the future. 
 
 We have in Jethro an instance of what is really so rare, 
 though pronounced so plentiful, — intense common sense. 
 The remarks of Jethro are so strikingly sensible that they 
 commend themselves to every man's mind, and indicate not 
 only inspiration, but that which is nearer to it than genius, 
 a rightly balanced, prudent, enlightened, discreet, and reflect- 
 ing mind. But no doubt Jethro was guided by God to give 
 Moses so prudent and sensible advice ; for the language that 
 Jethro employed indicates that he w^as the subject of deej) 
 and experimental acquaintance with the Gospel itself. The 
 first topic of conversation was not earthly subjects at all, 
 
146 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 but, " Moses told his fatlier-in-law all that the Lord had done 
 unto Pliaraoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and 
 all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how 
 the Lord delivered them." And then Jethro, hearing the 
 narrative of Moses, broke forth into appropriate song, and 
 said : " Blessed be the Lord, who hath delivered you out of 
 the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh. 
 And now I know by experimental proof, what I believed 
 before, that Jehovah is greater than all the idols of the 
 world, and that in those very things where they dealt 
 proudly," that is, where they counted upon success from the 
 greatness of their strength, " there God has had and will 
 have the preeminence." 
 
 We then read of the advice which Jethro gave to Moses, 
 his son-in-law, which Moses accepted as fitted to lighten the 
 load that was upon his shoulders, and probably to do more 
 substantial justice to the different causes which were sub- 
 mitted to him. Jethro said, " This will wear you away ; 
 your physical strength cannot bear it — getting up early in 
 the morning, and remaining till late at night, having the 
 cares of a general, all the delicate oflices of a Judge, and all 
 the sacred functions of a priest. It is quite impossible that 
 one man's shoulders can bear the load ; and if it be not sinful 
 to distribute it, it is right to see whether it cannot be done." 
 And therefore, " the old man eloquent " with large experi- 
 ence, and wisdom from on high to direct him, said, " Hearken 
 now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall 
 be with thee : Be thou for the people to Godward, as thou 
 hast always been, that thou mayest bring the causes unto 
 God, as thou hast always done. You are under a special 
 guidance ; therefore, dutiful to yourself, obedient to God, 
 beneficial to the people, take, as becomes you, the head, be 
 the chief one ; and you shall teach them ordinances and 
 laws, and show them the way wherein they must walk, and 
 the work that they must do. Moreover, thou shalt provide 
 
EXODUS XYIII. 147 
 
 out of nil the peoi)le able men, assessors, elders, sucli as fear 
 God, men of truth, hating covetousness ; and place such 
 over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, 
 rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. Make them subordi- 
 nate judges to judge the people. And then in matters that 
 need a great man to decide them, let them come before you ; 
 but in subordinate matters, where good sense and piety will 
 form a proper judgment, then let them be taken by these 
 assessors." These men, you observe, were not priests 
 selected from the order of Aaron, but they were laymen 
 selected from the crowd, not because they were rich or dis- 
 tingnished in rank, but because they were able men, who 
 feared God, loved truth, and hated covetousness. 
 
 Moses, instead of being self-willed, and thinking that he 
 did not need advice, since he must know more than his old 
 father-in-law could be expected to know from his circum- 
 stances, hearkened to the advice of his father-in-law, and 
 did all that he said, and chose these people ; and the con- 
 sequence was, that there was peace, order, and prosperity in 
 the camp, and a great mitigation of tlie toils and drudgery 
 of Moses. It needs talent to take good advice as much as 
 to give it. And Jethro his father-in-law went away happy 
 to hnd that he had a son who was accessible to good advice, 
 and Moses bade him farewell, thankful to God that he had 
 a father-in-law able to give him such sensible counsel. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE LAW EXPRESSED NOT CREATED ON SINAI. ST. PAUl'S 
 COMMENTARY. DESCRIPTIONS OF SINAI. 
 
 The scene represented in the chapter I have read, so 
 full of solemn and awful grandeur, was designed to impress 
 upon the whole people of Israel, and through them upon us, 
 the holiness, majesty, and greatness of that Law which was 
 not made, but expressed and worded by God, upon Mount 
 Sinai. It is altogether an error to su])pose that the Law is 
 to be dated from Mount Sinai. This Law of the ten com- 
 mandments, which was delivered from the Mount, ever was, 
 now is, and ever will be ; and all that was done upon Mount 
 Sinai was, to give expression to everlasting truth, to make 
 audible God's innermost mind, and to show by distinct and 
 Unequivocal expressions what man's duty was, and ^^ hat the 
 extent of God's requirement is, and to enable the creature 
 at the same time to feel that no man can climb to heaven by 
 that Mount ; that the gap between a fallen creature and the 
 exaction of a holy God is so great, that, in the language of 
 the apostle, " by deeds of law no flesh can be justified." 
 You will find this contrast very beautifully brought out 
 by the apostle in a passage perfectly parallel, and while 
 it is parallel, the most illustrative comment on it, in the 
 12lh chapter of the p4)istle to the Hebrews, at the 18th 
 verse, where he contrasts what the Jews were with what 
 Christians arc — the slavery, the fear, the terror of the 
 ancient economy with the freedom, privileges, and blessings 
 of the new. " For ye " — that is, ye Christians — " are not 
 
EXODUS XIX. 149 
 
 come unto the mount that might be touched " — that is, to a 
 material mount — ye are come unto one that is higher and 
 spiritual, and seen by faith; "and that burned with fire," 
 the indication of terror and judgment ; " nor unto blackness, 
 and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and 
 the voice of words ; which voice they that heard entreated 
 that the word should not be spoken unto them any more ; 
 for they could not endure that which was commanded. And 
 if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, 
 or thrust through with a dart : and so terrible was the sight, 
 that Moses " — the meek Moses, the temporary and typical 
 mediator between God and them — "said, I exceedingly 
 fear and quake." That was the state of the ancient econ- 
 omy ; that is, people about Mount Sinai shrouded in dark- 
 ness, lighted at intervals only by a lurid flame, the air ever 
 ringing with the sound of a trumpet, and the reverberations 
 of thunder — all the grandeur and magnificence of heaven, 
 without its mercy and love, resting, like a black cloud 
 charged Vv'ith judgments, over the head of a people whose 
 consciences within condemned them, as well as the scenes 
 without, and who felt they never could obey so perfect, holy, 
 and pure a law. But what is our privilege ? The whole 
 scene is changed ; the curtain is lifted ; w^e have passed by 
 Christ, the mediator, the living way, into a very diiferent 
 state of things. We have left the region of storm and 
 thunder, and the sound of a trumpet, for the region of 
 peace, of love, of fatherly and cordial welcome ; for, says 
 the apostle, " Ye Christians are come unto Mount Sion," 
 whose head is bathed in the sunshine of heaven, " and unto 
 the city of the living God ; " not the desert hill without an 
 inhabitant, but unto a city that hath foundations, the city of 
 the living God : as if he wished the Gentile, as well as the 
 Jew, to learn a lesson ; for every ancient city was called 
 after one of the gods — Athens was the city of Minerva, 
 and Rome was the city of Mars, but these were dead gods 
 
150 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 and idols; but "ye are come unto the city of the living 
 God" — who ever liveth — "the heavenly Jerusalem." 
 Recollect the meaning of the word "Jerusalem;" it is 
 Yenisalem, the Vision of Peace. Ye are come, not unto 
 the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, but unto 
 that bright and beautiful vision of celestial peace, prepared 
 and purchased through the blood of the everlasting cove- 
 nant. God makes Mount Sion and Mount Sinai, not com- 
 parison at all, but absolute contrast. And ye are come also 
 "to an innumerable company of angels," not to worship 
 them, but to have them to serve you ; for angels are minis- 
 tering spirits to the heirs of salvation. And ye are come to 
 " the general assembly," or " the catholic company," as it 
 might be rendered, " and church of the first-born " — not 
 the sect at Rome, nor the sect at Geneva, nor the sect at 
 Canterbury, but the whole assembly of all true Christians of 
 every name scattered throughout the whole world, whose 
 robes have been washed in atoning blood, and wdiose hearts 
 have been renew^ed by the Holy Spirit, and who are more 
 anxious to belong to the Saviour than to any section in par- 
 ticular of the Church. And again, ye are come to " God the 
 Judge of all," — but, blessed be the thought, while he is our 
 Judge, also our Father, — "and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect." We come to them now by faith. Where 
 is the whole Church of Christ ? Some are in heaven ; some 
 are on earth ; but the company in heaven and on earth con- 
 stitute one ransomed, redeemed, and glorious Church ; and 
 I have not the least doubt that those who are separated from 
 us are much nearer to us than our own immediate relatives 
 and friends who are in the next parish, or town, or across 
 the Channel, or on the Continent of Europe. True, we do 
 not see them. True, we are not to pray to Ihem. True, 
 they cannot, probably, serve us ; but in Scrii)ture it seems 
 almost stated that the saints in glory, like a cloud of wit- 
 nesses, are spectators of our conflicts uj)on earth, and are 
 
EXODUS XIX. 151 
 
 watching witli an interest tliat no language of ours can em- 
 body, the results of a struggle on which is contingent ever- 
 lasting joy and felicity in heaven. And we are come, as if 
 to crown all, to " Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant." 
 and if we be surrounded, let me add, by such a cloud of wit- 
 nesses, let me remind you of that beautiful thought of the 
 apostle, " Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with 
 so great a cloud of witnesses," what are we to do ? Worship 
 them ? No. Pray to them ? No ; but " let us lay aside 
 every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and 
 let us run with patience the race that is set before us, look- 
 ing," — not to the witnesses, but, as it is in the Greek, — 
 " looking from them unto Jesus " — the IMediator of the 
 new covenant — "and to the blood of sprinkling, that speak- 
 eth better things than that of Abel." Such, then, is the 
 New Testament comment on the impressive and solemn 
 chapter I have read — a chapter that constitutes the preface 
 to the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai as recorded in the 
 chapter that follows. 
 
 Then God tells the people that the object of all his dis- 
 pensations was that they might obey his law, and enjoy the 
 happiness that grows upon true holiness ; and that if they 
 would obey His voice, then they should be a peculiar treas- 
 ure. That which a man values most he regards as his pe- 
 culiar treasure. " Ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests," 
 or, as it is called in the Book of Revelation, " kings and 
 priests ; " or, as Peter calls it, " a royal priesthood." That 
 is now fulfilled. All Christians are priests. A minister of 
 the Gospel is not a priest in any sense in which the hum- 
 blest layman in the congregation is not. There are insti- 
 tuted officially in the New Testament economy bishops, or 
 pastors, or evangelists, or presbyters, or teachers, or what- 
 ever other epithet you choose from Scripture to apply to 
 them ; but there is no such ofiicer in the Christian economy 
 as a sacrificing priest. The reason is, that when the ancient 
 
152 SCRirTURE READINGS. 
 
 economy passed away, Christ, the everlasting high priest, 
 shadowed forth by the priests of Levi, came, and he has 
 now, as it is called in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a7rapa;3/3a- 
 Tov ieparevfia, "an intransferable priesthood," Hebrews vii. 
 24 — a priesthood that does not pass from him to any 
 one whatever. All Christians are priests, and yet they are 
 not all evangelists, pastors, or ministers. But, you say, we 
 must, then, have something to offer. Certainly — "I be- 
 seech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that 
 ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
 unto God, which is your reasonable service," Romans xii. 1. 
 " To do good and to communicate, forget not : for with such 
 sacrifices God is well pleased," Hebrews xiii. 16. You 
 offer spiritual sacrifices on Christ, the altar that sanctities 
 the gift, acceptable to God for his sake. 
 
 Next, he tells Moses that the people should not touch the 
 mount, but that at certain periods, when the trumpet should 
 sound, long there should be some communion with Moses 
 and Aaron for the enlightenment and instruction of the 
 people. It seems that the expression used in the 21st 
 verse, " The Lord said unto Moses," should be, " The Lord 
 had said unto Closes, Go down, charge the people, lest they 
 break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them 
 perish. And let the priests also, wliich come near to the 
 Lord, sanctify themselves," alluding to what he had said, 
 and not specifying something then for the first time. 
 
 Tliere has been a great deal of dispute about tlie situation 
 of Mount Sinai, and whether it can be identified at tlie 
 present day. Bush in his " Notes " gives the following 
 remarks : " The breadth of the peninsula of Sinai is inter- 
 sected by a chain of mountains called ' El Tib,' which run 
 from east to west, and cut off a triangular portion of the 
 peninsula on tlie south, in the very centre of which occurs 
 the elevated grouj) of mountains where the Sinai of the 
 Bible is to be souirht. This mountainous rcirion, with its 
 
EXODUS XTX. ].")3 
 
 various valleys and ravines of different dimensions, may be 
 described as being comprehended within a diameter of about 
 forty miles. Its general aspect is singularly wild and dreary, 
 being composed almost entirely of naked rocks and craggy 
 precipices, interspersed with narrow sandy defiles, which 
 from being seldom refreshed with rain are almost entirely 
 destitute of vegetation. Fountains and springs of water are 
 found only in the upper regions of the group, on which 
 account they are the place of refuge of all the Bedouins, 
 when the low country is parched up. From all accounts it 
 is difficult to imagine a scene more desolate and ten-ific than 
 that which constitutes this range." A recent traveller (Sir 
 F. Henniker) describes it " as a sea of desolation. It would 
 seem," says he, " as if Arabia Petraea had once been an 
 ocean of lava, and while its waves were running mountains 
 high, it was commanded suddenly to stand still ! Notliing 
 is to be seen but large peaks and crags of naked granite, 
 composing, as far as the eye can reach, a wilderness of 
 shaggy rocks and valleys bare of verdure." Mr. Stephens, 
 an American traveller, in his "Incidents of Travel in Egypt, 
 Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land," thus graphically 
 describes his approach to the region in question: "Our 
 road now lay between wild and rugged mountains, and the 
 valley itself Avas stony, broken, and gullied by the washing 
 of the winter torrents ; and a few straggling thorn-bushes 
 w^ere all that grew in that region of desolation. I had 
 remarked for some time, and every moment impressed 
 it more and more forcibly upon my mind, that every 
 thing around me seemed old and in decay : the valley 
 was barren and devastated by torrents ; the rocks were 
 rent ; the mountains cracked, broken, and crumbling into 
 thousands of pieces; and we encamped at night between 
 rocks which seem to have been torn asunder by some violent 
 convulsion, where the stones had washed down into the val- 
 ley, and the drifted sand almost choked the passage. At 
 
154 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 every step the scene became more solemn and impressive. 
 The mountains became more and more striking, venerable, 
 and interesting. Not a shrub or blade of grass grew on 
 their naked sides, deformed with gaps and fissures ; and 
 they looked as if by a slight jar or shake they would crumble 
 into millions of pieces. It is impossible to describe cor- 
 rectly the singularly interesting appearance of these moun- 
 tains. Age, hoary and venerable, is the predominant char- 
 acter. They looked as if their great Creator had made 
 them higher than they are, and their summit, worn and 
 weakened by the action of the elements for thousands of 
 years, had cracked and fallen. The last was by far the most 
 interesting day of my journey to Mount Sinai. We were 
 moving along a broad valley, bounded by ranges of lofty and 
 crumbling mountains, forming an immense rocky rampart 
 on each side of us. The whole day we were moving be- 
 tween parallel ranges of mountains, receding in some places, 
 and then again contracting, and about mid-day entered a 
 narrow and rugged defile, bounded on each side with pre- 
 cipitous granite rocks more than a thousand feet high. We 
 entered at the very bottom of this defile, moving for a time 
 along the dry bed of a torrent now obstructed with sand 
 and stones, the rocks on every side shivered and torn, and 
 the whole scene wild to sublimity. Our camels stumbled 
 among the rocky fragments to such a degree that we dis- 
 mounted, and passed through the wild defile on foot. At the 
 other end we came suddenly upon a plain table of ground, 
 and before us towered in awful grandeur, so huge and dark 
 that it seemed close to us, and barring all further progress, 
 the end of my pilgrimage — the holy mountain of Sinai. 
 Among all the stupendous works of nature, not a place can 
 be selected more fitted for the exhibition of Almighty power. 
 I Imve stood uj)on the summit of the giant Etna, and looked 
 over the clouds Ikjating Itcneath it; upon the bold scenery 
 of Sicily, and the distant mountains of Calabria ; upon the 
 
EXODUS XIX. 155 
 
 top of Vesuvius, and looked down upon the waves of lava, 
 and the ruined and half-recovered cities at its foot ; but they 
 are nothing compared with the terrific solitudes and bleak 
 majesty of Sinai. An observing traveller has well called it a 
 perfect sea of desolation. Not a tree, or shrub, or blade of 
 grass is to be seen upon the bare and rugged sides of innu- 
 merable mountains, heaving their naked summits to the 
 skies ; while the crumbling masses of granite all around, and 
 the distant view of the Syrian desert, with its boundless waste 
 of sands, form the wildest and most dreary, the most terrific and 
 desolate picture that imagination can conceive." Carne, an 
 English traveller, speaking of this district says, " From the 
 summit of Sinai you see only innumerable ranges of rocky 
 mountains. One generally places, in imagination, around 
 Sinai extensive plains or sandy deserts, where the camp of 
 the hosts was placed ; where the families of Israel stood at 
 the doors of their tents, and the line was drawn round the 
 mountain, which no one might break through, on pain of 
 death. But it is not thus. Save the valley by which we 
 approached Sinai, about half a mile loide and a few miles in 
 length, and a small plain we afterwards passed through, with 
 a rocky hill in the middle, there appear to be few open places 
 round the mount. We did not, however, examine it on all 
 sides. On putting the question to the superior of the con- 
 vent, where he imagined the Israelites stood : ' Everywhere,' 
 he replied, ' waving his hands about, — in the ravines, the 
 valleys, as well as the plains.' The region of Djebel Kate- 
 rin and Mousa seems to be the scene of the great event in 
 question. The following extract from Professor Robin- 
 son's account of his visit to the spot in 1838, will go to les- 
 sen, very considerably, the objection founded upon the lim- 
 ited space for encampment. 'We approached the central 
 granite mountains of Sinai, not by the more usual and ea>y 
 route of AYady Shekh, which winds around and enters from 
 the east ; but following a succession of Wadys, we crossed 
 
15G SCKIPTURE r.EADINGS. 
 
 "VVady Shekli, and entered the higher granite formation by a 
 shorter route, directly from the N. N. W., through a steep, 
 rocky, and difficult pass, between rugged and blackened 
 clifls 800 to 1,000 feet high. Approaching in this direction, 
 we were surprised and delighted to find ourselves, after two 
 hours, crossing the whole length of a fine plain ; from the 
 southern end of which that part of Sinai, now called Horeb, 
 rises perpendicularly, in dark and frowning majesty. This 
 plain is over two miles in length, and nearly two thirds of a 
 mile broad, sprinkled with tufts of herbs and shrubs, like the 
 Wadys of the desert. It is wholly inclosed by dark gran- 
 ite mountains, — stern, naked, splintered peaks and ridges, 
 from 1,000 to 1,500 feet high. On the east of Horeb a deep 
 and very narrow valley runs in like a cleft, as if in continua- 
 tion of the S. E. corner of the plain. In this stands the 
 convent, at the distance of a mile from the plain ; and the 
 deep verdure of its fruit-trees and cypresses is seen as soon 
 as the traveller approaches — an oasis of beauty amid scenes 
 of the sternest desolation. On the west of Horeb there 
 runs up a similar valley, parallel to the former. It is called 
 El-Leja, and in it stands the deserted convent El-Erbayin, 
 with a garden of olive and other fruit-trees, not visible from 
 the plain. The name Sinai is at present applied generally 
 to the lofty ridge running from N. N. W. to S. S. E. between 
 the two narrow valleys just described. The northern part 
 or lower summit is the present Horeb, overlooking the plain. 
 About two and a half or three miles south of this the ridge 
 rises and ends in a higher point : this is the present summit 
 of Sinai, the Jebel Musa of the Arabs ; which, however, is 
 not visible from any part of the plain. West or rather 
 W. S. AV. of the valley El-Leja, is the still higher ridge and 
 summit of Mount St. Catharine. The plain above mentioned 
 is, in all probability, the spot where the congregation of Is- 
 rael were assembled to receive the law ; and the mountain 
 impending over it, the present Horeb, was the scene of the 
 
EXODUS XIX. 1j7 
 
 awful phenomena in which the law was given. As to the 
 present summit of Sinai, there is little reason to suppose that 
 it had any connection with the giving of the law ; and still 
 less the higher peaks of St. Catharine. I know not when I 
 have felt a thrill of stronger emotion, than when in first cross- 
 ing the plain, the dark preci})ices of Horcb rising in solemn 
 grandeur before us, I became aware of tiie entire adapted- 
 ness of the scene to the purposes for which it was chosen by 
 the great Hebrew legislator." {Bib. Repos. for April, 1 83'J.) 
 Such are various descriptions of the mountain from which 
 the Law was given, as recorded in the next chapter. Let 
 us praise God that we are not come to Mount Sinai, with its 
 savage bleakness, but to Mount Sion ; that we are trans- 
 lated from darkness to light, and from seeking to be justified 
 by a Law that we cannot obey, to receiving complete justifi- 
 cation through a Saviour who had obeyed the Law perfectly 
 for us. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE LAW OF GOD. 
 
 The last chapter that we read last Sunday morning con- 
 tained the sublime and majestic preface to the giving of the 
 Law, when the people came, in the language of an apostle, 
 to the mount that might be touched, to blackness, and dark- 
 ness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice 
 of words, which word they that heard it entreated that they 
 should not hear it any more, and if so much, says the apos- 
 tle, as a beast or a living creature were to touch the mount, 
 it was to be destroyed. We have now the proclamation of 
 God's holy law from the mountain top amidst the thunder, 
 and the lightnings, and all the other awful accompaniments 
 of that sublime and memorable transaction. 
 
 Recollect that this Law is quite distinct from what is 
 called the ceremonial law. The Jews had three sorts of 
 law. They had the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the 
 poHtical or civil law. The civil law existed for a time ; its 
 principles, as far as they are moral, relate to all time. The 
 ceremonial law lasted till Christ, its end and its object, came. 
 But the moral law, like the God that announced it, is the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 
 You will notice, also, that this Law was not invented on 
 Mount Sinai, but only enunciated there. It was ever true ; 
 it is now true ; and it ever will be true. God's enunciation 
 of it on Mount Sinai was an act of mercy in letting his crea- 
 tures know what was the precise exaction of his will, and 
 what would be the highest conformity to that will, if the 
 
EXODUS XX. 159 
 
 commands in stone could bo transferred to tlic lieart, and 
 be made actual and real in the life and the experience of 
 mankind. 
 
 This Law has been called in popular phrase " the Deca- 
 logue." It is called in Deuteronomy the Ten Command- 
 ments ; and hence the word AskuIojoi, " ten words," " ten 
 laws," or "ten commandments." I cannot enter on the 
 laws themselves, for that would be incompatible with a short 
 expository reading ; but I may state that there has been a 
 dispute from the days of Augustine as to the right division 
 of the commandments. I think that no dispute can be sus- 
 tained fairly as to distributing these precepts according to 
 what seems their natural, just, and reasonable order ; but 
 by Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, and who was 
 the niost evangelical and best of the ancient writers of the 
 "Nicene Church, the second commandment, as we call it, 
 was attached to the first ; and then the last commandment 
 was divided into two ; and the ninth commandment, accord- 
 ing to that arrangement, was, " Thou shalt not covet thy 
 neighbor's wife ; " and the tenth was the remainder of the 
 Decalogue. The Roman Catholic Church has taken the 
 division of Augustine ; and if it had stopped there, we should 
 not have complained, because, however you divide the com- 
 mandments, if you give the whole, it is equally and sub- 
 stantially the same ; but unfortunately, by attaching our 
 second commandment to their first commandment, they have 
 gradually, year after year, lessened the second command- 
 ment, till in countless catechisms, many of which I have in 
 my possession, the second commandment, as Ave call it, is 
 omitted altogether. For instance, in an Italian catechism 
 which I have, drawn up by Bellarmine, and sanctioned by 
 two pontiffs in succession, the second commandment is totally 
 omitted, and the fourth commandment is perverted, being 
 thus written, Recordati de santijicare le feste. " Recollect 
 to sanctify or keep holy the festivals," the word " Sabbath " 
 
IGO SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 being wholly expunged. In the Irish catechisms the second 
 commandment is left out, and also in a French catechism I 
 purchased on the Continent last year. It seems as if some 
 master mind among Romanists graduated the supply of the 
 Decalogue according to the moral latitude of the place ; 
 because in countries where the darkness is most dense, the 
 fourth commandment is altered, and the second is omitted; 
 in places again where there is a little more light, as in Con^ 
 naught, Leinster, or Munster, the fourth commandment is 
 given, but the second is omitted : in England the second is 
 given to a very great extent, but not the whole of it ; but 
 in Scotland, where the Roman Catholic authorities seem to 
 think the light is the greatest, the second commandment is 
 given fully appended to the first. So that it seems as if 
 they had adapted the commandments to the amount of light 
 that was in any particular country. I hope it is not un- 
 charitable to think so ; for really the fact is so striking, that 
 one can scarcely explain it in any other way. As to the 
 division of the last commandment, it would seem to be un- 
 reasonable, upon this simple ground. It happens that in the 
 parallel passage in Deuteronomy, where the tenth command- 
 ment is given, it is written first " Thou shalt not covet thy 
 neighbor's wife ; " but in this passage it is first, " Thou shalt 
 not covet thy neighbor's house." If the commandments had 
 been intended to be divided according to the plan of Augus- 
 tine, it would have been the same in both — thy neighbor's 
 wife first, and thy neighbor's house second ; but the fact thjjt 
 in the one version " house " is first, and in the other " wife " is 
 first, is proof tliat this last commandment, according to our 
 order, was meant to be a complete commandment, and never 
 was designed to be divided into two distinct commandments. 
 Our Blessed Lord divides the whole Decalogue into two 
 great Commandments, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all tliy h(.'art, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind, and witii all thy strength : this is the first command- 
 
EXODUS XX. 161 
 
 ment. And tlie second is like, namely this, " Tliou slialt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself." Obedience to this Decalogue 
 is based, not simply upon God's claims as a Legislator, which 
 are most just, but also upon God's goodness as a Benefactor ; 
 for the preface to the Commandments is, "I am the Lord 
 thy God — a covenant God — and I have done this good 
 for you, I have brought you out of the land of Egypt ; and 
 therefore, because I am not only your Legislator, but your 
 Benefactor, I ask you to regard obedience to the exactions 
 of this Law as the highest happiness, as well as the su- 
 premest obhgation ; and I wish you to obey it, not because 
 it is just, but because gratitude should prompt you to do so." 
 
 Then He says, " Thou shalt have no other gods before, 
 me." Now mark the force of this. It is not, " Thou shalt 
 not substitute any other gods for me," but, " Thou shalt not 
 have any other gods in company with me." The Caesars 
 would have allowed to the image of our Blessed Lord a 
 niche in the Pantheon, if the apostles would have consented 
 to the proposal ; but the answer of the apostles was, " No ; 
 our God cannot be in company with other gods. He must 
 fill the whole Pantheon with his glory, or he will not enter 
 '*t at all." It is so with the human heart. My dear friends, 
 ^«here ought to be in that human heart but one Supreme 
 Governor, Lord, Master, and King. He will not share the 
 human heart with others ; he must have the whole, or he 
 will have none. And the great struggle that goes on in the 
 case of thousands is not a struggle about superseding God 
 by other gods, or dislodging the true God to let in an idol ; 
 but it is a struggle whether our adhesion to the Christian 
 rehgion be compatible wnth our adhesion to something else 
 that is incompatible with it — whether God and other gods 
 can live together in the same place. It, cannot be. It is 
 written, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." 
 
 And not only so, but you shall not make any image for 
 worship. This second commandment has been construed 
 14* 
 
162 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 according to two extremes. The very severe and strict 
 Jews construed it rigidly, and i:)rohil)ited painting and stat- 
 uary, and all the other parts of those beautiful and interest- 
 ing arts. They said it -was absolutely prohibitory of making 
 an image of any thing in heaven and earth at all. Others, 
 again, have construed it so laxly, that they have made all 
 sorts of images of every thing in heaven and out of heaven, 
 till at last human genius has been exhausted in representing 
 things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, for the 
 ornament of the Christian temple. Now, it seems to me 
 that the second commandment applies especially to churches. 
 I would make churches as chaste and comfortable, even 
 beautiful, as possible ; for I should not like to dwell in a 
 ceiled house while God's house is laid desolate ; but I do 
 think that pictures of the Trinity in church windows are 
 perfect abominations. In the first place, a picture of God 
 the Father is most offensive ; and in the second place, even 
 the masterpieces of Vandyke and Rubens, and others, who 
 have painted our Blessed Lord, come so far short of the 
 magnificent concef)tion that lies in the holy place of every 
 Christian heart, that we would rather not see such paintings 
 at all ; and in the third place, the paintings that we do see 
 in churches in this country are so shocking, that one does 
 not envy the taste of those church-wardens who accept 
 them. One can scarcely conceive that the piety is very en- 
 lightened that admits them there. And again, paintings of 
 the Holy Spirit are very doubtful. It is thought by some 
 that the Spirit did assume the form of a dove ; if he did so, 
 it was incidental ; lie was not incarnate in that form. The 
 only defensive reasons are to be urged in favor of pictures 
 of our blessed Lord ; for it seems absurd to speak of like- 
 nesses of the other Persons in the Blessed Trinity. And 
 if the ])ictures of our Blessed Lord were portraits, one 
 might consent to tolerate them ; but they are no more por- 
 traits of Jesus than they are of the thieves that were cruci- 
 
EXODUS XX. 163 
 
 fied on his right band or on his left ; they are merely fanci- 
 ful conceptions of an able painter's mind or genius, and 
 even as such they are most exceptional. Let there be no 
 pictures of the Deity, therefore, in our churches. And it is 
 remarkable that in the early church this was so much felt, 
 that when a great divine saw upon a curtain a picture of 
 our Lord, he rent it in pieces. And we know that by the 
 second Council of Nice in the seventh century, such pic- 
 tures were barely tolerated, and were introduced amidst a 
 great deal of objection. 
 
 Let me notice very briefly the fourth commandment. 
 There has been a great deal of dispute about that. Some 
 have said that it is not obligatory upon us. If so, why is it 
 not in the civil and ceremonial law, instead of being given 
 amidst the moral law^ ? I admit that our Sabbath is not the 
 Jew^ish one. I think the way in which the Jewish Sabbath 
 was observed was cumbered wdth difficulties, that made it a 
 burden. Works of charity and necessity, of which every 
 Christian's conscience is the best judge, are permissible on 
 our Sabbath. Some Christians, I think, have gone to very 
 extravagant lengtl>s upon the subject of the Sabbath, and 
 have held ideas upon it, not as if it were the Lord's day, 
 but as if it were the Jewish day. But tlie moral Sabbath 
 remains until now, although the Jewish observances are to 
 be detached from it as altogether distinct. 
 
 You say, then, why observe it on the first day of the 
 week ? My answer is, that this fourth commandment is not 
 the consecration of the seventh day ; but it is the consecra- 
 tion of the Sabbath. It is not " Remember the seventh day 
 to keep it holy ; " but, " Remember the Sabbath day to 
 keep it holy." But, you say, was it not observed by the 
 Jews on the seventh day ? Certainly ; but the law is, that 
 one day in seven shall be the Sabbath ; it does not lay down 
 the order that it shall be the seventh day in numerical suc- 
 cession, but that it shall be one day out of the seven, on 
 
1G4 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 whicli the Sabbath shall be observed. Amongst the Jews, it 
 was the seventh day in order ; amongst Christians, it is the 
 first. The Jewisli candlestick was the seventh day, ours is 
 the first ; but the light is still on the latter, as it was on the 
 former, the Sabbath day : so that the institution of the 
 Sabbath is quite distinct from the day on which it is to be 
 observed. 
 
 You will always find that the Sabbath is the index of 
 national religion, morality, and virtue. Where the Sabbath 
 has ceased to be a holy day, and has become a worldly holi- 
 day, you may contrast the state of such nations with our 
 own country, where, in comparison, it is so well observed. 
 I remember, in 1851, what an impression was made upon 
 continental nations, when they came to the Crystal Palace, 
 and saw that that beautiful and useful creation of human 
 genius was open six days in the week ; but that, even 
 amidst the works of art and the productions of nature, 
 nations from afar could read, in the light of England's sun- 
 shine, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SLAVES AND MASTERS. REASON OF TOLERATION OF SLAVERY. 
 LEX TALIONIS. 
 
 Perhafs the best distinction between the Law, as re- 
 corded in the previous chapter, commonly called the Deca- 
 logue, or the Law of the Ten Commandments, and the 
 peculiar laws that I have now read, is this, that the former 
 are moral, binding in all ages, in all countries, and under all 
 circumstances; and that the latter are national and judicial, 
 and specially applicable in their details, at least to the Jews 
 in their nomad state, in the desert, previous to their entering 
 into Canaan, but at the same time, like all specific prescrip- 
 tions in the Bible, containing great and general truths, 
 instructive and binding everywhere and at all times. 
 
 Now this is the first chapter, and one of the chiefest, that 
 treats of a subject that has made a great deal of noise in 
 the present day, namely, the subject of slavery. It is very 
 plain that there were two classes of slaves among the 
 Hebrews, using the word " slave " in its strict and ancient 
 sense. There was a Hebrew slave, or a slave from among 
 the Hebrews ; and there was a slave from other countries, a 
 stranger, a heathen, and a Gentile. There were distinct 
 codes of laws for each class of slaves ; but the laws laid 
 down for the regulation of slavery, as it existed amongst the 
 Hebrews, were public laws settled by judicial opinions, were 
 known to the slave and to his master, and were inspired 
 with a mercy and a controlling beneficence, that makes 
 
1G6 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 ancient slavery, so called, almost as different as light is from 
 darkness, from the slavery that we once had in the AYest 
 Indies, and that the Southern States of America at this day 
 unhappily are stained by. 
 
 In reference to the Hebrew slave there is one point that 
 is very striking, and that is, that whatever was the obligation 
 under which a slave came amongst the Jews, never was his 
 person regarded as chattels, as goods, as property. His ser- 
 vices were bought for life, or till the years of jubilee ; but 
 his person never was regarded as property to be sold in the 
 market, and never, in any sense, was man then degraded 
 and debased as he has been by slavery in modern times. 
 This is a point worthy of notice. In the second verse it is 
 said, " If thou buy an Hebrew servant." You will say, does 
 not that mean property acquired by purchase ? But it is 
 remarkable that the word here translated " buy " is fully as 
 frequently translated "acquire" or "procure," either by 
 inheritance, by donation, or by free will offering, and not in 
 the sense of giving an equivalent in money for what you 
 possess. For instance, the same Hebrew word is used by 
 Eve, when she says, at Cain's birth, " I have gotten a man 
 from the Lord." That does not mean that Eve purchased 
 Cain, but that she obtained Cain from the Lord. The very 
 same word is used in Proverbs, wliere it is translated, " He 
 that hearcth reproof getteth understanding." Again, we 
 have it in Psalm Ixxviii. 54, " He brought them to this 
 mountain, which his right hand had purchased," that is, ac- 
 quired or procured. We might therefore most justly trans- 
 late this second verse, " If thou procure, acquire, or obtain, 
 in any way, an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve." 
 And you will notice that Avhen money was given, as it was 
 in some instances, it was fixed by the servant that his master 
 was to give him so much for his services, for seven, fourteen, 
 or twenty years, or for life. He sold his services for a 
 period, just as a servant does now. But giving money to 
 
EXODUS XXI. 1G7 
 
 the slave for his services is very diftcrent from giving the 
 money to his former muster, and letting the slave derive 
 none of the benefit of his work. 
 
 Again, in those times, a Hebrew in extreme poverty might 
 sell himself; under similar circumstances, a father might sell 
 his child ; an insolvent debtor might be sold to \niy his debts ; 
 a thief who could not make restitution might be sold as a 
 slave ; and a captive taken in war was frequently treated in 
 like manner. 
 
 Now, it is needless to deny that slavery did exist under 
 the express toleration of God ; but it was so mitigated and 
 intermingled with alleviating elements, that the slavery of 
 the ancient Hebrews differed most widely from the slavery 
 which exists in modern times in some of those nations under 
 whose constitution it is still retained. But while slavery 
 was tolerated it was not approved of God. In the same 
 manner polygamy existed amongst the patriarchs, but it was 
 not a Divine institution. Our Saviour refers back to the 
 original law, when he says, " They twain shall be one flesh " 
 — one man and one woman. Polygamy existed among the 
 Hebrews, and was practised by the patriarchs, and our 
 Lord explains why : it was connived at, or suffered, for the 
 hardness of their hearts. So, slavery existed in a mitigated 
 form amongst the ancient Hebrews. God did not abolish it 
 by a sweeping law, but introduced those enlightening, sancti- 
 fying, and elevating principles, that soon sapped the exist- 
 ence of polygamy and slavery, and every other evil practice 
 that existed in the Hebrew nations. In those countries where 
 slavery is now, it seems as if it would be a revolution to tear 
 it up by the roots ; but still, there ought to be a very speedy 
 and decided attempt to mitigate, and eventually utterly to 
 remove it. The atrocities that exist in modern times — 
 selling a husband to one, his wife to another, and the chil- 
 dren to a third — were never dreamt of amongst the He- 
 brews, and have been tolerated in modern nations, I think 
 iniquitously before God and unprofitably to themselves. 
 
1G8 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 We liave an express enactment in the sixteenth verse 
 against what is unhappily done in modern times. " He that 
 stealeth a man ^' — it matters not whether he be an Asiatic, 
 an African, or a European — " and selleth him, or if he be 
 found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Now, 
 if man wTvS regarded as property then, I ask, wdiy was it 
 that if a man stole an ox, he had only to return an ox as an 
 equivalent? or if he stole corn, he had only to repay it 
 in so much corn as an equivalent ? but that if he stole a man, 
 he came under a new law altogether ; he was not called upon 
 to make an equivalent, but the crime was regarded as so 
 atrocious, that he who was guilty of it was to be put to 
 death ? We have this very law repeated in Deuteronomy 
 xxiv. 7. " If a man be found stealing any of his brethren 
 of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, 
 or selleth him, then that thief shall die, and thou shalt put 
 evil from among you." That is a very strict prohibition, 
 and seems to be as obligatory at the present moment as in 
 ancient times. I may mention, also, that in 1 Timothy i. 9, 
 where we have a list of the most extreme offenders, there is 
 one class specified in our translation as " menstealers." The 
 word so rendered is avdpaTrodtarai^, which means literally, 
 " men who make a trade in men ; " and the best translation 
 of that Greek word is " slave-traders," which expresses ex- 
 actly the meaning of the original ; and the text distinctly 
 shows that slave-trading, or dealing in human beings as 
 goods and property, is an offence and crime in the sight of 
 God to be classified with the worst. 
 
 Thus we have seen that slavery no doubt existed amongst 
 the Hebrews, or was tolerated by God ; but secondly, that 
 mitigating elements were introduced into it, which made it 
 entirely differ from modern slavery ; thirdly, the law of 
 master and slave was a matter for the cognizance of the 
 public judicial tribunals of the country, and not a matter of 
 private judgment at all ; and fourthly, if a master in anger 
 
EXODUS XXI. 1G9 
 
 struck his slave, and that slave lost a toolli, lliat slave be- 
 came free. Now what a mitigating element was tliat ! I 
 do not know tlie laws of the Southern States of America, but 
 I should fancy that if a slave were struck by his master, lie 
 would not become free; and that if he were to quote tliis 
 chapter, he would be told that he had no business with tlie 
 Bible, since he was a beast of burden and not fit for instruc- 
 tion. But here was a most mitigating element. And again, 
 slavery as it existed then, I have said, was tolerated by God, 
 not approved, just as polygamy was ; but Christian truths 
 and Christian principles are calculated to put an end to it ; 
 and they have already, as far as this great country is con- 
 cerned, put an end to all practice or sanction of man-selling, 
 and slave-holding. It is surely a beautiful trait in our 
 native land, that the slave from the Southern States of 
 America, or from Spanish Cuba, or any other country where 
 slavery is tolerated, is a free man the instant his foot touches 
 our shores. He may be poor, or ragged, or sick, but free 
 he is ; and no power in the wide world can bind in chains 
 that visitor, that refugee, whom our noble constitution pro- 
 nounces to be a free man. In verse 7 we see that a female 
 taken as a slave was viewed as likely to become the wife of 
 her master — and if he should not marry her, his son might, 
 or if neither did, she was to go out free, and with property 
 besides. 
 
 We read next in this chapter of what is called the lex 
 talionis, or the law of punishing an offence by inflicting the 
 very same injury upon him who had done it. But this has 
 very often been misconstrued. "An eye for an eye, and <'i 
 tooth for a tooth," is the expression of the law ; but it did 
 not mean that literally and without alternative. This might 
 be done, or an equivalent or satisfaction might be accepted 
 for the injury. In the case of murder it is said that no sat- 
 isfaction should be taken, implying that in other cases it 
 might be. Besides, this was not a private retaliation. The 
 
 15 
 
170 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 offender was to be brought before tlie public tribunals of the 
 country. But our Blessed Lord, in that magnificent dis- 
 course pronounced on the Mount, has said that that is not to 
 be the rigid law. " Ye have heard that it hath been said, 
 An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto 
 you, That ye resist not evil." You are under another dispen- 
 sation ; you have a brighter light, higher privileges, richer 
 knowledge ; and therefore, you must act in the spirit of the 
 Gospel, and not in the spirit of the lex talionis, or the law 
 of retaliation. 
 
 The last fhing I notice here is the i^unishment of murder. 
 It is here repeated that a murderer shall be put to death. 
 And this is so often implied throughout the Word of God, 
 that I think there can be no possibility of escaping the con- 
 clusion that this is a Divine and a permanent law. AVe have 
 it before the institution of the Levitical economy, where 
 God says to Noah, " Wlioso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed ; " and you have the law repeated 
 here ; and you have the prohibition in the Commandments, 
 " Thou shalt do no murder ; " and you have the penalty of 
 death here attached to it. It seems to be that crime which 
 is ever to be so punished, and the only crime, as far as the 
 Word of God is a guide, that ought to be so punished. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 JUDICIAL LAWS. AXCIEXT MOXEY. EURGLARY. TRESPASSES. LAW- 
 SUITS. STRANGERS. MOXEY-LEXDING . OFFENCES AGAINST 
 MAGISTRATES. 
 
 I TiiiXK I noticed in the course of my remarks on tlie 
 previous chapters, that a great part of these laws was topi- 
 cal ; that is, peculiar to the place and age in which they 
 were made; and that they were also judicial — that is, not 
 so much for the regulation of personal conduct and personal 
 feeling between individuals privately, as for tlie guidance of 
 the judges who sat upon the bench, and pronounced decisions 
 according to the merit of the causes that came before them. 
 These laws were special. You recollect that the Hebrews 
 came out of Egypt a race of craven, degraded, miserable 
 slaves ; they were not ripe for perfect laws. We can see, 
 therefore, that much of the law that is here laid down is 
 adapted to society in its infant state, or when very feebly and 
 imperfectly developed ; and only as they grew in light, in 
 power, in knowledge, and in understanding, the laws would 
 rise, become purer, and indicate altogether a higher tone 
 for the guidance of the people. But suppose, now, that you 
 knew nothing of the inspiration of these laws, would you not 
 be very much startled to hear this, tliat an individual called 
 Moses marched a number of miserable slaves out of Egypt, 
 led them through the Desert ; and without any inspiration, 
 but by the might of his own genius, struck out laws so just, 
 so seasonable, so fair, reaching almost every i)oint wliere 
 
172 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 society may be at fault, and providing for every contingency 
 with a precision, equity, and good sense, that must strike 
 every one who reads them. Is it possible to suppose that a 
 man who was forty years in the Desert, and forty years a 
 subordinate in Pharaoh's court, should have been able, from 
 his own genius, to invent laws, in comparison of which those 
 of Solon are extremely imperfect and poor ? Is it possible 
 to account for all this in any other way, than that God 
 inspired Moses so to teach ? 
 
 The reason why so much is said about oxen and sheep 
 was simply this, that what we call money was not then in 
 existence; an ox was given for an ox, or a sheep for a 
 sheep ; or, if a man wished to buy a robe or a wardrobe, he 
 gave so many sheep or oxen for it. And this usage of cat- 
 tle as money is the origin, as I have noticed before, of our 
 v.ord " pecuniary." The latin word peciuiia, " money," is 
 derived from the Latin word pecus, " cattle." The first 
 coins had struck upon them oxen or sheep, indicating that 
 cattle was the substantial property ; and that gold, silver, or 
 copper coins were but the conventional rei^resentations of 
 that property. Thus, then, " if a man shall steal an ox," 
 which was property, " or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it," then, 
 as the punishment of what he has done, by the decision of 
 the judge, "he shall restore five oxen," the only j^roperty 
 that could be given in compensation, " for an ox, and four 
 sheep for a sheep." It seems strange that five oxen should 
 be restored for stealing an ox, and only four sheep for steal- 
 ing a sheep ; but the fact is, that the ox was to the Israelites 
 and the Easterns generally every thing. Not only was his 
 skin used for leather, and his flesh for food ; but he was the 
 animal that drew their carts, dragged their ploughs, and did 
 all the drudgery of their fields. An ox Avas more capable 
 of labor than a sheep ; and, therefore, there was a greater 
 crime in stealing an ox than a sheep, on these grounds, and 
 these "irrounds alone. 
 
EXODUS XXIT. 173 
 
 It is said, that if a thief be found breaking into a house, 
 and if the hmdlord or pro{)rietor in self-defence smite hira, 
 so that he die, this is not murder, nor even homiride. The 
 case shall be examined into ; but no one who has tlms killed 
 a burglar shall be put to death as a murderer. We rnay 
 here notice how all this implies, what underlies it all, that 
 murder was to be punished with death. Tiie very [)roviso, 
 that there was to be no punishment of death i.n this case, 
 implies the previous sanction of the death penalty, where 
 deliberate and preconcerted murder had been committed. 
 But, "if the sun be risen upon the thief" — that is, if the 
 proprietor of the house kill him deliberately — then "there 
 shall be blood shed for him ; " that is, it is murder, it is not 
 justifiable homicide, in any shape or sense: "for he should 
 make full restitution ; if he have nothing, then he shall 
 be sold for his theft." You can see that this clause is 
 wrongly translated. How could he be sold, if previously 
 killed? It ought to be translated, and the original Hebrew- 
 necessitates what I now state as the true translation, " Blood 
 shall be shed for him ; for, if he had been spared, the law 
 requires that he should liave made full restitution ; and 
 that, if he had nothing, he should be sold for his theft." 
 Then, " if the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, 
 whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep, he shall restore double" — 
 that is, if he be caught. 
 
 " If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, 
 and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's 
 field ; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his 
 own vineyard, shall he make restitution ; " that is the pun- 
 ishment for trespass. 
 
 Then, " If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the 
 stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field be con- 
 sumed therewith, he that kindleth the fire shall surely make 
 restitution." It is found still in Eastern countries that the 
 grass or vegetation becomes all withered and faded before 
 15* 
 
174 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the wet season comes, under the intense heat of the summer 
 sun ; and it is the practice still, I find by reference to per- 
 sons who have turned their attention to this, and to compe- 
 tent testimony, to set lire to the dry stubble, because the 
 carbon that is deposited from the consumption of the grass 
 or vegetation fertilizes the soil for the next crop. But if a 
 person, in order to get his field well manured, shall be so 
 careless, that he shall allow the flame to be blown by the 
 wind into his neighbor's standing corn, he shall make resti- 
 tution. 
 
 Then it is said, "All manner of trespass shall come before 
 the judges," — it shall not be adjusted privately, but pub- 
 licly. There has been a great misapprehension about law- 
 suits. The apostle certainly prohibits going to law before 
 the heathen ; but in the Old Testament you can see that the 
 forms of public justice are recommended. The distinction 
 in the apostle's days was, not that it was sinful to go to law, 
 but that it was most inexpedient to go to law before the 
 heathen. I think it is quite right, where there are Chris- 
 tian judges, as in our own land, to go to law, if two parties 
 cannot agree upon a matter. There may be great fault on 
 the one side, and great sin on the other ; but if they cannot 
 adjust their dispute, it is quite right to go before a court of 
 justice, and get a decision there according to the merits of 
 the case ; but where the matter can be settled by two or 
 three witnesses or friends, then it is much better, and vastly 
 cheaper, that this course should be taken ; but still, it is not 
 sinful to adopt the other. 
 
 Again, we read, " If a man deliver unto his neighbor an 
 ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, and it die, or 
 be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it," then an oath 
 sliall be exacted from the person who had it that he has not 
 used any unfair play with it. 
 
 Again, " If a man borrow ought of his neighbor, and it 
 be hurt or die, the owner thereof being not with it," then he 
 
EXODUS XXII. 175 
 
 who took the sole charge of it shall be chargeable for it ; but 
 " if the owner thereof be with it," then it is common sense 
 that the owner alone shall be responsible for it. 
 
 It is added, " Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor 
 o[)[)ress him : for " (how beautiful is the reason !) " je were 
 strangers in the land of Egypt." Sympathy must teach 
 you how you ought to act. You know what a liard time 
 you had of it in Egypt; and that fellow-feeling must teach 
 you to sympathize with the stranger, and not to afflict the 
 widow and the fatherless. 
 
 It is said, " If thou lend money to any of my people that 
 is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, 
 neither shalt thou lay upon him usury;" that is to say, you 
 shall not demand a percentage larger than is legal and 
 proper ; for it was not, I think, the law in the Old Testa- 
 ment, that no interest should be received for money. If that 
 be sinful, which is not asserted, then every one who has 
 money in the funds is living in constant sin. But usury 
 means receiving more interest than is just and equitable ac- 
 cording to the laws of trade, and the conventional com.pact 
 that, by law or usage, exists in any country. 
 
 Then it is written, " If thou at all take thy neighbor's 
 raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the 
 sun goeth down." This seems to us almost a mystery ; but 
 if you will recollect what Eastern customs were tlien, and 
 still are, you will see how natural it is. The raiment that 
 he pledged was the outer robe that not only sheltered him 
 from the weather by day, but was also the only blanket in 
 which he wrapped himself at night; just as in the High- 
 lands, where the plaid was not only the covering by day, 
 but the blanket by night. So, if a man pledge that which 
 is his only covering by night, when, without it, health would 
 be endangered ; then you are to restore it to him before 
 night : for I will that, in doing justly, you shall not forget 
 mercy ; " for I am gracious," saith the Lord. 
 
176 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 It is written in the 28tli verse, " Thou shalt not revile the 
 gods nor curse the ruler of thy people." The word '' gods " 
 is used here plainly in the sense of magistrates. You recol- 
 lect that the Apostle Paul, when he spoke to the high-priest, 
 said that he did not know that it was the high-priest ; for 
 " thou shalt not revile the ruler of thy people." It is in the 
 original Ehhim, and so judges were frequently called ; and 
 it means, " Thou shalt not revile the judges, nor curse the 
 ruler of thy people." Whenever inferiors begin to calum- 
 niate or to ridicule those who are set in office in the land for 
 the administration of justice, it weakens their influence upon 
 the people ; and does much harm without doing any good. 
 
 Then he refers to the offering of first-fruits, and concludes 
 the whole chapter by saying, " Ye shall be holy men unto 
 me," 
 
 These laws are most merciful and considerate ; and indi- 
 cate an inspiration that was more than human ; and when 
 you regard them not as the only existing laws, but as a 
 national sui)plement to what was the moral law, which we 
 read in the 20th chapter, you will see their wisdom and com- 
 pleteness. Outward ceremonial purity was constantly em- 
 ployed as a type of inward purity. These laws implied a 
 world gone wrong, and seem to have been indications of its 
 restoration. They were parts, and some of them the merest 
 pegs, of a gigantic scaffolding. Every day brings us nearer 
 to that blessed era, when the headstone shall be laid on the 
 completed edifice, amid shouts, " Grace, grace unto it." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LAWS AGAINST CALUMNY. EXCESSIVE DEFERENCE TO AUTHORITY. 
 JUDICIAL RULES. FESTIVALS. THE ANGEL JEUOVAH. 
 
 I HAVE already observed, after reading the twentieth 
 chapter of the Book of Exodus, that it contained a universal 
 or moral law, obligatory upon all the nations of the earth, in 
 all ages and at all times ; but I took occasion to state, that 
 immediately after the moral law, Moses received from God 
 certain judicial laws, which were to be observed by the 
 judges and public officers of the nation, the benefit and bless- 
 ing of which, as just and equitable in themselves, that favored 
 people were thenceforth privileged to receive. Each of the 
 laws that we have read this morning, is full of equity, tender- 
 ness, and love, all breathing mercy, and indicating, unques- 
 tionably, that they were the inspiration and creation of the 
 wisdom of God. 
 
 In order to see the Divine origin of these laws, just con- 
 sider what these people were. They had come out from 
 Egypt, depressed, ignorant, illiterate. How could the Jewish 
 nation, as I have already said — debased, degraded, broken- 
 spirited (Moses the only exception) — have conceived laws 
 so full of justice, of equit}^ of mercy, of considerateness as 
 these ? The very truths that are here revealed are evidences 
 that Moses wrote, not under the prescriptions of human genius, 
 but according to the inspiration of God himself. No hiws of 
 Solon, or of any other ancient legislator, are for a moment to 
 be compared with these. There is no basis of comparison 
 
178 SCPtirXURE READINGS. 
 
 — there is contrast, instead of comparison. Yet these are 
 the laws of a then barbarous people, just emancipated from 
 the thraldom of Egypt. 
 
 Now, the tirst of these, as indeed all, are for the guidance 
 of judges, and of all who have judicial functions to fulfil — 
 " Thou shalt not raise a false report " — that is, you shall 
 have no malignant feeling towards your neighbor, and you 
 shall not indulge that malignant feeling, if it do exist, by trying 
 to take, away his good name. People do not always estimate 
 this offence as they should ; but it really is one of the worst 
 depredations. " He that steals my purse, steals trash ; 't is 
 his, 'tis mine, 'tis everybody's ; but he that takes away my 
 good name, takes that which not enricheth him, and makes 
 me poor indeed."' 
 
 Where did the great poet learn this true and beautiful 
 thought ? Either from the inspiration of human genius, 
 which sometimes approaches near to divine grace, or he 
 borrowed it — as is most likely — from the word of God. 
 
 Then he says, " Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do 
 evil." The w^ord multitude is the translation of the Hebrew 
 word Rahhim ; and this word is the origin of the Hebrew 
 term Rabbi, as applied to the chief teachers or instructors of 
 the Jews ; and some of the best translators hold, that we 
 ought not to render it, " Thou shalt not follow a multitude 
 to do evil," but that we ought to translate it, " Thou shalt 
 not follow the Rabbis, thou shalt not follow the greatest or 
 chiefest teachers to do that which is evil." In other words, 
 " If we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel, 
 let liim be anathema ; " or, translated into modern language, 
 if all the priests, and prelates, and popes of Christendom 
 together, constituting the true or pretended teachers of the 
 earth, were to tell you to shut your Bible, or to worship 
 images of gold, and silver, and wood, and stone, or to com- 
 mand you to do any thing that this book declares to be evil, 
 in such a case this is the law that must regulate your con- 
 
EXODUS XXII r. 179 
 
 duct, " Thou slialt not follow all the teachers of KiiL^land, 
 of Scotland, or of Rome, to do that which is evil ; " in olher 
 words, you must take jour directions from God's mouth, not 
 from the Pope, or the most honorable or the greatest of men 
 that give [)rescrii)tions of an opposite nature. 
 
 lie adds, " Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man 
 in his cause." Now this seems, at first sight, very dilHcult 
 to understand. One would think that we ought to counte- 
 nance a poor man in his cause ; but the meaning of it is this : 
 If a poor man is accused of a crime, and brought before a 
 judicial tribunal, then, just as you should not do any 
 thing that is partial, because a great man has committed a 
 crime, and is tried for it, so you are not, out of mere pity, to 
 let a criminal escape, because he is a poor man. In other 
 words, you are just to act upon the principle which prevails 
 in our native land. If a man is brought before the tribunals 
 of our own country, it is the glory of our land — and a 
 great glory it is — that the poor man and the rich man will 
 both have a fair trial and no favor. The poor man's poverty 
 is not to make you so pitiful that you shall try to make him 
 appear innocent, when you gather from evidence that he is 
 guilty ; and a man's riches are not so to dazzle you, that 
 you shall endeavor to shield his crime, because he is a great, 
 and, as reputed, an honorable man. 
 
 This seems also, in some degree, to refer to barristers and 
 pleaders. Many persons have had doubts upon a subject 
 connected with this profession ; but it seems to me that there 
 ought to be none. The law of our country requires that the 
 greatest criminal shall have a fair trial. Suspicion shall not 
 condemn him, and your own feelings shall not prejudge him ; 
 and, therefore, if a barrister is called upon to defend a great 
 criminal, it is right that he should state what room for doubt 
 exists — that he should state every point that is favoral)le, 
 if it be fixct, to the establishment of the innocence of his 
 client. However guilty a man may be, he should have a 
 
180 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 fair and impartical trial. Let clear law and conclusive 
 proofs decide, and nothing less. We are not to let a man 
 escape punishment because he is great, nor are we to try to 
 let a man escape because he is poor. Neither our suspicions, 
 nor his circumstances, should decide. We are to deal im- 
 partial justice to all, saying all that can be truly said for 
 the worst, and nothing untrue for the best. 
 
 Now, these laws were not merely for a certain age : they 
 are the laws that ought to regulate judicial proceedings at 
 all times and in all countries. 
 
 How very beautiful is this regulation, " If thou meet thine 
 enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring 
 it back to him again." You are not to say, No, I am glad 
 that such an one, who has injured me, has met with misfor- 
 tune ; but you are, if a Christian, not only to pray for your 
 enemies, but to help them, if you can. 
 
 Again, in the sixth verse, he says, " Thou shalt not wrest 
 the judgment of thy poor in his cause " — that is, you shall 
 not try to pervert it, because he is poor. 
 
 .And again : "Thou shalt take no gift; for the gift blind- 
 eth the Avise." That does not mean a private person may 
 not ; but, referring to judges upon the bench, the law says, 
 that they (the judges) shall not take a gift. 
 
 I dare say many of you may have heard of the celebrated 
 Sir Matthew Hale, that he was in the habit of receiving a 
 present from a person annually ; and it happened once, that 
 about the usual time when this friend made him the present, 
 that he was accused of some offence, and was to appear as 
 an accused person before Sir Matthew Hale. On this occa- 
 sion Sir Matthew Hale returned him the present, lest it 
 should afford even the shadow of a suspicion that the purity 
 of judicial impartiality should be disturbed, or seem to be 
 disturbed, by a gift from one who was to appear before the 
 court accused of an oflTence, and demanding a fair trial. 
 And I believe still it would be thought the most scandalous 
 
EXODUS xxiir. 181 
 
 outrage upon our constitution, and every judge would repu- 
 diate it with scorn and disdain, were any one, expecting to 
 have his cause tried by that judge, to attempt to propitiate 
 his favor by gifts. Now, this beautiful rule — so just, so 
 reasonable, so proper — was anticipated and was known, 
 you observe, three thousand years ago, and was first re- 
 vealed by Him who is the Fountain of all wisdom and of 
 all justice. 
 
 We have, in the tenth and eleventh verses, a very impor- 
 tant law — of course inap[)licable to us — viz., for six years 
 they were to cultivate their land, and the seventh year they 
 were to allow it to lie fallow — partly for the sake of the 
 land, and partly for the sake of the poor : and God made 
 the harvests abundant in the sixth year, in order to compen- 
 sate for the deficiency, or rather, utter cessation, of the sev- 
 enth year, that followed. 
 
 This law was national, peculiar, and is not obligatory 
 upon us, though merciful to them, and adapted to the cir- 
 cumstances in which they were placed. 
 
 But lest they should suppose that this seventh year Sab- 
 bath was to do away with the regular Sabbath, it is added, 
 " Six days thou shalt do thy work ; and on the seventh day 
 thou shalt rest : that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and 
 the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be re- 
 freshed." 
 
 Now, this seventh year was for the universal physical rest 
 and enjoyment of the people ; and the Sabbath, or seventh 
 day, was especially meant for the religious instruction and 
 spiritual rest of the people. In addition to the Sabbath, 
 therefore, you observe, there was a year during which the 
 people were to have rest ; and I think that, in our land, it 
 would tend to the sacredness of the Christian Sabbath, as it 
 would also tend to the substantial good of the people, if there 
 were to be throughout the year, days, or even pai-t of days, 
 in which the mill should stand still, the hum of business 
 16 
 
182 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 should be hushed, and the hard-working man should be per- 
 mitted to rest physically for a little. And it is this, I have 
 often said, — what I am perfectly sure is right — that is the 
 cause of the present demand for the desecration of the Sab- 
 bath — for such I must call it ; a demand that is the reac- 
 tion of the grinding exaction of the masters, who work their 
 servants beyond what is due, and necessitate rest for the 
 body on the Sabbath, when there ought to be religious in- 
 struction and improvement also. And while on this subject, 
 I may mention, that on the continent of Europe, and in 
 those countries now under the dominion of the Romish sys- 
 tem, there is one fact that we must acknowledge to be wor- 
 thy of imitation — they have many holidays ; too many in 
 Spain, and in some other parts, but still in so far desirable ; 
 and thus we may get from ancient days some customs con- 
 ducive to the health of the people, meet for modern imita- 
 tion. This is, so far, an institution that we may wish for, 
 while we reject the superstition in which it may chance to 
 be embosomed. 
 
 " "We read, in the next place, of the three great festivals 
 which they were to observe, and at which all the people 
 were to meet together; the three great festivals which 
 characterized the Jewish economy, and which were to be 
 observed all the days of its existence. 
 
 God says, " Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep 
 thee in the way." That this was not a created angel, ap- 
 pears to me plain, from the frequent allusions to his charac- 
 ter in other portions of the Bible. " The angel of the Lord," 
 it is in our translation ; every Hebrew scholar knows that 
 that is the translation of Melek TehovaJi, which means, " An- 
 gel Lord ; " of is not in the original, it is literally, " Angel 
 Jehovah." And the word here which has been rendered 
 "Angel," might, with as great propriety, have been ren- 
 dered " Messenger," or " one sent." " Behold, I send an 
 Angel before thee," — a Messenger before thee, — " to keep 
 
EXODUS XXTTI. 183 
 
 tliee in the way, and to bring thee into the place whicli I 
 have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, pro- 
 voke him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions." 
 Now, that this is not a created angel, is obvious from that 
 l^hrase ; and never, at any age of the church that has ever 
 given a sort of subordinate religious service to angels, did 
 it ever attribute to an angel the prerogative of pardoning 
 sin. And the very fact, therefore, that this Messenger is 
 gifted to such an extent, implies that he was not a created 
 angel, but that he was the Angel of Plis presence, of whom 
 Hosea says, " The Angel of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts is 
 his name." 1 have no doubt, therefore, that this was our 
 blessed Redeemer, in one of those forms of humanity which 
 he took, and in Avhich he appeared before his Incarnation, 
 eighteen hundred years ago. And this Angel, or Messen- 
 ger, appeared in the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar 
 of fire by night, by which the people were guided in their 
 way. 
 
 We thus see, then, how merciful, how just, how wise 
 these laws are ; we see that civilized nations have not yet 
 got beyond them, and that some of our highest judicial 
 arrangements are but copies or jilagiarisms from what Infi- 
 delity would call the obsolete and antiquated notions of 
 Moses and of the Jews. It has been discovered that all 
 our improvments have not yet reached further than Leviti- 
 cus, and perhaps they never will. 
 
 Whilst there is much that was local, national, and pecu- 
 liar, there is in all this much that is moral and universal ; 
 as advantageous to man, as it is honorable and glorious to 
 God. 
 
 The nineteenth century is not yet in advance of the 
 Christianity of the New T(;stament. It is, in many re- 
 spects, behind the morality of the Old. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HOSES GOES rr TO GOD. VALUE OF A WRITTEN WORD. RE- 
 SPONSIBILITY. THE SIGHT OF GOD. OUR PRIVILEGED PLACE. 
 
 Is tlie first verse we find a summons addressed to Moses, 
 who was figuratively tlie type of tlie only Mediator, Jesus 
 Christ, to come up into the immediate presence of Jehovah; 
 an access so near and intimate as had never been vouch- 
 safed to any creature before, and this special communion 
 was given to him rather from his official relationship than 
 from his personal character. He said that Aaron, Nadab, 
 and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel, were to wor- 
 shij) afar olf — evidently upon the mountain side, about its 
 middle, and not near its top, or the intenser apocalypse of 
 Deity — Moses alone was to go up to its loftiest crag, as 
 invited, and there hold connnunion and fellowship with the 
 Great "I Am." 
 
 Forthwith Moses told the people the solemn message he 
 liad rcci'ived from God, and all the judgments which he 
 read to the people, and submitted to their minds for their 
 pn-lerence and acceptance ; and all the people pledged 
 thrmsi'lves to their observance by a solemn and unanimous 
 ])nM-lamati()n — "All the; words which tlu' Lord hath said 
 will we do." They were sincere, but too self-sulhcient — 
 tlx-y did not expect that .^o soon these solemn vows, uttered 
 with siicii ein|)haHs, would be forgotten and violated. Some 
 vowed in their own >trength, some vowed rasldy, and some 
 without thought. Others, however, strong in that strength 
 
EXODUS XXIV. 185 
 
 which is made perfect in weakness, pledged themselves to 
 an observance that was as much their privilege and duty, 
 as it was glorious and honorable to God. 
 
 We read that " Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, 
 and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar." 
 How important is it now to us that what God revealed 
 should be written. The great experiment was tried from 
 the Creation to the Deluge, whether traditional transmission 
 of God's truth would prove adequate ; and the result of that 
 traditional transmission in the lapse of two thousand years, 
 was that all flesh had corrupted its way, and that, with the 
 exception of eight persons, a universal apostasy had spread 
 over all the earth, and infected all families. Now, there- 
 fore, God commanded his Word not to be intrusted to fail- 
 ing memories, and to frail hearts, for its transmission, but to 
 be written, made a stereotype, a fixture, upon living stone, 
 that the people might, in all generations, have access to 
 God's own Word, written in God's own Avay, and free to 
 them, and to all their children, without money and without 
 price, for ever. 
 
 Moses builded twelve pillars and an altar — twelve pil- 
 lars to represent the twelve tribes, and the altar as a place 
 of sacrifice, indicating that by sacrifice alone, in that dispen- 
 sation, there was access to God. 
 
 We are told, that " he sent young men of the children of 
 Israel, which offered burnt-offerings, and sacrificed peace- 
 offerings of oxen unto the Lord." The order of the Levit- 
 ical priesthood w^as not yet instituted, and hence the first- 
 born of each family, being regarded as the most excellent 
 in that family, was selected to be the officiating priest, and 
 to offer sacrifices to God ; and, therefore, he sent young 
 men — the first-born — of the children of Israel, to ofier up 
 these burnt-offerings. 
 
 The sacrifice was slain, and the blood was shed, in order 
 to enable the people, in a yet more solemn manner, to ratify 
 IG* 
 
186 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 by sacrifice the promise they had given, in so many words. 
 And when they had thus ratified the pledge by sacrifice, 
 they substantially said, "As the blood of this lamb is shed 
 ancl poured out on the altar, so may we suffer death, with all 
 its con.>e([uences, if we do not cleave to these solemn obliga- 
 tions that Ave have undertaken, from the mouth of Moses, 
 the servant of God, this day." It was, therefore, a very 
 solemn pledge of adhesion to the commandments which God 
 had promulgated, and a unanimous declaration that they 
 were not ashamed to own themselves the Lord's. 
 
 " Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, 
 and seventy of the elders of Israel " — Moses the nearest to 
 the top — and the others to remain at the middle of the 
 mountain. 
 
 And what an instance have we, in Nadab and Abihu, of 
 great privilege to-day being followed by great sin and heavy 
 judgment to-morrow. Only a short time afterwards, Nadab 
 and Abihu both incurred the penalty of death for offering 
 strange fire ; as if to teach us that people may enjoy the 
 utmost privilege, may be raised to heaven by their privi- 
 leges, and may yet sink to the depths of ruin by their sins. 
 Justly does our Lord say, that it shall be more tolerable for 
 Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for 
 such — and that if Tyre and Sidon had known those things 
 that Chorazin and Bethsaida knew, they would have re- 
 pented long ago in sackcloth and aslies. 
 
 We have here also a sublime and impressive portrait of 
 the glory of God. It is plain they did not see a human 
 shape when they saw the Deity ; but the pillar of cloud by 
 day, and the pillar of lire by night, revealed to them the 
 intensest splendor, and they themselves were brought nearer 
 into contact and communion with it. We are told by an 
 apostle, " God, whom no man hath seen or can see." The 
 human eye cannot see a spirit ; spirit may see spirit, but 
 flesh and blood cannot now see spiritual and eternal things. 
 
EXODUS XXIV. 187 
 
 It is, therefore, undoubtedly true, that God no man " hath 
 seen, or can see." What Moses thereibre saw, was, no 
 doubt, the awful splendor of the presence of God — the 
 glory that burned between the cherubims, the bright splen- 
 dor that shone in the majestic cloud that preceded them in 
 their journey, showing them the dangers and dilficulties by 
 which they were surrounded, called elsewhere the Shechi- 
 nah. They described the appearance by saying, " There 
 was under his feet as it were the paved work of a sapphire 
 stone " — that is, the color of the firmament — " and as it 
 were the body of heaven in 1ms clearness." 
 
 And then, it seems always to have been the impression 
 that to see God was to cease to live, and that death was the 
 necessary result of a near and intimate sight of Deity. And 
 this accounts for the language, "And upon the nobles " — 
 that is, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy 
 elders, the persons that were specially favored — " God hud 
 not his hand " — that is, he did not destroy them — " also 
 they saw God, and did eat and drink " — these words imply- 
 ing that this bright vision did not overwhelm them, that it 
 did not prevent them from engaging in the ordinary duties, 
 employments, and enjoyments of life, and that they acted 
 and felt as men in the presence of the Lord God of Hosts. 
 True religion does not interrupt life's lowliest duties. 
 
 Moses then, at the command of God, went up closer and 
 nearer to His presence, commanding the elders to tarry there 
 until he should come again, and leaving Aaron and Hur, as 
 bis representatives among the people, in case of any dispute 
 or quarrel breaking out amongst them, that thus there n:iight 
 be present persons competent to entertain and settle it. 
 
 AVe then read that " the glory of the Lord abode upon 
 Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days ; and the 
 seventh day" — that is, on the Sabbath — "he called unto 
 Moses out of the midst of the cloud." And Moses, we are 
 told, was forty days and forty nights in the 3Iount. 
 
188 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 How thankful slioukl we be, that the God revealed in the 
 Gospel is not the inapproachable glory, the consuming fire, 
 but our Father. How thankful should we be that no indi- 
 vidual upon earth — the loftiest prince or the highest priest 
 — has any precedence in his approach to God : the humblest 
 Christian has as free a right of access to God as the greatest 
 and most illustrious in the land. It is true of all, it is writ- 
 ten for all, " Let us come boldly to the throne of grace ; that 
 we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in the time 
 of need." And let us praise God that we are not come to 
 Mount Sinai, and to the black^iess of darkness, and tempest, 
 and the voice of words so terrible that Moses said, " I ex- 
 ceedingly fear and quake," and if a beast should touch the 
 mountain, it was to be destroyed ; but we are come to a 
 brighter and happier dispensation — we are come to Mount 
 Zion, unto the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem, to an innumerable company of angels, and the spirits 
 of just men made perfect, and unto Jesus the Mediator of 
 the new Covenant, whose blood speaketh better things than 
 the blood of Abeh 
 
CHAPTEE, XXV. 
 
 THE TABERXACLE. ITS USE AXD DESIGN. ITS MIXCTI.E NOT 
 MEANINGLESS. ANALOGIES. PLACES OF WOIISIIIP. ECCLESI- 
 ASTICAL POLITICS. EXCLUSIVENESS. 
 
 The following is an instructive account of the Taber- 
 nacle : — 
 
 " As we enter in the present chapter upon the directions 
 given to Moses for the erection and furnishing of the sacred 
 structure called the Tabernacle, it will be proper to dwell a 
 little in the outset upon the grand design of an edifice so 
 remarkable in itself, and holding so prominent a place in the 
 Mosaic economy. The Tabernacle was, in fact, the central 
 object in tlie Jewish system of worship, and without a tole- 
 rably correct idea of its form, uses, and ends, our view of 
 the genius and scope of the Hebrew ritual will be essentially- 
 defective. It may perhaps be admitted, that as some of 
 these ends were of typical import, pointing forward to a 
 period of the Christian dispensation which has not yet been 
 fully developed, we may not be able to unfold, in all its ful- 
 ness, in the present state of our knowledge, the entire reach 
 of meaning w^hich in the divine mind was couched under 
 this significant structure, and its successor the Temple. Yet 
 with the lights reflected upon it from the expositions of the 
 New Testament and the predictions of tlie Old, we may 
 doubtless attain to an interesting and edifying insight into its 
 leading drift. AVe are persuaded that it is a study fraught 
 with the most imi)ortant practical results, and though gene- 
 rally considered, like the other symbolical portions of the 
 
190 SCRIPTURE READINGS. ^ 
 
 Scriptures, as constituting a field of mere curious, flxnciful, 
 and speculative research, yet we cannot question that this 
 opinion will be erelong entirely reversed by a deeper rever- 
 ence for every part of revelation subordinating to itself the 
 irrepressible s[)irit of inquiry which is pervading every de- 
 partment of knowledge, whether scientific or sacred, natural 
 or supernatural. The book of revelation, like the book of 
 nature, is designed to be of gradual development ; and we 
 know not wdiy it is not as reasonable to look for the opening 
 of new mines of scriptural wealth as of new mineral trea- 
 sures, that have been imbedded for ages in the bowels of the 
 earth. — But to the point which we have more immediately 
 in hand. 
 
 " The opinion has been widely entertained, that in the 
 early ages of the world, under the impression of the grand 
 truth that ' God is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
 worship him in spirit and in truth,' — that this divine spirit 
 filled all things, and was equally present in all parts of his 
 creation — men had no sacred places, but worshipped God 
 wherever and whenever their hearts were drawn forth to- 
 wards him in veneration, gratitude, or love. To the sound- 
 ness of this opinion thus broadly expressed, we are disposed 
 to object, on the same grounds on which we object to the 
 theory that makes the primitive state of man a savage state. 
 It is not, we conceive, in accordance ivkh the recorded facts of 
 inspired history. We cannot but conclude, from tlie tenor 
 of the sacred narrative, that from the creation of Adam to 
 the ])resent time, God has dealt with man by way of express 
 revelation. The infancy of the race was cradled in the midst 
 of supernatural disclosures, and the light of the divine mani- 
 festations continued to shine with brighter or dimmer beams 
 upon its advancing youth and manhood, up to the riper age 
 which it lias now attained. With the record of Genesis 
 before us, we cannot ((nest ion tliat Jehovah manifested him- 
 self between the clierubims at the east of the garden of 
 
EXODUS XXV. 191 
 
 Eden, and that this earliest exhibition of the vShecliinali waa 
 the appointed place of worship for Adam and his family, 
 the place to which Cain and Abel hromjlit their oblations, 
 and the place from which Cain, after the murder of his 
 brother, retired in miserable exile, when he is said to have 
 fled from the presence of the Lord. True it is, tliat tlic 
 major part of the race lapsed, by a very early defcctipn, 
 into the grossest idolatry, and the visible symbols of the 
 divine presence, if enjoyed at all, were confined to a select 
 few ; but we know not that w'e are warranted in the belief 
 that the knowledge of the true God, or of the right mode of 
 worshipping him, has at any time become entirely extinct 
 on earth. As a matter, however, of historical fact, it is 
 unquestionable that most of the early nations of the world, 
 under the promptings of a religious principle, rendered their 
 worship, such as it was, in a vague and informal manner, 
 without temple or ritual, to the invisible Deity in whom they 
 were taught to believe. It was not unnatural that in these 
 circumstances they should have selected the tops of moun- 
 tains and the shades of groves as the seat of their worship, 
 and there fixed their altars for sacrifice. But in process of 
 time, as men sank deeper and deeper into idolatry, the prac- 
 tice of worshipping on high places and in groves became 
 associated with so many vile abominations, that it was utterly 
 forbidden to the Israelites, to whom God was pleased to pre- 
 scribe a localized worship, first within the precincts of a 
 Tabernacle, and afterwards of a Temple. The Tabernacle 
 was little else than a portable temple ; as no other kind of 
 structure would have suited the earlier circumstances of 
 the chosen race. A nomade people would of course have a 
 movable temple ; and, among a tent dwelling people, tiiat 
 temple would naturally be a tent or a portable fabric of 
 wood. An immovable temple could only be expected to be 
 found among a settled race; and when a moving peoi)Ie 
 become settled, and exchange their tents for houses, in like 
 
192 SCRirXUKE READINGS. 
 
 manner their movable tabernacles become fixed temples. 
 'See now,' said David, 'I dwell in a house of cedar, but the 
 ark of God dwelleth between curtains.' He therefore pro- 
 posed that the house of God should be no longer a tent, but 
 a fabric of stone, in accordance with the altered circum- 
 stances of the people. But until the Israelites were settled 
 in #(e land of promise, their sacred edifice, if they had one, 
 must necessarily be such as they could easily take to pieces 
 and transfer from place to place. The object of such a 
 building was not, like that of our churches, as a place of 
 shelter for the assembled worshippers, for the worshippers 
 assembled not in the temples, but in the courts before or 
 around them ; nor yet as places for offering sacrifices, for 
 the sacrifices were also offered in the courts. Its true de- 
 sign was as a mansion of the Deity, a dwelling-place for the 
 divine presence. This Avas especially and preeminently the 
 object of the Jewish Tabernacle. It was intended as a 
 habitation of the visible symbol of Jehovah, or the Shech- 
 inah, as the God and King of the chosen people, who, as we 
 have seen above, is emphatically designated ' the God of 
 Israel.' 
 
 " In ordering the construction of such a building, we may 
 admit tliat there was an accommodation to ideas then very 
 universally prevalent, and which from their residence in 
 Egypt had become familiar to the minds of the Israelites. 
 Tlie Egyptians and other heathen nations boasted of the 
 presence of tlieir gods among them in their temples and 
 tabernacle^ ; and as God had been pleased from the earliest 
 periods to reveal himself to the patriarchs by visible mani- 
 festation, it was not unnatural that he should at length con- 
 fer u})on his people the permanent tokens of a peculiar local 
 presence in some such striking and glorious symbol as that 
 of the Shechinah. AVilh this view he directed the Taberna- 
 cle to be erected as a suitable abode for his visible majesty. 
 As such, it possessed the twofold character of a Sanctuary, 
 
EXODUS XXV. 193 
 
 or holy place, a place of worship ; and of a Royal Palace ; 
 where lie would keep the state of a court, as suprcnu' civil 
 magistrate and king of Israel; from whence he would issue 
 his laws and commandments as from an oracle, and where 
 he was to receive the homage and tribute of his subjects. 
 This idea of the Tabernacle, as in part that of a palace for 
 a king, will seem perfectly clear to every one who carefully 
 notes the terms in which this building, and also the Temple, 
 are spoken of and referred to throughout the Scriptures; 
 and we doubt not it is a view essential to the right under- 
 standing of these structures and the things which belonged 
 to them. It is a view also which is held by the Jews them- 
 selves, who carry out the analogy, and regard the utensils 
 of the Tabernacle as palace furniture, and the priests as its 
 ministers of state and olHcers. Take, for instance, the fol- 
 lowing comment of Rab. Shem Tob on Maimonides, as cited 
 by Outrani on Sacrifices, Diss. I. § 3. ' God, to whom be 
 praise, commanded a house to be built for him resembling a 
 royal palace. In a royal palace are to be found all the 
 things that we have mentioned. There are some persons 
 who guard the palace ; others who execute ollices belonging 
 to the royal dignity, who furnish the banquets, and do other 
 necessary services for the monarch ; others who daily enter- 
 tain him with music, both vocal and instrumental. In a 
 royal palace there is a place appointed for the preparation 
 of victuals, and another [nearer the Presence] where per- 
 fumes are burned. In the palace of a king there is also a 
 table, and an apartment exclusively appropriated to him- 
 self, which no one ever enters, except him who is next in 
 authority, or those whom he regards with the greatest 
 affection. In hke manner it was the will of God to have all 
 these in his house, that he might not in any thing give i)lace 
 to the kings of the earth. For he is a great king, not 
 indeed in want of these things : but hence it is easy to see 
 the reason of the daily provisions given to the priests and 
 17 
 
194 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Levites, being ^vhat every monarch is accustomed to allow 
 his servants. And all these things were intended to instruct 
 the people that the Lord of Hosts was present among us, 
 < For he is a great king, and to be feared by all the nations.' 
 These analogies will be the more apparent when it is re- 
 membered, that the comparisons are to be referred to an 
 Oriental rather than a European palace.' 
 
 " We do not, however, consider it sufficient to regard such 
 a view of the Tabernacle as founded solely upon the usages 
 of royalty as then existing. We are satisfied that its typical 
 design is necessary to account for those features which it 
 possessed in common with the palaces of kings. The Glory 
 that dwelt both in the Tabernacle and the Temple was pre- 
 intimative of the even yet future manifested glory of Christ, 
 to Avhich the ' earnest expectation of the creature ' has been 
 long looking forward, and of which the incipient dawnings 
 begin now faintly to appear. The import of the ancient 
 visible Shechinah and its material habitation has never yet 
 been realized as it is destined to be in the latter day on 
 earth ; nor do we conceive it possible to gain a full and ade- 
 quate idea of the Idngly features of this typical establish- 
 ment without looking forward to the time when the Saviour, 
 combining sacerdotal sanctity with royal dignity, shall sit 'a 
 pi'iest upon his throne,^ in the earthly Zion, in accordance 
 Avith the entire drift of the Old Testament prophecies. 
 This is the state to which the anticipations of all Christians 
 arc realhj directed — a state which is to be ultimately 
 evolved out of the present by a stupendous order of changes, 
 moral, political, and physical. The New Jerusalem of the 
 Apocalypse is the grand object of the Christian's hope ; and 
 it is in that glorious dispensation, the theatre of which is 
 the earth tiiat we now iniiabit, that we are to look for the 
 substantial realities so strikingly figured in the ritual appara- 
 tus of the old economy. It is the state constituted by the 
 fmal development of the Kingdom of Heaven out of the 
 
EXODUS XXV. 195 
 
 regenerated and transferred dominions and dynasties of the 
 earth, over wliich Jesus Christ is to reign in i^isible majesty^ 
 liis redeemed peoph3 being made, in some way at present 
 inscrutable to us, to share with him in tlie beatitudi's and 
 glories of his eternal kingship. It is in that dispensation, 
 or perhaps we may say, in that stage of this disi)ensati()ii, 
 that the things mystically foreshown by the Tabernacle 
 structure and tlie Tabernacle furniture will be made real. 
 It will then appear how admirably adapted it was in its two- 
 fold character of Sanctuary and Palace to correspond with 
 the twofold functions of Christ as Priest and King. But 
 the further unfolding of this view of the subject would carry 
 us imperceptibly into the region of prophetic exposition, 
 wliich our present plan does not embrace. 
 
 "The detailed and minute account which we propose to 
 give of every part of the Tabernacle may be })refaced with 
 the following general description, for the most part in the 
 words of the Editor of the Pictorial Bible. First there was 
 the area or court in which the Tabernacle stood. This was 
 of an oblong figure of a hundred cubits (about one hundred 
 and fifty feet) long, by fifty cubits (al)out seventy-five feet) 
 broad; and the height of the inclosing curtain was five 
 cubits, or nearly three yards, being half the height of the 
 Tabernacle. The inclosure was formed by a plain hanging 
 of fine twined linen yarn, wliich S(?ems to have been worked 
 in an open or network texture, so that the i)eople with- 
 out might freely see the interior. The door curtain was, 
 however, of a different texture from the general hanging, 
 being a great curtain of Mine twined linen,' embroidered 
 with blue, purple, and scarlet. It is i)reseril)ed in jireeisely 
 the same terms as the door curtain of the Tabernaele itself, 
 which was not, as commonly stated, of the same fabric willi 
 the inner covering of the Tabernacle, and the veil before 
 the holy of holies; for in the description of the two door 
 curtains there is no mention of the figures of cherubim and 
 
19G SCKirTURE HEADINGS. 
 
 the fancy work ('cunning work') which decorated the inner 
 covering and vail. The door curtain of the court was 
 furnished with cords, by which it might be drawn up or 
 aside when the priests had occasion to enter. The curtains 
 of this inclosure were hung upon sixty pillars of brass, 
 standing on bases of the same metal, but with capitals and 
 fillets of silver. (Compare the description in this chapter 
 with that in chapter xxxviii.) Tlie hooks, also, to which 
 the curtains were attached, were of silver. The entrance 
 of tlie court was at the east end, opposite that to the Taber- 
 nacle ; and between them stood the altar of burnt-offering, 
 but nearer to the door of the Tabernacle than to that of the 
 court. It is uncertain whether the brazen laver was inter- 
 posed between the altar and the door of the Tabernacle or 
 not. Chapter xxx. 18, certainly conveys that impression; 
 but the Rabbins, Avho appear to have felt that nothing could 
 properly interpose between the altar and Tabernacle, say 
 tliat the laver was indeed nearer to the Tabernacle than 
 was tlie altar, but still that it did not stand in the same line 
 with the altar, but stood a little on one side to the south. 
 A§ to the position of the Tabernacle in the court, nothing is 
 said in the Scriptures on the subject, but it seems less proba- 
 ble that it stoofd in the centre than that it was placed toward 
 the further or western extremity, so as to allow 'greater 
 space for the services which were to be performed exclu- 
 sively in front of tlie Tabernacle. 
 
 " Tlie fabric ])roperly called the Tabernacle having mov- 
 able walls of board, was of a more substantial character than 
 a tent; but it isright to regard it as a tent, its general ap- 
 pearance and ariangement being the same, and its more sub- 
 stantial fabric being probably on account of the weight of its 
 several envelopes, which required stronger supports than are 
 usually necessary. It was of nn oblong figure, fifty-five feet 
 in length, by eighteen feet in breadth and height. Its length 
 extended from east to west, the entrance being at the east 
 
EXODUS XXV. 197 
 
 end. The two sides and west end consisted of a framework 
 of boards, of which there were twenty on each side and 
 eight at the west end. The manner in which these boards 
 were joined to each other, so as to Ibrin a wall wldch might 
 be easily taken down and set up again, may be illustrated in 
 some degree by a reference to the window-shutters of au ex- 
 tensive shop ; but the boards of the Tabernacle did not slide 
 in grooves, but each was furnished at the bottom with two 
 tenons, which were received into sockets in the bases of solid 
 silver; and to give the whole greater securit}^, the boards 
 were furnished each with live rings or staples of gold, by 
 means of which they were successively run up to their 
 proper places on horizontal poles or bai-s, which served as 
 the ribs of the fabric, binding its parts together. The 
 boards as well as the bars were of shittim wood, overlaid 
 with thin plates of gold. The east end, being the entrance, 
 had no boaids, but was furnished with five pillars of shittim 
 wood overlaid with gold, and each standing on a socket of 
 brass. Four similar pillars within the Tabernacle, towards 
 the west or further end, supi)orted a rich hanging, which 
 divided the interior into two a{)artments, of which the outer 
 was called ' the holy place,' and the innermo.-t and smallest 
 was 'the most holy place,' or the 'Holy of Holies,' in which 
 the presence of the Lord was more immediately manifested. 
 The separating hanging was called by way of eminence, 
 * the vail ;' and hence the expression ' within ' or ' witliout 
 the vail ' is sometimes used to distinguish the most holy 
 from the holy place. The people were never admitted into 
 the interior of the Tabernacle. None but the priests might 
 go even into the outer chamber or holy place, and into the 
 inner chamber the high-priest alone was allowed to enter, and 
 that only once in the year, on the great day of atonj-ment. 
 To this, however, there was a necessary exception when the 
 Tabernacle was to be taken down or set up. The outer 
 chamber was only entered in the morning to ofler incense 
 17* 
 
198 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 on the altar which stood there, and to extinguish the lamps, 
 and again in the evening to light them. On tlie Sabbath 
 also the old shewbread was taken away and replaced with 
 new. These were all the services for which the attendance 
 of the priests was necessary Avithin the Tabernacle, all the 
 sacrifices being made in the open space in front of the 
 Tabernacle, where stood the brazen altar for burnt offerings. 
 It will be useful to observe, that the most holy place con- 
 tained only the ark with its contents ; but the outer apart- 
 ment contained the altar of incense, the table of shewbread, 
 and the great golden candlestick ; while the open area in 
 front of the Tabernacle contained the brazen laver for the 
 ablutions of the priests, and the brazen altar for burnt oiier- 
 ings. 
 
 " This description will give an idea of the general arrange- 
 ment and substantial structure of the Tabernacle ; and we 
 may proceed to notice the various curtains which w-ere 
 thrown over and formed the outer coverings of the tent. 
 The first or inner covering was of fine linen, splendidly 
 embroidered with figures of chei'ubim and fancy work in 
 scarlet, purple, and light blue. It is described in the same 
 terms as the vail of tlie ' holy of holies,' and was doubtless 
 of the same texture and appearance with the vail, which, 
 according to Josephus, was embroidered with all sorts of 
 flowers, and interwoven with various ornamented figures, 
 excepting the forms of animals. Over this inner covering 
 was anollier, made of goats' hair, which was spun by the 
 women of the camp. Cloth, made of goats' hair, forms the 
 customary coverings for the tents of the Bedouin Arabs to 
 this day, and it still continues to be spun and woven at home 
 by the women. Over this covering was another of ranis' 
 skins dyed red, and over that the fourth and outermost 
 covering of taliash skins. These curtains, after covering, 
 or rather ibrming, the roof, hung down by the sides and 
 west end of the Tabernacle, those that were outside being 
 
EXODUS XXV. 109 
 
 calculated to protect the more costly ones within, wliilc the 
 whole combined to render tlie Tabernacle impervious to tlic 
 rain, and safe from the injuries of the wcatiier." 
 
 If one were to read this chapter after a perusal of tl»c 
 sublime and impressive descri[)tions of the worship of (Jod 
 in the New Testament, and were to suppose that it had no 
 ultimate reference to any thing beyond it, but tliat it was 
 simply an architectural plan, laid down by God, and carried 
 out by Moses, he might infer that the God so gloriously re- 
 vealed in the New Testament cannot be the same God who 
 descends to communicate such seemingly mere jjaltry details 
 as these. But all the difficulty is at once removed, when we 
 recollect that every thing recorded here is to be explained, 
 not in its own light, but in the light that is cast upon it from 
 the dispensation that now is, and still more, as I shall show 
 in the course of my sermon, from that bright and jjcrlect 
 dispensation that is yet to be. The truth is, that every jot 
 and tittle of it foreshadows and typifies the grand and beau- 
 ful reality that comes nearer and nearer within the horizon 
 every day, the first beams of which begin to glinnner al- 
 ready in the distance. 
 
 We therefore regard this as worthy of God, not in its 
 absolute state, but simply because it is part and parcel of a 
 great, a glorious, and future reality. 
 
 When you look at a complicated machine — as, for in- 
 stance, at a railway locomotive engine, — there are parts of 
 it that seem to be utterly worthless in themselves ; the pin 
 in the axle seems a very worthless thing, but if that pin 
 were to drop out, the machinery would all go wrong, and 
 human lives be sacriliccd. And so it is here; there are 
 instructions about bowls, and branches, and ahnonils, and 
 flowers, and knops, that seem very trifling, but when seen, 
 as we shall yet see them, in connection with a bright and 
 perfect glory that is to be, and as part and parcel of a 
 grand scheme, a sublime plan, progressively developed, then 
 
200 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the minutest detail will appear instinct with meaning, and 
 the most insignificant instruction indicate by its reference, 
 its beauty, and its place. And if there should be some 
 among these elaborate arrangements that we cannot now see 
 the meaning of, and if there be some instructions that we 
 cannot perceive to have a special, definite, and direct appli- 
 cation, yet it is no reason for saying that they are puerile, 
 much less for calHng them useless. Are there not many 
 things in creation that Ave cannot understand the why and 
 the wherefore of? Are there not many things that are to 
 us inexplicable in the habits of the minutest insect, in the 
 existence and organization of the birds of the air, the fishes 
 of the deep, and the cattle on a thousand hills ? There are 
 facts and phenomena that the naturalist has not yet compre- 
 hended, that man has not been able to explain the ultimate 
 object and the ultimate bearing of. The geologist, wdio 
 goes down into the earth to study its pages, finds things that 
 he cannot explain, but he does not say, " These things are 
 worthless, because I cannot explain them ; " he lays them 
 aside in his cabinet, as beyond his present limited expe- 
 rience, perfectly satisfied that every thing that is has its 
 meaning, and that God never made the least creature or the 
 greatest without some ultimate design of beneficence. 
 Accept the whole of the Bible as God's book, and then you 
 easily accept every thing in it as God's inspiration. And 
 it seems to me that the humble way, and the Christian way, 
 is to say. This part I do see the moaning of, and this part I 
 do not at pix'sent understand; but I am (juite satisfied that 
 what 1 do not understand now 1 shall understand hereafter. 
 We are living in a dark and hazy twilight. The fact is, we 
 are much less creatures than we think ourselves; there is 
 far more reason for humility than there is for pride or pre- 
 sumption, and it is the far more reverent and becoming way 
 to study all that God has revealed, and search out all its 
 meaning and its mystery, by the guidance of the Spirit, as 
 
EXODUS XXV. 201 
 
 far as we are able ; and when we meet witli tilings tliat defy 
 inspection — either too minute for us to inspect, or too m:i«'- 
 nificent for us to comprehend — let us not say, "Theses are 
 useless and unworthy ; " but let us be sure and let us feel 
 that they have a meaning, though we cannot now under- 
 stand it. It is not that they are dark, but that we are 
 ignorant. 
 
 In the erection of tliis Tabernacle God seems almost, for 
 the first time, to localize a place for his own peculiar and 
 sj^iritual worship on the earth. "We do not read, before this, 
 of temples and sanctuaries built by the express arrangement 
 of God for his own worship. The only intimation, if such 
 it be, is the place of the cherubim at the gates of Paradise; 
 it is supposed that those flaming cherubim at the gates of 
 Paradise, that fenced off every application to enter, till the 
 great atonement was made, and the true Paradise was 
 opened, w^ere associated with those described in this chap- 
 ter ; and that when Abel went to present his sacrifice to the 
 Lord, he went into the symbolic presence of the Lord — 
 that is, into the glory that shone between these cherubim, 
 and at that spot, and in that light, he offered up a sacriHce, 
 which was acceptable unto God; and as if to explain the 
 justice of this supposition, it says, " Cain went Ibrth from 
 the presence of the Lord" — as if God was visibly present, 
 by the token of the Divine majesty, in the splendor of 
 which the ancient sacrifices were offered up to God. After 
 that, we find that Abraham's tent was his temple, his sanc- 
 tuary, and his church ; wherever he pitched his tent, we arc 
 told, there he erected his altar. I say that the worsiiip of 
 God was acceptable, in the patriarchal dispensation, every- 
 where — it was the worship that consecrated the place, 
 not the place that could make the worship acceptable to 
 God. 
 
 But, on this occasion, we find God selecting as it were a 
 portion of the earth, and, if I may use the expression, spe- 
 
202 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 cially consecrating it for worship, and as a place where he 
 would reign as a king, speak as a prophet, receive sacrifices, 
 and give directions for the management of that theocracy 
 which commenced in the desert, and ended when the glory 
 departed from Israel. And this so far warrants us in that 
 great inference, that there should be places set apart for the 
 public worship of God everywhere ; we find that we are so 
 much the creatures of time, of circumstance, of place, that 
 without some spot on which to assemble together to worship, 
 worship would cease to be practised altogether. And as a 
 matter of common experience, it has been proved that, while 
 it is possible, on the one side, to hold that worship in a sanc- 
 tuary or a cathedral alone is acceptable worship, it is just as 
 possible to trample it in pieces, and tread it underfoot, and 
 to think that there is no use for it at alh It is quite true 
 that there is nothing in a place that a presbyter can appoint, 
 or that a bishop can consecrate, or that priests can bless, 
 that will make a bad man's prayers, presented from a bad 
 heart, acceptable to God ; and there is nothing in the bleak- 
 est desert of Africa, nothing on the bosom of the deep, 
 nothing in the midst of conflict, to prevent a good man's 
 prayers, presented in the name of Jesus for mercy and for- 
 giveness, finding acceptance before the Hearer of prayer. It 
 is now strikingly true, " Neither on this mount nor on that 
 shall ye worship ; but God is a Spirit, and they that worship 
 him must worship him in spirit and in truth, lor such he 
 seeketh to worship him." 
 
 And therefore it does aj^pear to me, that the custom that 
 prevails on the continent of Europe, of keeping the church 
 doors — meaning by the church, the sacred edifices — open 
 all the day, that people may go in there and worship, is 
 calculated to do more mischief than good. It is inculcating 
 the notion, that prayer can only be accepted near the altar, 
 or on the tesselated pavement, or the consecrated floor ; and 
 it also tends to do away willi that far more beautiful, far 
 
EXODUS XXV. 20.3 
 
 more precious tiling, family worship, nioruing aii«l evcnin^r, 
 in your own drasving-rooni, or hall, or dining-room, or 
 wherever you may have it ; it tends to lead you to think 
 that the house in which you live is a profane place, and so 
 fit for profane acts only, and that the consecrated space 
 within four walls is the only holy place ; whereas, wiien 
 Jesus allied to himself the dust of the world, he consecrated 
 it all for his temple ; and in his own beautiful words, 
 " Wheresoever two or three are met in my name," — where- 
 soever, it must be somewhere, but it may be upon the hill- 
 side, it may be in the streets, it may be in the uj)per room — 
 " wheresoever two or three are met together in my name, 
 there am I in the midst of them " — there is a true church 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. lie is the Great Sanctuary, the 
 only consecrated place : in him we are to pray, and prayer 
 in him is always acceptable to God. AVhy was prayer and 
 sacrifice specially acceptable in tabernacles and in temples 
 of old ? Because they were types and shadows of Christ, 
 the true Temple. Hence Jesus said, " Destroy this temi)le," 
 or tabernacle, " and in three days I will raise it again. This 
 spake he of his body." As the ancient Jew, in the days of 
 Daniel, opened his window, and looked towards Jerusalem 
 when he prayed ; so the modern Jew, or the true Ciiristian 
 — for circumcision is not that of the flesh but of the spirit — 
 is now, when he prays, not to open his wijulow, and look to- 
 wards Rome, or Constantinople, or Jerusalem ; nor is he to 
 look for a consecrated place, or a holy place to kneel in, or 
 a holy altar to bow before ; but he is to turn his heart to- 
 wards Christ, who is the Great Chancel of the universe, and 
 to feel perfectly assured that prayer, in that name, with a 
 heart looking to Ilim, rises in acceptance before the Lord 
 God of Hosts. 
 
 You will notice in this chapter, that the people were to be 
 asked to give what would build the temple. Wc havi- h.re 
 an instance of what our dissenting brethren would call the 
 
204 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Voluntary system ; but we must, however, recollect not to 
 shut our eyes to an instance that Churchmen would also 
 quote in favor of the Establishment principle. The fact is, 
 you will find both in the Bible ; and it is in the combination 
 of both that the greatest good can be done. The fact that 
 there may exist the one — or a provision for religion by the 
 State — is no reason why we should be slack, on the other 
 hand, in contributing to what is right, and beneficent and 
 wise. Here, then, however, God orders the children of 
 Israel to bring an offering, " of every man that giveth it 
 ivilUngly with his heart." Such contribution is not to be 
 put on by the Church rulers, as a tax that you are to be 
 compelled to pay ; it is not to be an inspection of your rent- 
 roll, or an examination of your income, and afterwards as- 
 signing you to give so much towards helping the Church, or 
 to maintain the Church, or for any other religious purpose — 
 that is neither the Voluntary system nor the Establishment 
 sj'stem ; but such a combination of the worthlessness that 
 may adhere to the one, and of all the wickedness that may 
 grow up in the other, that it ought to be repudiated by every- 
 body. "Whatever you give for the cause of Christ, you are 
 to do it under a sense of responsibility to God only ; and 
 you are to give whatever you give willingly with your heart 
 — not by constraint, not by compulsion from Pope, Prelate, 
 or Presbyter. 
 
 We have here also a list of the ornaments to be used in the 
 sacred fabric. It would take a long time to explain the blue, 
 and the purple, and the scarlet, and the onyx stone, and the 
 rings, and the knops, and the branches — what they were 
 and whence they came. There were reasons for them. 
 
 You will notice, however, that every thing that was done 
 was to be done minutely, after a pattern tliat was shown to 
 Moses — it was to be done minutely — there was a heavenly 
 pattern. Now people say that there is a certain proof of 
 which is the right church. One says, that the only true 
 
EXODUS XXV. 205 
 
 church is an Episcopal Church ; and some of our fallicrs in 
 Scotland went quite as far in their day as Tractarians in 
 ours — they went as far as any Pope ever did. Sonic of 
 them said tliat there was one church only, and tliat it was 
 the Presbyterian Church. And it is a very interesting fact, 
 and one which Tractarians would do well to consider, tliat in 
 the days of Hooker — the enlightened, the intellectual, and 
 the able advocate of Episcopacy, it was Travcrs the ]*res- 
 byter who said that there was no church except it was gov- 
 erned by the Presbytery. Hooker held and proved that 
 episcopacy was lawful. He admitted the validity of pres- 
 bytery. But he alleged episcopacy was not wrong. But 
 now the tables are turned, and some of the descendants of 
 Hooker assert that episcopacy alone is right, and the de- 
 scendants of Travers now have no sympathy with him. 
 
 But in the New Testament we have no description of the 
 church as graphic, as minute, as express, as this in Ex- 
 odus. It is worth while to notice the contrast. The ancient 
 temple had every pin, every stick, stave, candlestick, knop, 
 flower, snuffers, all minutely specified and described ; but 
 when we come to the New Testament, we lind the essentials 
 most definite, most exclusive, most unmistakable, but the 
 mere form, or the system, or the regime of the church, left 
 almost unnoticed and untouched. I defy any one to say 
 that Episcopacy, or Congregationalism, or Presbyterianism, 
 is the exclusive form of church polity laid down in tlie New 
 Testament. If the word " bishop " occurs, which it does, 
 it is the same as presbyter. For instance : Paul, writing 
 to Timothy, says, " If a man desire the ollice of a bishop, 
 he desireth a good work. A preshi/ter m\\<i ha blamele.'is." 
 And when the Apostle Paul went to Ephesiis, which was 
 only a small town, not the size probably of Bath, he found 
 no bishops in this town, in the modern sense, but he called 
 together tovq TrpeaiSv-epovg, \\\e presbyters. And he said to the 
 presbyters, " Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to 
 18 
 
206 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you 
 ETTiaKonovg, bishops ; it is in our translation oversee7's ; and I 
 think it is a pity it is so. It is said that James VI. had a 
 dislike, on this side of the Tweed, to the religion that he held 
 on the other side of the Tweed, and decided in England that 
 bishop and presbyter were not the same. In the last quoted 
 text the word was rendered, it is said at his request, " over- 
 seer." Those expressions used in the New Testament, such as 
 presbyter and deacon, then meant, I believe, very little more 
 than ministers, having congregational duties, and who were 
 to be teachers of the truth, and examples of godly living. 
 
 But in the worship of God there must be some arrange- 
 ment and some order; but the monstrous notion of an 
 exclusive ecclesiastical polity, as held by some in the present 
 day, has no foundation whatever in the Bible ; and, there- 
 fore, with great propriety, they go to certain fathers and 
 writers of the Nicene school, where they find what they 
 cannot discover in the New Testament Scriptures. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 KEASONS FOR MINUTE MECIIAXICAL SPECIFICATIONS. AX.VT.OOIES 
 BETWEEN god's WORK AND WORD. EPISTLE TO THE IIICIJUEWS. 
 THE VEIL. TUE HOLY OF HOLIES. 
 
 You will remember, that, in the course of a few remarks 
 upon the previous chapter — explained at greater Ien;;th in 
 the discourse I preached subsequent to it — I showed you 
 that all this was constructed after a pattern sliown to Moses 
 on the Mount ; and that we had there the symbol and indi- 
 cation of the relative spiritual bearing and importance of 
 this institution; that there can be no hesitation in conchid- 
 ing that it was prefigurative of a yet more glorious taberna- 
 cle to be pitched — a liouse not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens. It is in allusion to this tliat Jolin, in the 
 Apocalypse, records, " Behold, the tabernacle of Clod is 
 with men." Here, in the desert, it was the tabcrnach' of 
 man, wrought after the pattern shown by God; but in that 
 glorious world that is to be, the original itself is revealed, 
 the copy is for ever superseded, because unnecessary; and 
 there shall be no need of the light of the sun and of the 
 moon ; for the Lord God Almighty and the J.amb are the 
 light thereof. 
 
 I showed you what was the meaning and import of the 
 various arrangements of the Tabernacle, by referring to 
 that beautiful explanation of them — the Kpistle to the 
 Hebrews. If you were to look at thes«i minute details of 
 minute mechanical and architectural arrangements, and to 
 
208 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 see nothing beyond, it would seem that this chapter contains 
 prescriptions utterly unworthy of God, and altogether de- 
 rogatory to what we should suppose worthy of the glory of 
 the Great King, that he should lay down rules for " taches," 
 and for " couplings," and for " corners," and for " rings," 
 and all those minute and little details that seem to us in 
 themselves so contemptible — I say, seem to us contempti- 
 ble, for they really are not so. There is as much archi- 
 tectural skill displayed in the creation of a beetle or a bee, 
 as there is in the arrangement of one of the fixed stars ; and 
 there is as much of God's omnipresence, omniscience, and 
 beneficence revealed in minute things that the microscope 
 shows us, as there is displayed in the majestic and magnifi- 
 cent things that come within the sweep and range of the 
 telescope ; so that many have often doubted — as, indeed, 
 they may — whether the unseen world beneath us that art 
 enables us to detect, or the great and countless orbs that are 
 above us, tell most forcibly the greatness and the goodness 
 of Him that made them. And just as in the material world 
 there are great things and small things, all mingled to- 
 gether, yet each having its place, so it is here, where we see 
 great things spoken of — as in the twentieth chapter of this 
 book, where the Law was revealed, and here, where these 
 minute and mechanical details are arranged ; proving the 
 connection between God's made book, — the earth and uni- 
 verse, — and God's written or revealed book, — the Bible. 
 And, as I believe I noticed last Sunday, it does not follow 
 that because we cannot see the use of every arrangement 
 here, we are thereibre to conclude that it is useless. We 
 cannot dig twenty feet into the earth, we cannot look very 
 far into the skT, without finding ten thousand things that we 
 cannot tell the end, the object, and the reason of. The fact 
 is, we think ourselves much greater than we really are ; 
 and it is a lesson that we need to learn, to lean upon an 
 Omnipotence that we cannot comprehend, and to be thank- 
 
EXODUS xxvr. 209 
 
 ful for fin Omnipresent watclifiilncss wliicli wo can neither 
 trace nor detect, and that we do not deserve. Let us believe 
 that whatever God has made in the outer world has iU 
 meaning, its end, and its object, though we cannot see it ; 
 and that in tlie inner world — the Bible — everything — 
 the taches, rings, curtains, coverings — all have their mean- 
 ing, their end, and use, though we do not now understand it. 
 Man thinking, man saying that things are not right, because 
 he cannot comprehend them, is like a man denying the ex- 
 tent and magnificence of the firmament, because he cannot 
 meet it by a footrule in his hand ; and because he cannot 
 comprehend a thing, he thinks that it has no meaning, no 
 end, and no object, and therefore that it is worthless. Let 
 us remember that, in all that God has made, there are many 
 things that we can easily comprehend, and for which we will 
 bless and praise him ; there are many things to test and try 
 our humility, and to make us feel that what we know not 
 now, we can only hope that we shall know hereafter. 
 
 But you will notice that all this is alluded to by the apos- 
 tle as having special meaning, when he said, " Then verily 
 the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and 
 a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made; 
 the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the 
 shewbread ; which is called the sanctuary. And after the 
 second vail, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of 
 all ; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the cove- 
 nant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden 
 pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the 
 tables of the covenant; and over it the cherul>ims of glory 
 shadowing the mercy-seat ; of which we cannot now speak 
 particularly. Now when these things were thus ordained, 
 the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplisli- 
 ing the service of God. But into the second went the high- 
 priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he 
 offered for himself, and for the errors of the people : the 
 18* 
 
210 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Holy Ghost thus signifying, that the way into the holiest of 
 all was not yet made manifest, while as yet the first taberna- 
 cle was standing; which was a figure for the time then 
 present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that 
 could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertain- 
 ing to tlie conscience ; which stood only in meats and drinks, 
 and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on 
 them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come 
 an high-priest of good things to come, by a greater and 
 more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, 
 not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and 
 calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the 
 holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." 
 There is a beautiful and expressive commentary. 
 
 But, you say. Why should God give the minute regu- 
 lations here ? I answer, first of all, that, in the erection of a 
 building now, before you can get men, who are merely me- 
 chanical in their office, to execute your orders thoroughly, 
 you must lay down very minute laws. And here was a 
 semisavage, semibarbarous, murmuring, ungrateful race, in 
 the midst of a desert, come out from the slavery of Egypt. 
 God left nothing to their own invention, but laid down 
 minutely and exactly — line upon line, and precept upon 
 precept — certain regulations and laws, so that the very 
 worst builder of Israel might not err therein. 
 
 The close of the chapter refers to the distinction which 
 exi-;ted of the holy place, which the apostle alludes to in 
 Hebrews ix., namely, the vail tiiat hung between the holy 
 place and the most holy. There was the outer court for the 
 laity ; there was the holy place for the priests ; and there 
 was the most holy place, or the holy of holies, into which 
 the high-priest went, not without blood, once a year. 
 
 Now, before the holy of holies there hung a very mag- 
 nificent curtain or vail ; and you will recollect that when 
 Jesus died upon the cross, and said, " It is finished ! " this 
 
EXODUS xxvr. 211 
 
 vail, which was in the tabernacle, and also in the temple, 
 was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, sij^nifyinj^ that 
 from that time all Levitical sacredness was gone ; that all 
 distinction between the outer and the inner court, the chancel 
 and the nave, the holy of holies and the holy place — all 
 was gone ; the sacredness now is made by the work in 
 which we are engaged. " AVherever two or three are met 
 in my name," says the Saviour, " there am I in the midst 
 of them " — that is, there is a true church of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 But while the ancient economy existed, this distinction 
 was kept up, and ever taught and impressed a great and 
 precious truth — that Christ must come, and die, and enter 
 into the true holy place, before there could be access from 
 grace to glory, and from the outer to the inner court. 
 
CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 REASONS OF SO MINUTE REGULATIONS. SEPARATION OP 
 ISRAELITES. 
 
 There is scarcely a remark applicable to the previous 
 chapter that is not also applicable to this. I explained, in 
 the course of my observations on the previous chapter, that 
 if you were to judge of this merely as an elaborate arrange- 
 ment, without ultimate reference to something that was to 
 come, or as disconnected with some great moral and spiritual 
 arrangement, we should conclude that the God who wrote 
 and inspired that magnificent record — the Ten Command- 
 ments — never could have condescended to give such minute 
 regulations as are contained in this chapter, of pins, and 
 sockets, and network, and fine twined linen, and purple, and 
 all the measures, the length and breadth thereof. The two 
 seem incompatible. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus, 
 all is majesty, magnificence, and moral grandeur — the cir- 
 cumstantial lost in the spiritual, the transient in the eternal; 
 but here every thing seems paltry, minute ; for which one 
 cannot see, in judging of it by itself, the necessity for special 
 inspiration to point out, or for special inspiration to record. 
 
 But when we open the Epistle to the Hebrews, and read 
 it as the commentary upon Exodus and Leviticus, we see 
 that there was a meaning in all the institutions of Levi, of 
 the most precious^ and, for the time and in the circumstances 
 of the people, of the most instructive character. There may 
 be subordinate reasons to this. They were a barbarous 
 people, just come forth from the slavery and bondage of 
 Egypt, without knowledge of science, architecture, or me- 
 
EXODUS XXVII. 213 
 
 clianics, or any sort of knowledge that could ([iiality them 
 for suitably constructing an editice in Avliicli was to be con- 
 ducted the worship of God. 
 
 There may be another reason. It was meet that God 
 should regulate the minutest points in the tabernacle — 
 which ultimately developed itself into the temple of Solomon 
 — because the tendency of the Israelites — as a peoj)le insu- 
 lated from the rest of the world, and set apart ibr the main- 
 tenance of the true worship of God, and the maintenance of 
 God's inspired truth — their tendency was to borrow some- 
 thing from th(i Egyptians, or the Canaanites, or other hea- 
 then nations round them ; at first an innocent introduction of 
 a beautiful rite, but afterwards the erection in its niche of 
 an idol for them to worship. AVe can see from the whole 
 history of this people, that if God had left in the architec- 
 tural specifications the least point to be filled up by them, 
 they would have built, in that opening, a niche for an idol, 
 or for the introduction of a practice that might ultinuitcly 
 counteract the great object for which these institutions were 
 established. 
 
 We can see, therefore, first, in their ignorance, as exiles 
 and refugees from Egyi)t, a reason for special and minute 
 instruction; and secondly, in their tendency — developed in 
 their whole history, to introduce extraneous rites and idola- 
 trous customs from other nations — reason for leaving not a 
 niche, or a crevice, or a nook, or a cranny, Ibr any thing 
 tliat God had not already specified and minutely described. 
 
 And lastly, we can see a grand design in it all, from cer- 
 tain things that are here mentioned. The tabernacle, a.< I 
 showed }^ou in the course of my sermon on a previous Sun- 
 day, constantly alluded to a greater that will aj.pear; till at 
 last the song of saints in heaven and saints on earth j.ro- 
 claim the blessed truth. " Behold, the tabernacle of Gml is 
 with men; and I will dwell with them ; and they shaU be 
 to me a people, and I will be their God." 
 
214 SCRirXURE READINGS. 
 
 We have, then, secondly, the holy of holies, into which 
 the high-priest went but once a year, not without blood, and 
 made intercession for the people ; and I showed you how 
 constantly that is alluded to in the EpivStle to the Hebrews 
 as the great type or foreshadow of the entrance of the Great 
 High-Priest, not into the holy of holies that was made with 
 hands, but into the true holy place, there to appear in the 
 presence of God for us. 
 
 We have, also, in this chapter, a description of the brazen 
 altar, on which the sacrifices were burnt : made of wood, but 
 lined with brass, and, according to Josephus, having stones 
 and earth between the brass and the wood, in order to pre- 
 vent the heat of the fire consuming the wood. 
 
 We have next all the apparatus requisite for the due, and 
 proper, and becoming service of the sanctuary, when sacri- 
 fices were offered. AYe have the whole measure of the 
 tabernacle itself — its breath and its length; the whole 
 length of the court from the north side being an hundred 
 cubits. It was a large inclosure, about a hundred and sixty 
 feet in length, and with so many feet correspondmg in 
 breadth. 
 
 There was, then, the holy of holies inside of it, at the 
 further end, into which the high-priest alone entered; all 
 of which, says Paul, are the figures of the truth, waiting till 
 Christ, the true lligh-Priest, should come, and the veil that 
 separates earth from heaven should be rent, and there should 
 be access for all the people of God to the immediate pres- 
 ence of Jesus Christ. 
 
 We next read of the lamp that was to burn in the holy 
 of holies. I stated last Sunday, that the holy of holies was 
 dark ; there was no window for the ingress of light : but 
 this lamp, with its seven branches, was kept constantly burn- 
 ing. Perhaps the dimness of that place was intended to 
 denote the dimness of that dispensation ; and all the mys- 
 tery that was about it was designed to stimulate the minds 
 
EXODUS XXVII. 215 
 
 of the Israelites to wait, and long, and pray for that time 
 when they shoidd no longer see through a glass darkly, but 
 face to face. 
 
 Then the oil that was to be used was very choice. It 
 was not the oil crushed by rollers out of the olives ; but it 
 was oil that dropped itself, without pressure, and was, 
 therefore, pure, and better than the oil which was ordinarily 
 used. 
 
 And all these arrangements stood as long as this economy 
 lasted, the type to continue till the antitype should come. 
 That antitype is now come, and therefore the iigures have 
 evaporated ; and now that the realities have taken their 
 place, it would be apostasy from the truth to reintroduce 
 what has as divinely vanished away as it was divinely in- 
 troduced. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 INSULATION OF THE JEWS. EVERY PART OF TABERNACLE ITS 
 USE. CHRIST THE END OF ALL. ROMISH ECCLESIASTICAL 
 DRESSES. SIMPLICITY. MEANING OF "lIOLY." HIGII-PRIEST'S 
 PRECIOUS STONES. URIM AND THUMMIM. POMEGRANATES. 
 
 The Jews were in the midst of the vast masses of 
 heathendom ; they were set apart to be a people to reflect 
 the character and holiness, and to maintain the worship, of 
 the living and the true God. Their tendency, as their 
 whole history shows, was to borrow from surrounding 
 nations, wherever there was an opening that would enable 
 them to do so ; and by borrowing the customs of the 
 heathen, they came by and by to fall into the practices of 
 the heathen also. God, therefore, in order to preserve this 
 nation, and to leave no opening, or creek, or cranny, or 
 nook, by which there could be the admission of any thing 
 extrinsic, foreign, or heathen, laid down these minute, these 
 excessively minute specifications, that the people might 
 in all things have a law, a rule, and a guide, to act by. 
 You can see, therefore, in this, what you will see in 
 a wall round a garden ; there are single bricks, that one 
 fancies very trifling in themselves, and that we do not see 
 the use of, but each has its purpose, and usefulness, and de- 
 sign. In a hedge round an inclosure tliere are some stakes, 
 some props, some bits tliat seem unnecessary, and only for 
 ornament ; but they all have their use and their design. So 
 in these regulations ; they are part and parcel of a great 
 
EXODUS XXVIII. 217 
 
 and universal Avhole. God chose the Israelites, as a nation, 
 distinct from the rest of the nations of the earth, and kept 
 them, in spite of the all-encompassing deluge of uickiMhic-s 
 and idolatry, nationally a chosen generation, a peeuHar peo- 
 ple, a royal priesthood. That would be one explanation, 
 and so far it is a just one; but there is an ultimate ol)jeet 
 and a typical reference in every thing that is here. AVe can 
 see the typical import of it in certain great things; and 
 though we cannot see it in all the minute things, yet that 
 may be, not because they are dark, but because we are in 
 darkness ; not because they have no light, but because we 
 are not able to comprehend and to see them. And no one 
 can read the whole of these arrangements al^out tlie higli- 
 priest, and these regulations about the tabernacle economy, 
 and then compare with them the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 without seeing that no chance could have made Christ in all 
 things so minutely to correspond to them ; and that nothing 
 but a preconcerted arrangement on God's part, to set forth 
 the Saviour, under types, and figures, and shadows, to the 
 Jews, could have made the harmony between Christ, the 
 end of the law, and the shadows that prefigured him. 
 
 Now, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told tliat we 
 have a great High-Priest, who was in all things tempted as 
 we are, yet without sin ; and who has passed into the heav- 
 enly place, or into the true holy place, to appear before 
 God for us. And when you recollect how Ciirist is spoken 
 of in the Epistle to the Hebrews, you will see here scattered 
 points, that are evidently parts of his glory, rise into light ; 
 and by the media of wliicli the pious Jew saw Ciirist from 
 afar, and anticipated that blessed day which it was i)erm it- 
 ted to Simeon to enter on ; when he should see Him who is 
 the light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people 
 Israel. 
 
 The robes that are here laid down for the high-priest are 
 extremely elaborate, very magnificent ; the only ones that 
 VJ 
 
218 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 I know of in modern times are the robes of the Romish 
 priesthood. This, however, does not prove that the robes 
 of the Romish priestliood are scriptural, because they are 
 worn in imitation of the ancient robes of the high-priest ; 
 for, instead of being scriptural, — though it may seem a 
 startling announcement, — they are quite the reverse; be- 
 . cause, if the substance be come, the shadow is to pass 
 away — if the reality be arrived, that which prefigured him 
 is done away — and, therefore, to draw from the wardrobe 
 of Aaron, in order to decorate the modern Christian minis- 
 ter, is to act as if eighteen centuries were expunged, and we 
 were living under the Levitical regime, instead of under the 
 Christian and New Testament economy. 
 
 It is quite plain, therefore, that while it may seem scrip- 
 tural to copy these robes in a modern church, it is, in reality, 
 most unchristian to do so, simply on the ground that they 
 had their meaning, their object, and their end then ; but 
 now, that their end is come, they have passed away. The 
 moment that Jesus said, "It is finished," Aaron, Levi, and 
 all their economy passed away ; they were buried with 
 Jesus ; only Jesus rose, and they remain still in the grave. 
 
 These robes were very precious. These robes were for 
 beauty and for glory ; and they were meant to set forth the 
 glory, the excellence, the beauty, the perfection of Him 
 whose beauty is not of robes, but moral, and whose glory is 
 not an outer, but an inner one. And thus, in the Christian 
 economy, the intensest simplicity is the greatest sublimity. 
 It is the law now, all great things are simple, all great men 
 are eminently simj)le. Simplicity is only compatible with 
 true greatness ; and wherever real gi-eatness is, there true 
 simplicity will be also. Blaze, spangle, glitter, show, are 
 vulgar, they are not great ; and under the Christian econ- 
 omy we do not need tiiese things. Our religion is adorned 
 the most when it is adorned the least. The great i)()et has 
 truly expressed it, when he says that we do not think of 
 
EXODUS XXV III. 219 
 
 gilding the refined gold, or adding In-sli ixM-funic to tlie vio- 
 let. So in our religion, in its pn^cious tnitlis, in its grand 
 hopes, there is that intrinsic and real niagnilie«'nce that it is 
 most beautiful when it is just best seen. How is God most 
 glorified? Not by adding any thing to him ; but he is glo- 
 rified in proi)ortion as he is revealed : and so the religion 
 that he has inspired is beautiful just in i)roportion as it is 
 seen; and whenever you atte)n})t to beautily, you durk^-n — 
 ■when you attem[)t to improve, you only destroy. 
 
 There was, then, the breastplate, the ephod, whirh was 
 a robe extending to the ankles, and the broidered coat, and 
 the mitre, and the girdle ; and these were to be holy gar- 
 ments. The word "holy," I may mention, in the liible, 
 means set apart to a thing. Now you will be, i)erhaps, 
 startled, when I tell you that Ka<losh, which is the Hebrew 
 word for " holy," is api)lied to a wicked person as well as to 
 a "ood man. The Hebrew word is translated into tiie 
 Greek &yLog, and it is translated into the Latin " sacer." 
 Those who have read the Latin poet, will recollect the aiiri 
 sacra fames, which would be, litt'rally translated, "the 
 sacred thirst of gold," a rendering that would be absuni ; it 
 means, "the accursed thirst of gold." So in the Hebrew, 
 the word which is translated " iioly," means simply " d«'di- 
 cated," separated from one use and set to another. Now, 
 the word "holy," as applied to garments, does not imply 
 that there was any thing in them intrinsically holy, but it 
 means that they were sequestered, set a))art from every -tlay 
 use to temi)le, or religious, or spiritual u.^e. The word 
 "holy" was applied to things set apart under the ancient 
 economy; and when ai)plied to Christians, it means persons 
 who are set apart. The humblest believer is as truly con- 
 secrated as the highest minister; that is, he is sequestered, 
 set ai)art from profane and common purpo>es, to a holy, a 
 spiritual, and a heavenly life. 
 
 You will notice, in the next place, that there were to be 
 
220 SCRITTURE READINGS. 
 
 precious stones ; the onyx stone was so called from its re- 
 semblance to the root of the human nail on the finger. The 
 onyx stone was to have an engraving upon it. Then there 
 was to be the topaz, the carbuncle, the diamond, the eme- 
 rald, the sapphire, and other stones, %vhich are also alluded 
 to in the Apocalypse, and which I believe are so far identi- 
 cal with the stones that are called by these names now. It 
 is singular that one stone is here called the amethyst. It 
 was called so from the superstition that prevailed that it 
 would cure drunkenness. It means not intoxicated ; and it 
 was supposed that if this stone was put into a drunkard's 
 cup, it Avould prevent drunkenness. Hence the name which 
 was applied to it. 
 
 It was a precious stone ; still, I believe of great value, 
 and was one of those that were on the high-priest's breast- 
 plate. 
 
 Then upon these stones there were to be engraved the 
 names of the twelve tribes of Israel ; and when the high- 
 priest went into the holy place, he was to have these stones 
 upon his heart, and the names of the tribes beautifully cut 
 or engraved upon them. Does not this show the exact cor- 
 respondence between the high-priest of the Israelites and 
 the Great High-Priest, and that tlie one Avas the prefigura- 
 tion of the other ? "We read that Jesus has entered, not 
 into the holy place made with hands, but into the true holy- 
 place, there to appear in heaven for us. Jesus appears 
 now in heaven, bearing, not upon the stones, however pre- 
 cious, from which the engraving may be wasted and worn, 
 but bearing upon his heart the names, not of tribes, nor of 
 nations, but of every individual believer, however humble, 
 wiio has washed his robes and made them white in the effi- 
 cacy of his [)recious sacrifice. 
 
 "When the high-pri(;st went into the holy place, he was to 
 have u])oii his breastplate the " Urim and the Thummim." 
 The literal translation of these words is " lights and perfec- 
 
EXODUS XXVIII. 221 
 
 tions." It has been a great dispute amon;; the J(.'\vish llab- 
 i)is, as also among Christian commentators, whellu-r the 
 "Urim and the Thummim" were not the same, or identical 
 ^vith the precious stones that contained the names of tlie 
 welve tribes of Israel. At all events, it was s<jmetliiii<' 
 upon his breast — either these stones, or some specitd robe 
 that he wore upon his breast wdien he went into tlie holy of 
 holies, where he received irom God — from the Sliechinah, 
 or the glory that dwelt between the cheruljim — answers to 
 his diiricultics, directions for the government of the nation, 
 promises, comforts, truths ; all that Israel needed. Tliese 
 words are frequently alluded to in other parts of the Bible. 
 For instance, Jesus Christ is called " light." That is evi- 
 dently an allusion to this ; and many of the robes of the 
 high-priest are alluded to significantly in the New Testa- 
 ment, if not by their names, by words corresponding to their 
 meaning. 
 
 Then, when the high-priest went into the holy of holies, 
 he was to have "• a golden bell and a pomegranate ; " the 
 fringe of his robe was hung with pomegranates and bells — 
 small bells — and the object of this, it is supposed by the 
 Rabbis, was to let the people know that when he went into 
 the holy of holies, he was still alive. The Jews had the 
 idea that, to see God and to die, was almost the one the 
 necessary result of the other. No one but the high-i)riest 
 alone, and he only once a year, was permitted to go into the 
 holy of holies, where was the Sliechinah, or the bright, 
 supernatural glory that burned upon the mercy-seat, between 
 the cherubim ; and they say, that the tinkling of the bells 
 inside was the evidence to the people that the high-priest was 
 still alive. We read in the Psalms, " Oh, blessed are the 
 people that know the joyful sound ; " that phrase is borrowed 
 from the fact, that the tinkling of the bells of the high-priest 
 in the holy of holies was to every Jew a most joyful sound, 
 because it was proof to him that the sacrilicc olTercd without 
 19* 
 
222 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 was accepted, and that the high-[)riest was interceding within. 
 But where were the Jews when the high-priest was within? 
 They were all waiting outside, till the high-priest should 
 come forth and bless them. That is just our position now. 
 Jesus has otlered up a sacrifice once for all on the cross ; he 
 is now in the holy of holies, with the names of all his people 
 on his heart, pleading for us ; and the joyful sound, or the 
 preached gospel, still in our ears, is the evidence to us that 
 Christ has entered within the veil, and we are waiting out- 
 side till the High- Priest shall come forth, as he will do soon, 
 and pronounce that grand and lasting benediction that will 
 strike down into nature's heart, and make her very deserts 
 to rejoice, and her bleakest and her most solitary places to 
 blossom even as the rose. 
 
 The pomegranate was a fruit with which you are all ac- 
 quainted ; it has a sort of pulpy substance inside, a little 
 larger than an orange, and is full of seeds ; and in fact the 
 origin of the word pomegranate is pomum granatum, that 
 means an apple with a great many seeds in it. And pome- 
 granates were the symbol of fruitfulness, and were the sign 
 to the Jews — the constant sign — that the whole earth 
 should yet be covered with Christ's glory, and all ilesh see 
 his salvation. 
 
 Upon the high-priest's mitre there was the inscription, 
 " Holiness to the Lord," which was meant to denote how 
 completely he was sequestered to God; how truly he was 
 dedicated to him; and that holiness to God was the great 
 end and object of that economy of which he was the chief. 
 
 The following very instructive descriptions are from Bush, 
 the American commentator : — 
 
 1. Sard I us. Ileb. tli^ odein, from the radical filJ^ adam, to he ruddy 
 or red. Chal. '^p?2D samkan, and S^npl^D samkctha, red. Gr. aapdiov, 
 sardine, a name supposed to be taken from Sardis or Sardinia, where 
 it was originally found. It was a stone of the ruby class, and answers 
 
EXODUS XXVIII. 223 
 
 to the carnelian of the modenis. The finest specimens now coine from 
 Surat, a city near tlic gulf of Canibay, in India. 
 
 2. Topaz. Ileb. m^S pWa/t. Etymolofry unknown, (ir. roTai^/of, 
 topazion, a name whieli Pliny says is derived Irom Tujxtzvs, an island 
 in the lied Sea. Glial. pT ijarlcan and Hrp"!"! ynrkdhn, si;;nifyin;,' 
 green. It is supposed to be the modern r/iri/solite, and its color to liavo 
 been a transparent (jreen-rjelluw. It conies now from Egypt, where it is 
 found in alluvial strata. 
 
 3. Carbuncle. Heb. Dp'nn harckdh, from p'^.i harak, to llijhten, 
 glitter, or glister : answering to the avdpa^, anthrax, of the Greeks, so 
 called because when held to the sun it resembles a piece of bright Imrn- 
 ing charcoal. Indeed its name carbuncle means a little coal, and refers 
 us at once to a livelij coal-red. Its modern name is the garnet. The 
 Septuagint, Josephus, and Lat. Vulgate have rendered in tliis place 
 by Gfiapaydog, smaragdos, emerald. But this is more properly the ren- 
 dering of the next in order. The carbuncle and tlie emerald have in 
 fact in some way become transposed in the Greek version. 
 
 4. Emerald. Ileb. "liTD nophek. Gr. avdpa^. Tliis gem is undoubt- 
 edly the same with tlie ancient smaragdos, or emerald, one of the most 
 beautiful of all the preiuous stones. It is characterized by a bright 
 green color, with scarcely any mixture, though differing somewhat in 
 degrees. The true Oriental emerald is now very scarce. The best 
 that are at present accessible are from Peru. In the time of Closes 
 they came from India. 
 
 5. Sapphire. Heb. ^^^50 sappir. Gr. aa-n-cpeipoc, sapphiros. The 
 word is very nearly the same in all known languages, and as to tlic 
 sapphire itself it is, after the diamond, the most valual)lc of the gems, 
 exceeding all others in lustre and hardness. It is of a skg-Uue, or fine 
 azure color, in all the choicest specimens, though other varieties occur. 
 Indeed among practical jewellers it is a name of wider application 
 perhaps than that of any of the rest of the precious stones. Pliny 
 says that in his time the best sapphires came from Media. At present 
 they are found in greater or less perfection in nearly every country. 
 
 6. Diamond. Heb. tD^rT^ i/ahalom, from tsbn halam, to beat, to smite 
 upon, so called from its extraordinary hardness, by which like a ham- 
 mer it will beat to pieces any of the other sorts of stones. Tiius the 
 Greeks called the diamond a()a/j.ac, adamas, from Gr. a, not, and da/iau, 
 damao, to subdue, on account of its sujjposed invincible hardmss. Ac- 
 cordingly Pliny says of diamonds, that " they are found to resist a 
 stroke on the anvil to such a degree that the iron itself gives way and 
 the anvil is shattered to pieces." This is no doubt exaggerated and 
 
224 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 fabulous, but it is sufficient to justify the propriety of the Hebrew 
 name, that diamonds are much harder than other precious stones, and 
 in this all ai'C agreed. This quality of the diamond, together with its 
 incompai-able brilliancy, renders it by far the most valuable of all the 
 gems. The Gr. here, has taa7ng,Jaspis, ov jasper. 
 
 7. LiGURE. Ileb. fl'b leshem. Gr. ?u-}vpiov, Ugurion. This is one 
 of the most doubtful of the pi'ccious stones as to color. It is supposed 
 to be closely related to the hi/acinth (jacinth) of the moderns, which is 
 a red strongly tinged with orange-jellow. 
 
 8. Agate. Heb. 11"iJ shebo. Gr. axarrjg, achates, agate. This is a 
 stone of a great variety of hues, which is thought by some to be iden- 
 tical with the chrysopras, and if so, it is probable that a golden-green was 
 the predominant color. 
 
 9. Amethyst. Heb. n^btlJ!^ ahlamah. Gr. aiie&varo^, amethystos, 
 from a, not, and ps&vajog, drunken, because wine di-ank from an ame- 
 thyst cup was supposed by the ancients to prevent inebriation. The 
 oriental amethyst is a transparent gem, the color of which seems to be 
 composed of a strong blue and a deep red ; and according as either pre- 
 vails, aftbrding different tinges of purple, and sometimes even fading 
 to a rose color. It comes from Persia, Arabia, Armenia, and the East 
 Indies. 
 
 10. BEnvL. Heb. tl^'^w^il tarshish. Gr. ;i;pvao?.ii?of, chrysolithos. A 
 pellucid gem of a sea or bluish-green. But if, as many mineralogists 
 and critics suppose, the beryl is the same as the chrysolite, it is a gem of 
 yellowish-green color, and ranks at present among the topazes. 
 
 11. Onyx. Heb. tri'IJ shoham ; called onyx from Gr. ovv^, onyx, 
 from the resemblance of its ground color to that lunated spot at the 
 base of the human jiail, which the Greek Avord signifies. It is a semi- 
 pellucid stone of a fine flinty texture, of a waterish sky-colored ground, 
 variegated with bands of white and brown, which run parallel to each 
 other. It is here rendered by the Gr. (irjpvXKiov, beryllion, beryl, from 
 some apparent confusion in the order of the names. See Note on Gen. 
 ii. 12. 
 
 12. Jasper. Heb. nC'i;'! yashepheh. Gr. ovvxi-ov, onuchion. The 
 similarity of the Hebrew name has determined most critics to consider 
 the jasper as the gem intended by this designation. This is a stone 
 distinguished by such a vast variety of hues, that it is extremely haz- 
 ardous to fix upon any one as its distinguishing color. The brown 
 Egyptian variety is conjectured to have been the one selected for the 
 breastplate. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 NO NEW TESTAMENT LEVITICTS. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. OF- 
 FERINGS FOR THE PRIESTS. RETURN OF THE JEWS. 
 
 I STATED, in tlie course of previous explanatory remarks, 
 that one reason, at least, for the very minute details respect- 
 ing the ceremonial offerings of Aaron and liis sons — the 
 consecration of the altar, the form of robe, and the accom- 
 paniments of all the services that were to be on that altar — 
 is, that the children of Israel, who Mere set apart for the 
 specific purpose of being a model nation to all mankind, and 
 the conservators of God's Word to successive generations, 
 were to be preserved from contact with every thing like iiea- 
 thenism, and to be kept in the most striking way from in- 
 corporating into their worship any thing that was not insti- 
 tuted and ordained by God. If a single 0])eiiing had been 
 left in these regulations of Levi, that opening would have 
 been filled up by some rite or custom borrowed from hea- 
 thendom, and that rite, or custom, or ceremony, thus bor- 
 rowed, would have been a medium of connection between 
 the holy Jew and the profane Gentile, and have led to the 
 desecration of the one, and not to the consecration or ct)ii- 
 version of the other. 
 
 Do we not also gather from this another very important 
 lesson — that if God had designed that in the New Testa- 
 ment economy there should be only one form of worship, 
 one form of ecclesiastical polity — whether that form be 
 Episcopacy, Presbytery, or Congregationalism — if it hud 
 
226 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 been God's mind that the whole church should agree and 
 correspond as minutely, in every rite, as the ancient church 
 in all the jots and tittles of the requirements of Levi, would 
 he, in the announcement of this dispensation, have omitted 
 to lay down as minutely all those regulations for the g-overn- 
 ment of the New Testament Church in all generations ? 
 But the very fact that we have no Leviticus of the New 
 Testament — the very fact that we have no such rules laid 
 down there — is positive demonstration that God never meant 
 that all his people should worship publicly in precisely the 
 same manner and form, or that they should all be under the 
 same ecclesiastical rule. He has laid down great doctrina* 
 truths, exceedingly distinctly defined ; but he has left disci- 
 pline in a latitudinarianism that is as beautiful as it is in- 
 structive to us respecting his mind and will concerning us. 
 I never yet could discover in the New Testament either the 
 Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or any of 
 the dissenting bodies. I can find in the New Testament 
 great, broad government laws ; I can see that there were 
 always to be taught and teachers ; I can see there were al- 
 ways to be saci'aments ; I can see there was to be a Sab- 
 bath ; that there was to be public worship and the reading 
 of God's holy AVord in public ; I can see a reason for the 
 existence of a visible Church, and in such a Church there 
 must be some order, some design, so that when you come 
 into the sanctuary you shall not be at your wits' end what is 
 the form or the custom of the place ; and that there should 
 be a governing power, whether it be in the Archbishop or 
 in the General Assembly — 1 say that this is most pro})er, 
 most expedient, most reasonable ; but I cannot discover in 
 the New Testament that an a})ostolical succession, or an 
 order of bishoj)S, or gradations of Presbyteries, are vital 
 elements of the constitution of the Christian Church. And 
 here, speaking of that very thing — apostolical succession — 
 you will notice, that Aaron and his sons, and their sons' sons, 
 
KXODU.S XXIX. 227 
 
 most rigidly traced tlieir succession, and their names were 
 all enrolled in the public lists ; and the succession of the 
 Aaronitic priesthood was so certain a thin,^ that nohody 
 could doubt it, and the most significant and unmistakable 
 rules were laid down to regulate it. I>ut we hav(! no such 
 thing kept up in the New Testament. Does it tell you there 
 that no minister has a true ministry unless he can trace his 
 genealogy up to Peter or to Paul? The thing is not once 
 mentioned ; and yet an apostle actually condescends to such 
 minute requirements in a minister as that he should not be 
 given to much wine, that he should not be given to striking, 
 that he should be the husband of one wife — he descends to 
 such minute points of character, but he does not once men- 
 tion, what is now thought vastly greater, the apostolical suc- 
 cession. Would he have omitted so vital a thing, if indeed 
 it had been a vital thing at all ? But I perfectly agree with 
 Archbishop Whately — one of the most powerful minds of 
 the present day — who, I hear, has offered a considerable 
 sum to any priest or presbyter upon earth — Romish, An- 
 glican, Scotch, or Irish — who will trace his succession 
 within a dozen lives of any one of the apostles whatever. 
 Now it is strange, if a large sum can be so easily obtained, 
 tliat those priests Avho say that they have the true apostolical 
 succession, and can prove it, do not come forward and claim 
 the reward. If I could demonstrate it, I would certainly 
 claim it ; and it is very strange that those Avho say that they 
 have the apostolical succession, yet will not put forth their 
 hands and be made rich at so little labor and so little incon- 
 venience. The fact is, there is no such thing. It is a de- 
 vout dream. For instance, there is in Scotland, as you have 
 all heard, what is called the Scotch Episcopal Church, con- 
 sisting- of seventy or eighty ministers and two or three 
 bishops ; and professing to be a sort of intermediate Church 
 between the Church of Home and the Church of Kngland. 
 Now that Church prides itself upon having the apostolical 
 
228 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 succession. But in this respect it is the most defective 
 Church in existence. Three Scotch presbyters came to be 
 consecrated bishops, and the bishops of England recognized 
 these presbyters as brethren, and on that footing they Avere 
 consecrated bishops. But according to the Tractarian notion, 
 they were not regenerated, and therefore they could not be 
 made presbyters. They were not, therefore, presbyters at 
 all. Those who came to be consecrated bishops were first 
 baptized and ordained by presbyters of the Scotch Church. 
 But Scotch Church baptism is no baptism at all — therefore 
 they were not regenerated, therefore they were not Chris- 
 tians, they were also not true presbyters, and therefore they 
 could not be bishops, therefore they had not the apostolical 
 succession at all.* But the fact is, that there is no such 
 thing as the apostolical succession, in the Tractarian sense ; 
 it is pure nonsense. The Aaronitic priesthood continued in 
 uninterrupted succession until the coming of Christ ; and 
 when Christ came it passed away. 
 
 But even supposing that the apostolical succession could 
 be clearly traced by the Church of England, the Church of 
 Scotland, or the Church of Ireland, what would be the 
 .worth of it? What was the doctrinal worth of the Aaronitic 
 succession — a most uninterrupted succession, a succession 
 sanctioned by God himself — a chain that stretched from 
 Aaron, in Exodus, down to Caiaphas, the last high-priest — 
 what was the result of it? Priests that had the Aaronitic 
 succession gave up the Son of God — preferred Barabbas, 
 a thief and a murderer, to the Lord of glory, and imbrued 
 their hands in his blood, and did not know when their own 
 Lord came to be the Saviour of mankind. What was the 
 doctrinal efficacy of it ? Literally nothing. And what is the 
 
 * If it be said the first consecration was rectified by a subsequent, I 
 reply, the hist tlwee Scotch presbyters after being consecrated went to 
 Scotland, and consecrated presbytcrian clergymen to be bishops, and so 
 vitiated the whole stream. 
 
EXODUS XXIX. 220 
 
 fact now? Go into Belgium, and you will see that wlu-n 
 the priests put on tiieir robes they are almost worshipped ; 
 but the instant they lay them aside the people treat thorn 
 with the greatest contempt. Go to any minister who 
 preaches about his own succession, and you will sec that he 
 is the most unpopular man in the parish ; but go to a man 
 who preaches Christ, and himseit' their servant tor Christ's 
 sake, and who lives purely and consistently, and you will 
 find that God sets his seal to his servant, by making him the 
 most esteemed as well as tlie most uscl'ul and thi' most de- 
 voted to his cause. If I wanted to destroy a Church, I 
 would make its ministers preach their succession, not 
 Christ ; if I wanted a Church to be universal, 1 would say, 
 Preach Christ, and say nothing about yourself; depend 
 upon it that if you mind the Master's glory, the blessed 
 Master will take care of your Church and of your con- 
 cerns. 
 
 The first thing that we read of in this chapter, is the 
 description of the offerings that were to be offered when the 
 priests were consecrated. This is explained by a text in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews — that these priests of Aaron 
 had first to offer for themselves, and then for the people. 
 But Jesus — in his contrast to them — having no sin, had 
 not to offer for himself; he was holy, spotless, and blame- 
 less, before the people. 
 
 We next read of the consecration of the i).\U\r, and all 
 the accompaniments of that consecration. We have then 
 the two lambs — a lamb to be offered in the morning, and a 
 lamb to be offered in the evening, as the daily sacrifice. 
 How beautifidly does that remind us of what John said, 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of 
 the world." This was an allusion to the lamb that was 
 oflfered every morning and every evening; and it is sup- 
 posed that when John said these words it was early in the 
 morning, and that the lamb was being taken to the temple 
 20 
 
2.S0 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 for the morning sacrifice : and the people, looking at the 
 lamb as it was being carried to the holy place, and looking 
 on it reverently, John said to them, " Behold, not that 
 lamb — this morning and evening lamb — this is now done 
 away ; behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins 
 of the world," — that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 At the close of the chapter, we have a very beautiful 
 promise made to the children of Israel, which, I believe, 
 still remains to be fulfilled ; where God says, " I will dwell 
 among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And 
 they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought 
 them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell 
 among them. I am the Lord their God." And in the 
 forty-third verse : "And there I will meet with the children 
 of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my 
 glory." The promise was, that they should return to their 
 own land, and that God should dwell among them ; this was 
 not fulfilled in their exodus from Babylon, and there is no 
 evidence that this promise has yet been fulfilled. I believe 
 that it was partly fulfilled at that time, but that the chief 
 part of it yet remains to be fulfilled. For instance, the 
 prophet Zechariah, referring to the Jews, says, " Sing and 
 rejoice, O daughter of Zion ; for, lo ! I come, and I will 
 dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many 
 nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be 
 my people : and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou 
 shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. 
 And the Lord shall inherit Judah, his portion in the holy 
 land, and shall choose Jerusalem again." Now, this book 
 was written by Zechariah after the captivity, and therefore 
 ihe prophecy still remained to be fulfilled. And you have 
 the very same prophecy in Ezekiel xxxvii. 21, where he 
 says, " Thus saith the Lord God : Beliold, I will take the 
 children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be 
 gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them 
 
EXODUS XXIX. 231 
 
 into tliclr own land; and I Avill make tlicni one nation in 
 the land upon the mountains of Israel ; and one kiiirr shall 
 be king to them all ; and they shall be no more two nations, 
 neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms" — as they 
 are now — " any more at all ; neither shall they defile them- 
 selves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable 
 things, nor with any of their transgressions ; but I will 
 save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they 
 have sinned, and will cleanse them : so shall they be my 
 people, and I will be their God. And David, my servant, 
 shall be king over them ; and they shall all have one shep- 
 herd : they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my 
 statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land 
 that I have given unto Jacob, my servant, wherein your 
 fathers have dwelt ; and they shall dwell therein, even they, 
 and their children, and their children's children for ever ; 
 and my servant David shall be their prince for ever." You 
 have the very same thing repeated in Ezekiel xliii., at the 
 fourth verse, where he says : "And the glory of the Lord 
 came into the house by the way of the gate, whose prospect 
 is toward the east. So the spirit took me up, and brought 
 me into the inner court ; and behold, the glory of the Lord 
 filled the house. And I heard him speaking unto me, out 
 of the house ; and the man stood by me. And he said unto 
 me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of 
 the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the 
 children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the 
 house of Israel no more defile ; neither they, nor their kings, 
 by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in 
 their high places. In their setting of their threshold by my 
 thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between 
 me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by 
 their abominations that they have committed ; wherefore I 
 have consumed them in mine anger. Now, let them put 
 away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far 
 
232 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever." 
 Now, all these promises are to me clear evidence that the 
 Jews are to return to their own country. And the more 
 spiritual a Jew becomes, the less he desires to have political 
 position among the nations of the earth. Whether the pres- 
 ent regulations with regard to the Jews are right or wrong, 
 it is the worldly, and not the spiritual, Jew who desires such 
 honors. Those who do not yet see their way to embrace 
 the Messiah, but to whom, as waiting and longing, the Mes- 
 siah, as to Simeon, will yet be revealed, have their hearts, 
 not in England, but in Palestine. I believe we are on the 
 very verge of an exodus more majestic than was witnessed 
 from Egypt to Palestine; and that, as soon as Turkey 
 falls — and all the kings of the earth may prop it up as 
 they please, but it will fall soon — for it has been decreed 
 that in a very short time the great river Euphrates shall be 
 dried up ; and, as soon as the crescent wanes, then God's 
 ancient people will return to the land of their fathers, and 
 restore Jerusalem to a greater splendor than was ever wit- 
 nessed before ; and then Jesus — who is David, their 
 king — shall reveal himself to them. And if their fall was 
 the benefit of the Gentiles, what shall their return be but 
 as life from the dead ? 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 LEVITICAL AND EVANGELICAL WORSUIP. GOLDEN ALTAR. ANGEL 
 BY THE GOLDEN ALTAR. ATONEMENT FOR GOLDEN ALTAR. 
 WASHINGS. HOLY OIL. ALL NATURE TAINTED. 
 
 I EXPLAINED, in the course of my remarks upon tlie 
 cliapters that immediately precede this, that all this minute 
 regulation was necessary to a people not sulliciently en- 
 lightened, and prepared, wherever there was an opening for 
 it, to admit idolatrous and extraneous rites of the surround- 
 ing nations ; and, therefore, that there might be no excuse 
 or apology for borrowing from the heathen a single rite, 
 God laid down minutely every regulation, built up every 
 interstice with his own Divine prescription, and made 
 Leviticus one solid and compact whole, lull of (*omj)lete 
 rites and observances for this rebellious, obdurate, and so 
 often, and so painfully, wavering people. 
 
 In this chapter, we have a succession of additional rites 
 and prescriptions by God himself, for special parts of his 
 worship. Now, it would, in one sense, be most scriptural 
 for any Church to adopt all the material rites that are here 
 laid down — burning incense, anointing witli oil, washing, 
 as you enter the sanctuary, with holy water, having an altar 
 for it; all this would, in one sense, be most scriptural — 
 that is, in the letter it would be so ; but, in the sjjirit of 
 Scripture, it would be a gross apostasy from the truth as it 
 is in Christ Jesus. The whole Levitical economy was a 
 system of various observances, intended, like dark shadows, 
 20* 
 
234 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 to indicate the approach of the sun, whose rise should dis- 
 pel the shadows, and necessarily take their place ; and, 
 therefore, every rite that was instituted in Leviticus had its 
 moral or spiritual significance ; and he acts scripturally, 
 and that Cliurch is the most scriptural, that lets alone 
 the material incense and the material holy water, and 
 washes his hands in innocency, and has the unction of the 
 Holy One, and lifts up, not incense that the outer sense can 
 appreciate, but the incense of pure affection, loving hearts, 
 joyful and thankful praise to the God of Abraham, and of 
 Isaac, and of Jacob. So that you will see how wrong it is 
 to quote literally a portion of Scripture, in order to justify a 
 practice, while really, understood as it should be understood, 
 it condemns the practice altogether. The fact is, take away 
 the New Testament, and then all this will be proper enough ; 
 but add the New Testament, and then the material gives 
 way to the moral ; and God, a Spirit in the days of Levi, 
 just as he is a Spirit now, and to be worshipped both in 
 spirit and in truth — but then in limited formulas ; now, 
 neither on this mountain nor on that, but wherever there is 
 a spiritual mind, there there may be offered spiritual wor- 
 "ship through Christ Jesus. 
 
 The first thing that comes before us here is the golden 
 altar. You will recollect the fact — and nothing, 1 believe, 
 is more instructive to a Christian than these material insti- 
 tutions of Levi, provided you allow the light of the Sun of 
 Righteousness to shine upon them — you will recollect, I 
 say, the fact, that there was first of all the altar of brass, 
 on which burnt propitiatory sacrifices were offered. Then, 
 there is here the golden altar — inlaid and covered over 
 with gold — on which incense was burnt, and from which 
 that incense arose, as a sweet perfume to God. Now, the 
 two altars were thus intended to designate one grand 
 truth — that, first of all, there is a sacrifice without the 
 gate which Jesus offered, and which was perfected when he 
 
EXODUS XXX. 235 
 
 exclaimed upon the cross, " It is riiiished ; " and then, when 
 he had otl'ered the sacrilice without — by which jour sins 
 and my sins are blotted out — he entered within tlie holy 
 place, and now presents the prayers of his people with 
 intercession and pleading beside his Father wdio is in 
 heaven. The brazen altar answers to Christ's atonement 
 without the camp ; the golden altar corresponds to Christ's 
 ofFeuing our praises and our prayers, purified with the 
 incense of his own merits, in the presence of God, and in 
 glory for ever. Hence, in Revelations viii. we read : "And 
 another angel came and stood at the altar " — that is, evi- 
 dently, the altar of incense, — " having a golden censer," — 
 used for perfume, — "and there was given unto him much 
 incense, that he should offer it, with the prayers of all 
 saints, upon the golden altar which was before the throne." 
 Now, the high-priest alone had a golden censer ; the com- 
 mon priests had silver ones ; and to this priest angel, who 
 is none else than Jesus Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, 
 who with the golden censer stood beside the golden altar — 
 "there was given much incense" — his own precious mer- 
 its — " that he should offer it with the prayers of all 
 saints" — not as a celebrated Roman Catholic dignitary has 
 interpreted it, that saints in heaven could join with him in 
 supplicating for us on earth ; but it is, that he should offer 
 the prayers of all saints. Who are saints ? Not those that 
 the Pope canonizes, and proclaims to be in heaven ; but 
 those that the Holy Spirit consecrates and leaves on earth. 
 Every epistle in the New Testament is addressed to the 
 saints at Rome, at Philippi, etc., etc., to the people set 
 apart by God to become Christians ; and this Angel, or 
 Christ, offers in his censer his own incense of merit with 
 our prayers ; it being a sad and sorrowful fact, that our 
 purest prayers have so much alloy of imperfection, that 
 unless placed in the golden censer of the Great Iligli- 
 Priest, and presented amid the perfume of his own blessed 
 
236 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 intercession, they never could cleave the skies, or draw- 
 down an answer of mercy and of peace. But how blessed 
 is the thought that, for all our sins — the sins of every 
 day — we have a perfect atonement, finished on the altar 
 of brass without; for all our short-comings and defects 
 every day, our imperfect prayers, our imperfect praises, we 
 have One who is by the golden altar with the golden cen- 
 ser, and who finds admission for the least petition that an 
 orphan utters, and for the loftiest want that an archangel 
 feels. Thus, the golden altar was the symbol of Christ's 
 ceaseless intercession ; and on that altar, Aaron — that is, 
 the high-priest through successive generations — v/as to 
 burn incense. 
 
 But it is a very striking phase in this history, that it says 
 in the tenth verse, that Aaron should make an atonement 
 upon the horns of it. How strange ! There was no atone- 
 ment upon it, as upon the altar of brass ; but, to indicate 
 that that economy w^as altogether imperfect, and that there 
 needed to be an atonement oiFered for the prayers, for the 
 intercessions of the high-priest himself, once a year, upon 
 the great day of atonement, the golden altar itself had the 
 .horns touched with atoning blood, to show that those sacri- 
 fices that were offered year by year could never make the 
 comers thereto perfect, could never take away sin — and to 
 make all Israel, from its inmost heart, long and yearn for a 
 more perfect sacrifice, which, once offered, takes away sin, 
 and which needs no atonement ; for it is in itself infinitely 
 perfect and complete. 
 
 We then read of the " laver of brass," with water in it, 
 in which the priests were to wash before they approached 
 the altar. Now, it might be literally scriptural if you were 
 to have a font, with what is called '' holy water," at the door, 
 and to sprinkle yourself with it before you come into the 
 congregation ; but it would be most unchristian ; and to quote 
 this passage as a reason for it really is to misquote and 
 
EXODUS XXX. 237 
 
 abuse God's holy Word. This was right then ; but, because 
 it was right then, it is wrong now. The end of it is come : 
 when the flower blossoms, the petals die ; when the fruit is 
 formed, the blossom withers and drops ; when the antitype 
 is come, the type goes ; and to copy the type now, to imitate 
 the type now, is practically to cancel the last eighteen lum- 
 dred years, and conclude the end is not come, and to say, 
 " We are not in Christ, but we are under Levi, and still 
 subject to bondage." Then, what is meant by this washing 
 now ? It is what the Psalmist says very beautifully, '" I 
 will wash mine hands in inno-cency." In what innocence ? 
 In that blood — the only innocent thing in God's universe — 
 that was to be for the remission of the sins of the guilty. 
 Hence, all those allusions in the New Testament — " the 
 washing of water," " the renewing of the Holy Ghost." The 
 apostle's expression, " washing of water," is not in reference 
 to baptism, but in reference to this ; and he is using Levit- 
 ical language to convey a New Testament or a grand Chris- 
 tian truth — namely, that God loves those to approach him in 
 worship, not who wear the most splendid robes, not who 
 have the greatest wealth, or power, or position ; but the 
 clean hands, and the clean hearts, and those that give up 
 neither hand nor heart to vanity, but who serve God in 
 spirit and in truth. 
 
 We have, next, the holy anointing oil, composed of the 
 most precious elements combined together ; and this holy 
 anointing oil was applied to every thing, to indicate that 
 every thing was impure, and needed to be consecrated. 
 
 What does all this teach us ? It teaches us tliat all crea- 
 tion, all created things, are tainted. The beautiful flowers 
 that burst from the earth, the grand trees that wave in the 
 sunshine and in the storm, rock and crystal, river and ocean, 
 all that is minute, all that is great — all have the taint of 
 man's transgression ; for when man sinned against God, all 
 nature felt the effects of his sin, and was dragged down with 
 
238 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 him. But, just as every thing here was consecrated by that 
 outward oil, so we believe that not consecrating oil, but a 
 consecrating hand, shall one day be waved over all creation ; 
 and then nature shall be restored to her first beauty, and 
 all things, however tainted by sin now, shall be made holy ; 
 and all hearts thus made holy, shall be made happy, and a 
 better Paradise shall close the world than the Paradise that 
 commenced it. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 EECAriTULATION. PERSONS INSPIRED TO EXECUTE THE DIVINE 
 PLAN. GIFTS AND GRACES NOT ALWAYS UNITED. EDUCATION. 
 SECULAR TEACHING IN INDIA. THE SABBATH AND SANCTU- 
 ARY WORK. SABBATH AND CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 This last chapter contains the words that were addressed 
 to Moses, at the close of the forty days' sojourn on the Mount, 
 in intimate personal communion with God. It is also a siun- 
 mary of all the institutions and the furniture of the taber- 
 nacle, which God so minutely specified in the previous chap- 
 ters, and of which I have already given a sufficiently plain 
 exposition. He states that, in order to promote all these 
 elaborate arrangements, the exquisitely chased golden candle- 
 stick that was to be in the holy of holic-s, the mercy-seat, tlie 
 cherubim that were to overshadow it with their wings, to 
 indicate the desire that the angels have to look into those 
 things — the vail that was to separate the holy of holies 
 from the holy place — the curtains, and all the other orna- 
 ments of the tabemacle, God raised up " Bezaleel, the son 
 of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah," to execute 
 and complete. Now just notice here: God gave the plan 
 clearly, graphically, distinctly, to Moses ; but it needed men 
 raised up specially by the Spirit of God to execute the plan, 
 and to give it practical development. And we learn from 
 this fact, that a gifted intellect is as much the creation of the 
 Spirit of God as a regenerate heart. Gifts are from God 
 as truly as graces : it needs the guidance of God's good 
 
240 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Spirit to enable a man " to ^vork in gold, and in silver, and 
 in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them ; and in carv- 
 ing of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship ; " just 
 as it does to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
 with God. A great intellect, I repeat, is as much the gift 
 of God, as a holy and sanctified heart is from the grace of 
 God ; only we must always remember that the two are not 
 necessarily combined ; that the latter — the sanctified heart 
 — is saving; but that the former — the gifted intellect — 
 may be an element of ruin, not of everlasting blessedness in 
 the sight of God. Many men have transcendent gifts, that 
 shed new light upon the world by their splendor, who, at the 
 same time, have hearts sunk in depravity, and wickedness, 
 and sin. They have been raised to heaven by the greatness 
 of their gifts ; they sink themselves to ruin by the degener- 
 acy of their lives. Far better have a holy heart, and a 
 very ungifted intellect, than have the most gigantic mind, 
 but have a depraved heart to wield and to make use of it. 
 I know no combination more terrible in this world, than to 
 have an archangel's wisdom, but to have a fiend's depravity 
 to make use of it ; and I can conceive no education more 
 mischievous in this world, than the education which culti- 
 vates the intellect to the utmost, but leaves the heart to its 
 own inherent and fallen tendencies and propensities. Edu- 
 cation is not storing man's memory with historical facts, or 
 with scientific laws ; nor is it cultivating and sharpening 
 man's intellect by constant usage ; but while it is this, it is 
 also sanctifying man's heart by that knowledge which is not 
 only power, but is also holiness and peace : and I cannot 
 conceive a greater calamity to happen to a nation, than to 
 teach it this world's wisdom by the master-spirits of the day, 
 but to have nol)ody to give it that teaching — the unction of 
 the Holy One, the sanctifying truths that sweeten all other 
 knowledge, and make it not only light to direct through the 
 intricacies of science, but life to sustain in the hopes and 
 
EXODUS XXXI. 241 
 
 prospects of everlasting joy in tlie presence of God. Nt-ver, 
 therefore, my dear friends, either countenance yourselves, or 
 sanction, directly, or indirectly, any teaching that is not ac- 
 companied by, based on, and saturated with, living, true, 
 spiritual Christianity. Not that we fear knowledge ; 1 know 
 that it is for better to have a people instructed only in sec- 
 ular wisdom, than tohave a people lying in the depths of 
 intellectual ignorance ; but then, I think, when we can have 
 both the light that shows, and the grace that directs, we 
 ought never to be satisfied with the one without possessing 
 the other also. In some countries, it is more light that is 
 needed. In India, for instance, I believe education and 
 science are most needed. I would send more teachers, if I 
 could, to instruct the Hindoos in science alone. If I can 
 get them to educate in Cliristianity, too, then by all means 
 let them do it ; but one would rather have education there 
 in science alone, than no teaching at all ; and for this special 
 reason, — that the whole Hindoo religion is a composite of 
 scientific absurdities, as well as religious untruths ; and that 
 man who proves to a Hindoo that an eclipse of the moon 
 will take place on a certain day, or that an eclipse of the sun 
 will happen at a certain hour, does not only correct a scien- 
 tific misapprehension on the part of that Hindoo, but he also 
 destroys a dogma of his religion and his creed ; and when 
 you do this, you convey to his mind the necessary result 
 that his religion altogether is wrong ; for if one dogma of it 
 is clearly proved to be uninspired, you show that the whole 
 edifice must crumble and fall together. And therefore to 
 prove this to him is good ; but whilst this is done by the 
 mere teacher of secular knowledge, the Church of Christ 
 ought to follow him up with the teaching of that knowledge 
 which is life everlasting. We thus see, that God gives light 
 to the intellect, as well as grace to the heart ; and we may, 
 perhaps, from this learn a very humbling, but a very ble.ssed 
 truth — that the man with a gifted intellect is as much sum- 
 21 
 
242 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 moned to bow the knee, and to thank the Fountain and the 
 Author of it, as the man that has a sanctified heart feels it 
 his privilege to bow his knee, and to bless the Holy Spirit 
 that gave it, for this his distinguishing grace and mercy. 
 
 After recapitulating all those things which these artisans 
 were raised up to construct, God reverts to his Law, refer- 
 ring to the law repeatedly stated before, respecting the Sab- 
 bath. Now just notice that, he warns them, while telling 
 them that they were thus to accomplish and complete the 
 furniture of the tabernacle, that they were, at the same 
 time, not to go on with this work upon the Sabbath day. 
 Now mark you, the work that He assigned to Bezaleel, the 
 son of Uri, the son of Hur, was essentially a sacred work ; 
 but He says. Though it be so, you are not to carry on that 
 work upon the Sabbath day. For instance, now, to study 
 God's wisdom in the beautiful flowers of the field, — to 
 study his beneficence in all the laws that regulate living 
 organisms, — is so far a divine work ; but yet it is work 
 that belongs to the week day : it does not specifically belong 
 to the Sabbath. The six days of the week are for teaching 
 what God the Creator is ; but there is one day in the week 
 that ought to be specially devoted to inquire what God the 
 Kedeemer has done. Let Saturday, if you like, be for the 
 commemoration of creation work ; but let the Sabbath days 
 be consecrated to the study of Redemption work. And 
 hence, to build a church is a sacred work. But it would be 
 just as wicked to build churches on Sunday, as to build 
 theatres. It is not the end of a work that will vindicate 
 that work, upon a day on which it is not proper: that day 
 has its own peculiar service, it is sanctified to its own pecu- 
 liar study. And you may depend upon it, that those who 
 are trying to teach the working man to give up the Sabbath 
 to worldly amusements and enjoyment, are taking away 
 from him stealthily, it may be unintentionally, his best and 
 his most precious birthright. Once take the Sabbath off its 
 
EXODUS XXXI. 248 
 
 divine foundation, and say it is lawful to go to the Crystid 
 Palace for amusement on the Sabbath, instead of goiu'^ to 
 the house of God, and the next ste[) in these avaricious, 
 grinding days will be, " Well, you admit that the Saljbath 
 has no divine warrant ; why should you have one day out 
 of the seven for play, when we want to ha\e you do more 
 in the workshop ? " If the Sabbath be once taken from the 
 service of God, you may depend upon it that it cannot long 
 be kept from the drudgery and slavery of Mammon. At 
 the same time, I have always felt, in reference to that sub- 
 ject about which so much has been said, and so much 
 wrongly said, that we cannot practically maintain the Sab- 
 bath for the Christian instruction of the people of this coun- 
 try, unless we contrive to give them Saturday, or a portion 
 of Saturday, for a holiday. You may depend upon it, that 
 Christian people who love the Sabbath will never give it 
 up ; but many think that the minister of the gospel, in ad- 
 vocating the claims of the Sabbath, is only trying to keep a 
 congregation for himself, which he is conscious that he can- 
 not interest or amuse, and therefore he is afraid that they 
 should go and be better amused elsewhere than in the house 
 of God. But when we know, looking at this great city 
 with its nearly three millions of inhabitants, that there are 
 men toiling in it from six, from seven o'clock in the morning 
 till eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, at night ; some in under- 
 ground cellars, others in miserable garrets, never breathing 
 a breath of fresh air, forgetting what flowers are, or how 
 they smell, or how green grass looks; — I say, when we 
 think of this, it appears most cruel to say to these men. You 
 shall never go out on the only day on which it is i)ossibIe 
 for you to see the fxowers, and to breathe the iresh air. And 
 when we feel that we cannot give up the Sabbath, because 
 it is a divine institution — when we feel that the fourth 
 commandment is a huv that we never can compromise — 
 when we feel that the soul of man demands it, we may say 
 
2-14: SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 to those men that are attempting the desecration of the 
 Sabbath, "You just give up a little of your six days; let 
 your young men free every Saturday at two o'clock; let 
 them go and enjoy the flowers, and breathe the fresh air, 
 and visit the Crystal Palace, which will be worth any one's 
 while to visit, and in which there will be much that is fitted 
 to instruct and to edify, and much that is good. Do this. 
 Just take a little from the exactions of Mammon, but do 
 •not intrude upon the holy day of God." The injunction 
 that is by many laid upon the working man is this: — 
 " You may trespass upon God's day as you like ; but you 
 must not trespass, for the life of you, upon Mammon's." 
 Now you say, " We will not trespass upon God's day, we 
 will dedicate it to its right ends ; we believe in its divine 
 foundation ; but we do insist upon your giving up a portion 
 of a week day ; and you may depend upon it that you will 
 not be one whit poorer, or in any degree the loser, and we 
 shall be richer ; you will do that which will not rob you, 
 and which will make us rich indeed." Of course all that I 
 have said upon this subject assumes that the Sabbath is still 
 obligatory upon man : I do not attempt to prove it here, 
 tliougli it is very easily done. It has always been found, 
 that the instant the Sabbath is sacriticed to pleasure, that 
 moment the sanctuary loses all its blessings, and a nation 
 retrogrades and sinks in all that dignifies and beautifies a 
 land. Just take the Sabbath as it is in parts of Prussia; 
 see the Sabbath as it is there ; view it still more so as it is 
 in France ; and you will see that the sacrifice of the Sab- 
 bath is the sacrifice of one of the most precious springs of 
 Christianity; and a nation suffers necessarily in consequence 
 in all its interests. 
 
 But while we contend for the Sabbath, let us, as minis- 
 ters of the gospel, try to make the sanctuary so interesting 
 that tlie ])eo])le shall find more pleasure in texts than they 
 ever can in the contemplation of the beauties of a Crystal 
 
EXODUS XXXT. 245 
 
 Palace: and let those who keep the Sabbath because they 
 are Christians, show that it is not a day that God has 
 cursed, but a day that God has blessed; let them show that 
 it is not a Pliarisaie day, for fasting, and for all tliat can 
 sadden and make sorrowful ; but a day of joy, a delightful 
 day, a day of privilege: — not Jewish, but Christian; and 
 breathing the air and feeling the sunshine of love, and joy, 
 and peace, which are constituent elements of the gospel of 
 Christ. 
 
 21* 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 TABERXACLE FURNITURE, 
 
 We find a summary of all the furniture, about which we 
 have been reading, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in these 
 words : — 
 
 " Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and 
 a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made; the first, 
 wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which 
 is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle 
 which is called the Holiest of all : Avhich had the golden censer, and 
 the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was 
 the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the 
 tables of the covenant; and over it the cherubims of glory shadowing 
 the mcrc3'-seat; of which we cannot now speak particularly." 
 
 Hebrews ix. 1, 5. 
 
 Let me, first of all, explain the connection of the passage 
 I have read with the argument of the apostle in the previous 
 chapter. He tells thrm, that the covenant made, or the bar- 
 gain — it" I may use a familiar expression, the arrangement 
 made with God's people — has passed away, and that " this 
 is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel 
 after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my laws into 
 their mind, and write them in their hearts : and 1 will be to 
 them a God, and they shall be to me a people." And, '' In 
 that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the h'rst old. 
 Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish 
 away." Tliis was not merely suited to the people of the 
 da}', but suited for the Avorship of God ; for it had also ordi- 
 
TABERNACLE FUUNITUUE. 217 
 
 nances, to lead them to the knowledge of the true wav of 
 acceptance before God. And it had also a worldly sanc- 
 tuary. The word " worldly " is not used there in the sense 
 of sinful, but in the sense of material, carnal — what may 
 be touched, and seen, and which is visible. 
 
 And then he goes on to notice several of th(> Icadini^ iVa- 
 tures of the tabernacle, the minnte and specilic character of 
 which we have now been reading. 
 
 It is so very important to ex})lain, that the great end of 
 all the order of Levi, and all the "worldly" ordinances, 
 was plainly to shadow forth, or to give tlie jjcople of that 
 day, in the infant state of the world, an idea of greater and 
 more glorious things. The Bible is one magnificent and 
 consistent whole ; but it is the history of progress, not of 
 standing still. You see the little ray, scarcely illuminating 
 the night, becoming brighter and brighter, till it ends in the 
 glorious sunshine of open day. You have in this one; book 
 all the varied colors of the rainbow — each color its own 
 definite place to play in, but all colors combined in Cljri.4, 
 constituting the pure light — the Lord Jesus Christ. You 
 have in the Bible all the varied typograjjhy. One part, if I 
 may so speak, is written in hieroglyph, another in Saxon 
 character, another in black letter, another in Greek, another 
 in Hebrew, another in Latin ; but all the varied typography 
 includes and teaches one grand truth — Christ as the end of 
 the law, our Atonement, our Sacrifice, our Prophet, our 
 Priest, our King. Take the Bible from the very beginning 
 to the very end, and you will find the first martyr, Abel, 
 ministering beside the footstool ; the first patriarch, Abra- 
 ham, going to a country he knew not where ; Aaron stand- 
 ing before the altar ; Moses ministering on the mount ; the 
 holy Psalmist celebrating God's pmise ; great pro()hc-ts pro- 
 claiming the advent of the Saviour; evangeli.->ts writing; 
 apostles arguing ; the seer in the Apocalypse recording, in 
 words, the magnificent drama that swept betore his eyas, — 
 
248 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 all acting, however varied, however apparently conflicting, 
 as the amanuenses of the one Holy Spirit ; each writing his 
 portion, but all giving expression to one grand and blessed 
 testimony. Now, this is not merely a conjecture ; but it is 
 the assertion of our Lord himself, where he says, in speaking 
 to the disciples who were journeying to Emmaus, " O fools, 
 and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have 
 spoken : ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and 
 to enter into his glory ? And, beginning at Moses," — that 
 is, at the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis — " he 
 expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things con- 
 cerning himself." And, again, in the forty-fourth verse of 
 the same chapter, " he said unto them, These are the words 
 which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all 
 things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of 
 Moses " — that is, the Pentateuch, the first five books — 
 " and in the prophets," — the greater and minor prophets, — 
 " and in the Psalms," — and the Proverbs of Solomon, and 
 all the other books of the Bible, — " concerning me." Here, 
 then, is our blessed Lord asserting that every part of the 
 Old Testament Scriptures is full of him. " Moses," he says, 
 in one of the Gospels, " wrote of me." Now, where did 
 Moses write of Christ? The name " Jesus of Nazareth," 
 the name " Christ," the name even of " Messiah," does not 
 occur in one of the five books of Moses. How, then, can it 
 be said that Moses wrote of Christ? I answer, he wrote of 
 him by character, not by name ; in the same way as the 
 epistles are addressed to us as characters, but not addressed 
 to us as to so many names. The fact is, that the syllables 
 and letters of Christ's glorious name are strewed like stars 
 on the firmament ; and when the Great Sun of Pighteous- 
 ness has arisen with healing on his wings, they are lost sight 
 of in the brightness of the perfect day. At the same time, 
 it is but right to notice, that all that is in the Old Testament 
 economy of shadow and of type is not yet fully revealed. I 
 
TABERNACLE FURNITURE. 249 
 
 believe that we are at this moment but in tlic l\viliM;l,t ^,\' a 
 grand, beautiful, and perfect day. It is truly said, " Wc 
 see through a glass darkly ;" but "then," says the apo.-tk', 
 " we shall see face to face, even as we are seen." The lact 
 is, the Sun of Righteousness has risen above the horizon, 
 but his beams are yet horizontal ; and you know, that when 
 the sun shines horizontally, or is touching the edge of the 
 horizon, he appears larger, but his beams are dim, in conse- 
 quence of the dim and murky atmosphere. The Sun of 
 Righteousness at this moment is just above the horizon ; his 
 beams are slanting, horizontal; but wiien the millemnum 
 begins, his beams will no more be horizontal, Ijut vertical; 
 and in that clearest light we shall see all things clearly ; we 
 shall see him, not refracted and distorted by the atmosphere 
 through which his light now shines, but we shall see hiiu as 
 he is, and we shall be like him. 
 
 Thus every thing in the Old Testament economy is typi- 
 cal ; and, indeed, it is asserted to be so by Paul, in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. He says, in the eighth chapter, at 
 the beginning, "• Now of the things which we have sfuiken 
 this is the sum : We have such an high-priest, who is set on 
 the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens ; a minister of 
 the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, wliich the Lord 
 pitched, and not man. For every high-priest is ordained to 
 offer gifts and sacrifices : whereibre it is of necessity that 
 this man have somewhat also to offer. For, if he were on 
 earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests 
 that offer gifts according to the law : who serve unto the 
 example and shadow of heavenly things, as ]Moses was ad- 
 monished of God when he was about to make the taber- 
 nacle : for. See, sailh he, that thou make all things accord- 
 ing to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." And so, 
 he alludes to it in the Uth chai)ter, in the twenty-lirst verse; 
 "Moreover he sprinkled willi blood both the tabernacle, 
 and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things 
 
250 SCRirTUEE HEADINGS. 
 
 are by the law purged with blood ; and without shedding of 
 blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the 
 patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with 
 these; but the heavenly things themselves" — in themselves 
 unseen, but of which this tabernacle was the pattern — 
 " with better sacrifices " — that is, Christ's sacrilice — " than 
 these." 
 
 Now, this tabernacle, it is plain, was not merely an arbi- 
 trary arrangement ; but all Scripture leads us to suppose 
 that it was a dark, dim outline of some more magnificent 
 and glorious original. It is very important that we should 
 always bear in mind, in looking at things that are recorded 
 in Scripture, that the Holy Spirit uses what is in this world 
 to illustrate heavenly things. Some seem to think that 
 things seen are the original, and things unseen the copy ; 
 but the fact is, that the original of all that is below is in 
 heaven ; and every good that is on earth is a dim copy of 
 the original in heaven. It seems to me plain, that this 
 tabernacle, so minutely laid down, its sj)ecifications so ex- 
 press — descending to the very least, and embracing the 
 very highest — is a copy upon earth — imperfect, dim, and 
 dark, if you will — of some magnificent original that is in 
 heaven, and that is to become actual and visible to us on 
 this very earth. You will find that the whole book of the 
 Apocalypse describes a future that is to be upon this world ; 
 I believe that this earth is to be heaven, and that this world 
 will receive a glory, and a beauty, and a perfection that eye 
 hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, and the heart of man 
 hath not conceived. And I have often said to you what 
 I think it is very important to remember, — that there is 
 nothing sinful in a stone, nothing wicked in a beautiful 
 flower ; there is nothing impure in the bright stars that look 
 down upon us, like the very eyes of Omniscience ; there is 
 nothing bad in a magnilicent landscape. I have often said, 
 what I have often felt, that I could select spots, in which, if 
 
T A r> E 11 N A C L !•: F IJ 11 X I T U K K . 2 ') I 
 
 you could keep out the frosts of winter, and sickness, and 
 death — in other words, if sin were extirpated — 1 could 
 wish to be there for ever and ever. There is no cause, 
 therefore, to suppose that heaven is to be, wluit many peo- 
 ple dream, a sort of transcendental, aeriform, etherealized 
 place, where we are to live in some state they know not 
 what, and they know not how ; but Ave are to be raised from 
 the dead — these very bodies shall be raised — these very 
 bodies, with resurrection beauty, and glory, and perfection ; 
 and I believe that on this earth, therefore, there will be en- 
 joyed everlasting heaven. Why should the devil get this 
 world? What right has he to it? It is too beautifid a 
 world to be given over to him : it is too magnificent a thing 
 to be abandoned, a wreck on the eternal sea. And why 
 should it be abandoned? It only needs sin — tiie fever 
 that racks and convulses — to be expunged ; it only wants 
 the consecrating tread of creation's Redeemer, and its 
 deserts W'ill rejoice, and its solitary places will blossom like 
 the rose. And in every thing in the world, one can see that 
 there are hidden in this world possibilities that man, by art, 
 is constantly developing : for instance, who would think that 
 the roses that are now so beautiful, and that are to be seen 
 at our horticultural show's, are all the results of man's art, 
 bringing a very poor and paltry thing to that perfection? 
 Why, all the different sorts of roses are the results from the 
 wild hedge rose, a very worthless and paltry tiling. And 
 what is this? It is God giving man glimpses of the glori- 
 ous secrets that are below ; it is God telling man what the 
 first paradise was, what possibilities of a better paradise 
 there are in the earth ; and that, when sin is taken away, 
 and Jesus has consecrated creation, then all its hidden and 
 latent possibilities will burst forth ; and this earth, at j)resent 
 the saddest, wdll become the most beautiful and glorious of 
 all the orbs in the universe. 
 
 I notice, in the Book of Revelation, a constant allusion to 
 
252 SCKII'TURE READINGS. 
 
 a tabernacle of which this one in Exodus was the copy. 
 For instance, in the twenty-first chapter we read, " I saw a 
 new heaven and a new earth." He does not say, " I saw 
 another heaven and another earth;" but, "I saw a new 
 heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first 
 earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And 
 I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem; coming down 
 from God" — a descent — "out of heaven, prepared as a 
 bride adorned for her husband " — evidently, the company 
 of God's people, as I might show, if I had time ; — " and I 
 heard a great voice out of heaven, saying," — what? — 
 " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
 dwell with them," as the shechinah, the bright glory that 
 shone between the cherubim on the mercy-seat. This word 
 is derived from a word which means " to dwell ; " and, 
 therefore, is the glory which dwelt between the cherubim. 
 And he says, "And he will be the shechinah in the temple;" 
 " he will be the glory ; " or, " he will dwell with them, and 
 they shall be his people ; and God himself shall be with 
 them, and be their God," — not we taken to him, but he 
 will come to us. And then how beautiful is the next sen- 
 tence ! The poet Burns, who showed many exquisite traits 
 of the human heart, though stained and marred by many 
 sins, said he never could read what follows without weeping. 
 It is exquisitely beautiful: "And God shall wipe away all 
 tears from their eyes ; and there sliall be no more death, 
 neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
 pain : for tiie former things are passed away." Such will 
 be the results when, not the copy which was in the desert, 
 built by Moses after a pattern, but the original itself shall 
 be with man, and God himself shall dwell among them. In 
 this chapter he describes this tabernacle, when he says, 
 "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high 
 mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusa- 
 lem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory 
 
TABERNACLE FURMTUUi:. 2o3 
 
 of God, and her light was like unto a stone most ])r('ri()iis, 
 even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." And in the 
 twenty-second verse there is a very tine statement made : 
 "And I saw no temple, no vaog, i. e. no chancel, therein." 
 I never understood the full meaning of that till the other 
 day, when looking at the words that are employed. In the 
 tabernacle there was a distinction. There was what was 
 called the outer place, into which the priests might enter; 
 and there was the holy of holies, into which the high-priest 
 alone might enter once a year. Now in some countries of 
 Europe, they have a very foolish, and a very unscrij)tural, 
 notion in practice; they have the nave, which is meant to 
 be for the profane multitude; and they have beyond the 
 rood screen, the altar-place, as it is absurdly called, into 
 which the priests alone can enter. And even in some pro- 
 fessedly Protestant churches, I am told, that, if a lady were 
 to approach the holy place, she would instantly be thrust 
 out, as profaning the holy of holies, into which the priest 
 alone can enter; than which any thing more trifling or ab- 
 surd, if not worse, in this nineteenth century, one can 
 scarcely conceive. In the ancient tabernacle, there was the 
 holy of holies, because all was typical ; but we are told 
 now, that there is no holy of holies — the veil of the tem- 
 ple was rent in twain, and the holy of holies was made con- 
 spicuous to all. That was an end of chancels ; that was 
 an end of choirs ; there is no temple ; that is, there is no 
 holy of holies, there is no chancel — all is holy, and no part 
 profane. This is the idea of a true Protestant Church; it 
 is all choir, all chancel, there should be no nave at all ; the 
 whole sanctuary is the holy place ; the nave is done away ; 
 the whole congregation constitute the chancel. And why? 
 Because you are all priests. " Unto him that loved us, and 
 washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made 
 us kings and priests." And the apostle, speaking to the 
 laity, says ; " Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
 22 
 
254 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 hood." And being all priests, we have all an equal right to 
 the holiest place. We are not all pastors, not all bishops ; 
 but wc are all equally priests ; and a minister is not one 
 whit more a priest than the humblest layman in the congre- 
 gation ; a pastor is your servant for Christ's sake, and no 
 more. Well, then, in that better tabernacle, the vaoq, or 
 holy of holies, will be done away with, and " the tabernacle 
 of God " — the grand original — shall be with men. And 
 then he says, " The city had no need of the sun, neither of 
 the moon." Mark the allusion there to the candlestick with 
 its seven branches ; there was no window in the tabernacle, 
 there was, naturally, darkness. The seven candles gave 
 the only light that was there, as if to indicate the dim na- 
 ture of that dispensation. But when the grand original 
 itself comes from heaven, then there will be no need of a 
 candle, no need even of the sun. Why ? Because there 
 will be a moral light still more glorious than any material 
 light; and in this light all others shall become dim and go 
 out ; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb shall be the 
 light thereof. And, as if to show more plainly that it is on 
 earth, it is added : "And the nations of them that are saved 
 shall walk in the light of it." 
 
 We thus see, throughout the whole Scripture, a constant 
 allusion to some grand architectural original. And why 
 should we not anticipate it ? I do not see any reason why 
 that beautiful description of the city, that lies " four-square," 
 should not be realized on earth. It seems to me probable 
 that Jerusalem — now trodden ^ down by the Moslem, the 
 Mahometan, and the monk, and the scene of quarrels — 
 will yet be the metropolis of the world. And it is very 
 striking to notice how all quarrels seem verging in that 
 direction. Tlie reason, at this present moment, why all 
 Europe is showing itself to be — what one has often felt — 
 a perfect volcano, has originated about something in Jeru- 
 salem. And the probability is — though far be it from me 
 
TABERNACLE FUKNITURK. 255 
 
 to prophesy, I «'ira only to int(.n-prct propliecy, — thu prol)a- 
 bility, I say, is that the hist conflict, approaching every day, 
 will be in Palestine ; and when its din and its smoke have 
 cleared away, there will be seen descending, like a bride 
 adorned for the bridegroom, tlic true tabernacle, that has no 
 need of the seven candlesticks, that has no chancel ; but in 
 which God's priests shall assemble, and the very voices that 
 once cried, " Crucify him, crucify him ! " shall yet sing and 
 shout^ " riosannah ! blessed is he that cometh in the name 
 of the Lord." 
 
 Such, then, are the scattered indications of the tabernacle 
 which arc recorded in tlie Word of God, and which show 
 that it w^as a copy of a great original. 
 
 Let me now turn your attention to some of the furniture 
 that was in the tabernacle, as being most instructive in it3 
 nature, and calculated to show that every thing in God's 
 Word has meaning, and instruction, and profit. 
 
 Now, the very first thing, though not given first in the 
 catalogue of the apostle, inside the tabernacle, and in the 
 holy of holies, was the ark. Many have imagined that 
 Noah's ship, which was called an ark, and this ark here 
 described, have one common name. But in the original 
 Hebrew the words are quite" distinct ; the Hebrew for Noah's 
 ark is TJieha and the Hebrew for this ark in the tabernacle 
 is Aaron ; and they are quite distinct in meaning, as, indeed, 
 in use. This ark seems to have been among the Jews the 
 holiest symbol that they had. And it is a singular fact, that 
 there is scarcely a nation in the world that has not a tra- 
 dition of something of this kind. It is one of the most 
 striking evidences of the truth of the Pentateuch, that all 
 its great facts are distorted indeed, but still exist at this 
 present moment, among almost all tiie nations of tiie earth. 
 For instance, the Egyptians, as you will liiul from tlie 
 monuments that have been gathered from Egypt, cariitnl m 
 their processions a sarcophagus, or a sacred chest ; the 
 
256 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Greeks, as every school-boy will recollect, had their sacred 
 Palladium ; and the Romans, if they had not their ark, had 
 their penetralia. Now, what is all this ? Just the traditional 
 remains of a grand truth, evidences that the writing of 
 Moses is true ; and proofs, too, how distorting a medium is 
 tradition, when a great truth is set afloat upon the opinions 
 and traditions of men. 
 
 This ark was made of wood, called in the Septuagint, 
 " incorruptible wood ; " it was of the hardest and most du- 
 rable description, something of the nature of cedar. And 
 the reason why it was incorruptible was probably in refer- 
 ence to its typical import ; because the ark is constantly 
 alluded to in the Apocalypse, and in the Epistles, as I shall 
 show by and by, as the great type or symbol of our blessed 
 Lord. For instance, the apostle says, in Romans iii. 25, 
 after describing that by deeds of law no flesh can be justified, 
 and showing the righteousness by which we shall be justified 
 
 — "Whom God" — "whom" refers to Christ — "whom 
 God has set forth to be a mcrcij-seat" — rendered in our 
 translation, " a propitiation." And again, in Revelation xi. 
 2,9, we read, "And the temple of God was opened in heaven, 
 and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament ; " 
 
 — now, that is identified in other parts with Christ himself. 
 There is no doubt, therefore, that this ark was intended to 
 be the type of the coming Messiah, and was meant to teach 
 that by shadow which we know in spirit and in truth. 
 
 And now, what was in this ark ? There were placed in 
 it, first of all, the two tables of the law. The first tables, you 
 remember, were broken when Moses dropped them, and two 
 other tables were prepared, and placed inside this ark ; and 
 there they were kept till they were lost at the captivity, after 
 which the glory departed from Israel. What was the mean- 
 ing of this, that the two tables of the law were placed inside 
 the ark, over which was the mercy-seat, and the glory that 
 shone between the cherubim, the symbol of Christ ? Just 
 
TABERXACLE FURNITURE. 257 
 
 this, that in the Gospel the law is not diluted, it is not pasx-d 
 away, it is not to be trodden under; it remains wiili all its 
 exactions now as it did once ; and before a single soul can 
 get to heaven, it must have a perfect righteousness. It is 
 just as true to-day as it was on Sinai, — as it was in Para- 
 dise, — that without^ perfect righteousness, that is, perl"ect 
 conformity in thought, word, and deed to God's holy law, 
 there is no admission into heaven. Adam tried to perform 
 a righteousness by personally obeying, and he failed in the 
 grand experiment ; we have not to perform a righteousness 
 in order to be admitted to heaven by it, but it has been per- 
 formed for us in Christ ; so that we are admitted into heaven 
 not by ourselves personally obeying the law, but by our trust 
 in One who obeyed the law for us in our stead. This law 
 remains in all its perfection now, just as it subsisted in the 
 ark then ; only its thunders are hushed, its lightnings are 
 laid ; it is no more an enemy, it is in Christ with us ; and 
 therefore there is no condemnation from the law to them 
 that are in Christ Jesus; for what the law could not do in 
 that it was weak through the flesh, God hath done by send- 
 ing Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be the propi- 
 tiatory or the mercy-seat for us. 
 
 In the second place, we read that on the top of this ark, 
 "which was two cubits and a half in length — that is, as- 
 suming a cubit to be eighteen inches, it would be three feet 
 nine inches, or somewhere under four feet — this ark had 
 over it a " mercy-seat," as it was called, or a lid, tiuit was 
 made of pure beaten gold, and that was sprinkled with blood 
 — the idea of atonement — and hence it was called the 
 " propitiatory," or " mercy-seat." Over it was the shechinahy 
 or the visible presence of God himself. The lid, therefore, 
 or the mercy-seat, with God's glory over it, is, translated 
 into New Testament language, God in Christ reconciling 
 the world unto himself. When the Jew needed mercy, his 
 priest had to go for him to the mercy-seat ; when the sinner 
 22* 
 
258 scRirxuRE headings. 
 
 needed pardon, his priest had to go for him to the mercy- 
 seat. ]S-ovv, the veil is rent ; the high-priest is the propi- 
 tiatory too, and every Christian, every behever, has access 
 to God in Christ — the mercy-seat where he may obtain 
 mercy to forgive him, and grace to help him in the time of 
 need. How beautiful and encouraging#s this thought, that 
 every Christian now, without proxy, without representative, 
 may go to God in Christ by prayer, and may seek, what he 
 is certain to obtain, mercy from God, who is throned on the 
 mercy-seat ! It is now proper in God to pardon ; I may 
 expect God to give me, a sinner, mercy, just as much as I 
 may expect that the waves of the ocean shall roll, or that 
 the sun shall shine. No Israelite ever asked his priest to 
 intercede for him, and was refused ; every sinner in broad 
 Christendom, who is now in the presence of the mercy-seat 
 — for the veil is rent, the holy place is now universal — 
 may, by asking, obtain forgiveness, without money and with- 
 out price. Is it not a very sad thought, that persons perish 
 just because they will not humble themselves to ask salva- 
 tion ? It is one of the most simple, and yet, strange to say, 
 •the least believed, of the truths of the Gospel, that all heaven 
 may be had for asking, that all glory is given gratis ; and 
 God has more glory and delight in giving, than ever we can 
 feel in asking, or even in obtaining. 
 
 Let me notice another feature in the mercy-seat. God 
 always gave answers to the people from the mercy-seat. 
 Thus, we read in Numbers vii. 89, "And when Moses was 
 gone into the tabernacle of the congregration to speak with 
 him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from 
 off the mercy-seat, that was upon the ark of testimony, 
 from between the two cherubims : and the Lord spake unto 
 Moses." Here, then, we have the mercy-seat, the place 
 from which God speaks to us, where God hears us speak to 
 him ; it is the place where God still speaks to us. But how 
 docs he speak to us ? God can speak to you, and to me, 
 
TABEKXACLE FURNITURE. 259 
 
 and to all at once, with infinitely more ease than I can speak 
 to you. I can speak only to tlie outward ears ; God speaks 
 to the inner heart. If, then, I go to the mercy-seat — if I 
 go to God in Christ as my Father, —and ask him for 
 guidance, I am perfectly sure that he will give it. He will 
 give it in his providence, where something will appear which 
 tells that you must not go this way; or some obstruction will 
 start up, which will prevent you from doing what would 
 have ruined you for ever. God still, in answer to your 
 prayer, leads the blind in a way that they know not ; or, at 
 other times, if he do not restrain you by his providence, he 
 will call up to memory a text that had become almost oblit- 
 erated ; and that text will be a lamp to your feet, and a light 
 to your path ; or his Holy Spirit, whom God gives to them 
 that ask him in Christ's name, will speak — silently, but 
 effectually — truly, though not audibly — to the innermost 
 heart, and will direct and guide you in the way that will be 
 for your good, and for God's everlasting glory. 
 
 Then notice, in the next place — though I can only briefly 
 allude to it, — that over the mercy-seat there wore the 
 cherubim. These were two human forms, as is supposed, 
 the tips of whose wings touched each other, while their faces 
 looked down upon the mercy-seat ; and between these 
 cherubim, upon the golden lid, there shone an intense and 
 brilliant light, or glory, which was the token of the presence 
 of God. 
 
 The best sketches I have seen of this are by Bagster, in 
 Ills very proper and very good engravings, representing the 
 form of the tabernacle. It is very beautiful, and most care- 
 fully and accurately done. The cherubim are given there, 
 and very well represented. Well, these cherubim were 
 human forms, that looked down u[)on the mercy-seat ; and 
 the only allusion to them, that I know of, are Peter's words: 
 "Into which things" — speaking of the atonemml — " tiie 
 angels desire to look." Such passages as these, throughout 
 
260 SCRirTURE READINGS. 
 
 the Avliole Bible, show that there is an intimate communion 
 between saints in heaven and saints that are upon earth. 
 That does not authorize the monstrous dogma, that you are 
 to worship them ; because angels minister to us, we are not, 
 therefore, to ofier adoration to them ; that is quite a different 
 thing. Still, the angels, as ministering spirits, are interested 
 in the atonement ; and I know no benevolence so pure and 
 beautiful as what may be called unselfish benevolence, — 
 taking a deep interest in what does good exclusively to 
 others. And one can imagine nothing more beautiful than 
 that angels regard Calvary as the most sublime and in- 
 exhaustible lesson book that was ever written; and look, 
 and wait to hear of a soul's conversion, and ever, as they 
 hear of one sinner that repents, there is joy among the 
 angels that are in heaven. And the cherubim, therefore, 
 looking on the mercy-seat, may be meant to show the con- 
 nection that there is between heaven and earth, and the 
 interest that angels feel in the transactions that are taking 
 place in this present world. 
 
 Next, there was the glory that shone upon the lid, or the 
 glory that shone between the cherubim. The shechinah, or 
 glory, was the visible presence of God himself. And God 
 in Christ is still where two or three are met together in his 
 name. The propitiatory of Israel was local ; our mercy- 
 seat is here, is there, is everywhere. Every congregation has 
 its own mercy-seat ; and yet, all congregations have but one 
 mercy -seat — that is, Christ ; and, therefore, when we pray, 
 we are not to turn east, or west, or north, or south ; but we 
 are to turn our hearts to Christ, the mercy-seat. What a 
 beautiful religion is Protestant and spiritual Christianity ! 
 IIow trilling, poor, and paltry, is that form of it that is 
 neither Romanism nor Protestantism, recently imported 
 from abroad, that spoils both Popery and Protestantism ! 
 Our religion tells us of the blessed truth, that, wherever two 
 or three believers meet in the name of Jesus, and ask 
 
TABERNACLE FUllMTURE. 261 
 
 general mercies, and praise liim for general blessings, there 
 is the mercy-seat. There are answers ; there is forgiveness ; 
 there is the shecliinah — the glory of God himself. 
 
 We read, in the next place, of this ark — on which I 
 cannot comment further — that it wrought many and won- 
 derful miracles. AVe read also, that this ark was regarded 
 in Israel as its great and its chiefest glory. Some of the 
 allusions to it are very touching. There is one in 1 Samuel 
 iv., which I would particularly direct your attention to, as 
 showing us how precious the ark of God was held to be. 
 We read, in the tenth verse, "And the Philistines fought, 
 and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his 
 tent : and there was a very great slaughter ; for there fell 
 of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God 
 was taken ; " — this ark of which we are speaking ; — " and 
 the two sons of Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas, were slain. 
 And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and 
 came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with 
 earth upon his head. And when he came, lo, Eli " — then 
 a venerable priest — "sat upon a seat by the way-side, 
 watching." Now, Avhat was his thought? ''For his heart 
 trembled" — not for the destiny of his nation, not for the 
 fear of the victory of the Philistine ; but the old man's 
 heart was where an old man's heart should be — at the 
 mercy-seat ; " for his heart trembled ibr the ark of God. 
 And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the 
 city cried out. And when P^li heard the noise of the cry- 
 iniT, he said. What meaneth the noise of this tumult ? And 
 the man came in hastily, and told Eli. Now Eli was nin.-ty 
 and eight years old ; and his eyes were dim, that he could 
 not see. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came 
 out of the army, and I fled out of the army. And he said, 
 What is there done, my son ? And the messenger answered 
 and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines ;" — Eli says 
 nothing to that — "and there hath been also a great slaugh- 
 
262 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 ter among the people ; " — he says nothing to that ; he was 
 a patriot, yet he does not seem to have been overwhehned 
 with sorrow when he heard that his country was conquered; 
 he was a man, and yet he does not seem to have had his 
 heart broken when he heard that there was a great slaughter 
 among the people ; — " and thy two sons also, Hophni and 
 Phinehas, are dead," — he was a father, and yet he does 
 not seem to have been much affected by that ; and the mes- 
 senger added, " and the ark of God is taken ! " Now, mark 
 what follows. " And it came to pass, when he made men- 
 tion of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat back- 
 ward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and lie 
 died ; for he was an old man, and heavy ; and he had judged 
 Israel forty years." You observe that he could bear the 
 destruction of his country, and the slaughter of his country- 
 men, the death even of his two sons ; but so did that man's 
 heart cling to that which was the symbol of the glory and 
 the presence of the God of Israel, that when the loss of 
 that was mentioned to him, he fell, his heart burst, " his 
 neck brake, and he died." And there is another instance, 
 'scarcely less touching than that, which we read of directly 
 afterwards. "And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas' wife, was 
 with child, near to be delivered : and when she heard the 
 tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father- 
 in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself, and 
 travailed ; for her pains came upon her. And about the 
 time of her death, the women that stood by her said unto 
 her. Fear not ; for thou hast born a son," — the greatest joy 
 of an Israelite mother — "fear not; for thou hast born a 
 son. But " — the first time that it had ever occurred in 
 Israel — " she answered not, neither did she regard it." 
 And then it is added : " She named the child I-chabod, say- 
 ing, The glory is departed from Israel : because the ark of 
 God was taken." Can you have a more striking repre- 
 sentation of the interest felt by the Israelites in the ark of 
 
TABERNACLE FURNITURE. 203 
 
 God? And, my dear friends, do wo thus love Christ? 
 Does he hoki this place in our hearts? Mothers in Israel, 
 have you left father and mother, and sister and brother, 
 and son and daughter, as no relations in comparison with 
 him? They were in a dark dispensation, — we are in a 
 bright one ; they saw but a glimpse of the Kedeemcr's 
 glory as he passed by ; Jesus Christ has been set iorlli, 
 preached before ns. Do we trust him ? Are we seeking 
 happiness through him ? Are we altered by the fact, tiiat 
 he has suffered and died for us on the cross ? Is religion 
 any thing to us but creed, and ceremony, and name, and 
 habit ; or is it life, power, light, guidance ? And, lastly, let 
 your hearts be more and more where the true tabernacle 
 now is ; that when this new tabernacle shall come down 
 from heaven, adorned as a bride for the bridegroom — 
 where no sod shall be broken for the dead, where no tears 
 shall be shed for the living, where former things shall have 
 passed away, and there shall be a new heaven and a new 
 earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness — we may be forever 
 in that happy home that remains for the people of God. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 MOSES TAKRIES IN THE MOUNT. THE ISRAELITES SEEK AN IMAGE 
 
 OF GOD. Aaron's proposal, the golden calf, images 
 
 AND idols. drunkenness AND PAGAN RITES. LANGUAGE. 
 REPENTANCE. GOD'S FINGER. BROKEN TABLET. AAROn'S 
 apology. PUNISHMENT. 
 
 I THINK the chapter we have read records one of the 
 most humiliating incidents in that chequered and instructive 
 history which Ave have been perusing from Sabbath to Sab- 
 bath. Here is a people brought forth from the land of 
 Egypt, their prison house, amidst special mercies, before 
 whom God's omnipotence had moved to open a pathway 
 through the deep, to rain down bread from heaven to satisfy 
 their wants, to guide and to comfort them in their way ; and' 
 yet this people, thus crowned with loving-kindnesses and 
 with tender mercies, seized the very first opportunity of the 
 absence and the apparent delay of their leader, and made a 
 calf or a golden image, to represent the living and the true 
 God, notwithstanding that they had heard the law pro- 
 claimed amidst the thunders and lightnings of Sinai, " Thou 
 shalt not make to thyself any graven image," and in which, 
 as in all the other commandments of the Decalogue, they 
 had expressed their belief, and to which they had declared 
 their steadfast determination to adhere. 
 
 But let us see the greatness of tlie sin by the incidents 
 that are recorded in the cha[)ter. 
 
 We may notice, not only their ingratitude to God, but 
 their signal ingratitude to Moses, his chosen minister, their 
 
EXODUS XXXII. 2C.J 
 
 kind, their forbearing, and tlicir mn.L^ianiinons Irad.T. I J,, 
 had been forty days in the mount, as eommaiid.Ml hv (hmI, 
 but these forty days were spent, not in his own work, Init in 
 contact with Deity, and specially for (licir l.ciiclK. 'J'lic 
 words that these insolent and nnsri-atelul ti-ilxs use, arc 
 " Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this 
 Moses," — the language of contempt — a sneer, — " th(> man 
 that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not 
 what is become of him ; " he may be dead, if so we do not 
 much care ; but as we have lost him we must have some 
 representation of Deity, in order to go before us. Great 
 benefactors of mankind must not look for recompense on 
 earth. It is your privilege, it is your commission to do tlu^ 
 duty that devolves upon you in the providence of God, and 
 to look for recognition beyond the grave ; for even the 
 world's greatest benefactors have not received the homagt; 
 that they deserved ; we must not calculate on it ; and, there- 
 fore, wdiether w^e receive it or not, we must be guided by a 
 sincere and deep sense of duty and of obligation, not by 
 any prospect and hope of reward in this world. Never was 
 there a leader so kind, so patient, so forbearing, so devoted, 
 and yet these are the words he hears from this ungrateful 
 people, " This Moses, the man that brought us up out of 
 the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." 
 
 The next, and painful and rather a perplexing I'eature 
 in this narrative is that Aaron instantly complied with their 
 wish. It has been supposed that Aaron here tried a plan 
 that is, in fact, old and not new, and that man constantly 
 has recourse to, yet with constant refutation of its value, 
 and always attended with evil consequences — the plan of 
 expediency. It is supposed that Aaron, when he heard 
 them demand some image of the Invisible, in order to put 
 them to the test, or to put them off, or in order to make an 
 appeal to their avarice a reason for getting rid of the sm 
 into which they were prepared to plunge, said to them, 
 2'3 
 
2C6 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 " Very well, then, take off all your golden ear-rings, and all 
 your valuable jewels — all that is precious about your per- 
 sons — take them off; and, if you are prepared to do that, 
 then we will make an idol from them." It has been sup- 
 posed that he did not think they would do so — that he 
 thought he could keep them from committing a great sin by 
 proposing a way of accomplishing it that they would not 
 submit to. But the result shows that it is most dangerous 
 to tamper with what is clear duty. If the thing was right, 
 he ought to have sanctioned it ; but if the thing was wrong, 
 he ought to have said that it was so ; all ingenious expedi- 
 ents for trying to keep men in the way of duty which are 
 not straightforward may seem very plausible, but they are 
 never very prosperous. 
 
 We read, that he received the ear-rings from them after 
 they had taken them off, which shows that their idolatry 
 overcame their covetousness, and they were melted into one 
 piece, M'hich was cut or chased into the form of a calf. You 
 naturally ask — Why this strange image, a calf You will 
 recollect that in Egypt the sacred bull, or the Apis, was the 
 •great object of the adoration or worship of the Egyptians, as 
 you will see upon many of the remains, and monuments, and 
 inscriptions of that country, and it is thought that the Israel- 
 ites carried with them a faint recollection of the idol — the 
 sacred bull — which the Egyptians worshipped, and that 
 they made the nearest approximation to it. 
 
 Thus early evil associations engender sad memories, and 
 mingle with holier feelings. And you will observe that tliey 
 did not profess to make a god, to be a substitute for Jeho- 
 vah, but to make a god that should be the representative of 
 Jehovah ; ibr the language that they used was — " These 
 be thy gods, O Israel!" The Avord gods conveys to the 
 common reader a wrong impression. The Hebrew word 
 for God^ used almost always in the original, is Eloliim, 
 which is the plural number. For instance, in Genesis — 
 
EXODUS XXXIT. 267 
 
 "In the beginning God created tlie heaven and the earth ;" 
 it is in the Hebrew, Bara Elohlw, Hteraily, " Gods cre- 
 ated ;" only the verb hara \< the third i)!'rson singidar ; and 
 Eloldm is the phiral; being a nominative {)hn-al witii the 
 third person singuhir. And that strange, as you would call 
 it, ungrammatical conjunction involves and teaches a great 
 truth — plurality in the Godhead, and yet unity. In tiiat 
 they said, "These be thy gods, O Israel" — they meant 
 " this IS thy god, O Israel." And what confirms this inter- 
 pretation is the fact that Aaron himself " made proclama- 
 tion, and said. To-morrow is a feast to the Lord " — to 
 Jehovah ; that is, the true God of Israel ; and therefore 
 they meant it to be, not a substitute for God, but evidently 
 a visible representation of God. Now the question is, Was 
 this idolatry ? There is no doubt of it. If you o{)en the 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, you will find the apostle writing 
 there — "Neither be ye idolaters, as some of them;" and 
 if you will read the judgment here pronounced, you will see 
 that it was regarded as idolatry by God himself, and ])un- 
 ished accordingly. This proves the fallacy of what some 
 have stated — that it is quite right to have images of Ciirist, 
 and of the Holy Si)irit, and even t)f God the Father. If 
 we say, " Why do you worship images ? " they answ»,'r, " We 
 do not worship idols; these are not substituted for Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost ; they are merely representations of 
 them." But the idolatry consists not only in substituting an 
 image for the true God, but in representing the true God 
 by images, which he hims(df has directly forbidden. And 
 therefore to have images of God at all seems most unscrip- 
 tural ; to worship them, or rather, to take the gentlest form 
 of it, to worship God througli them, is idohilry, disguise it 
 as men like. 
 
 It is then added, that " they rose up early in the morning, 
 and offered burnt olferings, and brought [)eace olferings; 
 and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to 
 
268 sciiirTURE readings. 
 
 play." Now, this shows that whilst they made this an image 
 of God, the accompaniments of their worship were most 
 ohjectionable. Here \vas just the heatlien worship ; they 
 used to dance before their gods, to drink to excess, to in- 
 dulge in all sorts of sensualism ; and the Israelites did the 
 same. And it is very remarkable that the Hebrew word 
 for '• rose up to play," means properly, " rude and wanton 
 play ; " and it is no less remarkable also that the Greek 
 word [j.edv£iv, "to be drunk," is connected with a pagan sacred 
 origin ; it comes from the Avords fiera to v^vecv, which means, 
 " after sacrificing to the gods ; " showing how completely 
 drunkenness was associated and identified with the worsliip 
 of an idolatrous people. 
 
 The Lord said to Moses when this took place, " Go, get 
 thee down ; for thy people." The language here is most 
 suggestive ; God says, '• They are not my people now ; they 
 liave forsaken me." The significance in these words is very 
 remarkable. He says not, " my peoi)le have done it," but 
 " Moses, thy people, which thou brougl)test out of the land 
 of Egypt, have corrupted themselves ; they have given up 
 me, they have gone to their gods ; they have turned aside 
 quickly out of the way which 1 commanded them ; they have 
 made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have 
 sacrificed thereunto, and said, ' These be thy gods, O Israel, 
 which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' And 
 the Lord said unto Moses, ' I have seen this people, and be- 
 hold, it is a stiflheeked people ; now therefore let me 
 alone;'" do not pray to me; as if prayer had such iniiu- 
 ence witli God, that he bids Moses not to pray to him, lest 
 there should be one instance in the Bible, of true prayer 
 not answered ; "let me alone, that my Avi-ath may wax hot 
 against them, and that 1 may consume them." But then 
 " Moses besought the Lord his God ; " and this shows his 
 deep sympathy with the people who had treated him with 
 such scorn ; his love for those who would not wait for his 
 
Kxonrs xxxiT. '2G«.) 
 
 return to thorn — "and said, Lord, wliy dotlj thy wrath wax 
 hot against thy people?" — observe liow Moses, with ex- 
 quisite skill, changes the }u-onoun, and does not say my peo- 
 ple, but he says, they are thy people ; had as tliey are, they 
 are yet that, and therefore I beseech thee to have mercy 
 upon them. And then Moses pleads God's glory. " Where- 
 fore should the Egyptians speak;" as if to say, there is 
 the result of going forth from our kind ; there is all that 
 God can do for you ; where are your promises, where are 
 your prophecies, where are your miracles now? And then 
 he says, " Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy ser- 
 vants ;!' not, as has been said, that they intercede lor us, 
 but, remember thy promises made to Abraham, and Isaac, 
 and Israel — ''to whom thou swearest by thine own selt" — 
 remember, not their merits, but thy })romises to them ; re- 
 member, not their intercessions, but tliy promises respecting 
 their seed. 
 
 "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to 
 do unto his people." Does God, then, change his mind? 
 No ; the word repent is applied to God just as many other 
 passions are ; we say, for instance, God is angry — God is 
 grieved — thus applying human feelings and human pas-ions 
 to Deity. The fact is, there are not in our language words 
 that can express what is peculiar to Deity. All our words 
 are pictures ; our language, with all its i)erfections and all 
 its beauties, is after all but a series of a}»proximate i)ictures 
 which convey ideas by pictures, that the mind, the imagina- 
 tion, the ear, or the eye can comprehend. So, we cannot 
 define God, because speech, the instrument by which we 
 define God, is a human instrument, and wouKl therefore 
 have the imperfection of its origin. Then in one text it is 
 said, " God is not a man that he should repent." It is plain, 
 therefore, that in the sense of changing his ultimate |)ur- 
 pose, God does not repent ; but in the sense of altering his 
 procedure, in consequence of reasons that he foresaw and 
 23* 
 
270 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 took into his estimate, that God is said to have repented. 
 It does not mean change of God's purpose, but change of 
 what seems to us the fair and the necessary course that he 
 is about to pursue. 
 
 We then read that when Moses came down from the 
 mount, and saw the sin of the people, he let fall the two 
 tables of the testimony that were in his hand, and broke 
 them. It is said of these tables that they " were the work 
 of God, and tlie writing was the writing of God, graven 
 upon the tables." Some inhdels have carped at this ; and I 
 must say it does seem to me as if it were not human finger, 
 or human stylus, or pen, but God himself that engraved it ; 
 but why should it be thought impossible for God to engrave 
 upon stone ? Have we not discovered that the lightning 
 can carry our messages — that the lightning let go at Lon- 
 don can print at Dover, as has been more recently shown — 
 is it not found that the very i-ays of light themselves can 
 engrave the most exquisite and intricate imagery ; and 
 should it be thought strange, then, that God should himself 
 engrave upon stone the Ten Commandments ? The fact is, 
 the higher we rise in scientific knowledge, the more we see 
 how true this Book is, how woi'thy of God to write it, how 
 dutiful in man to believe, and bless him and rejoice in him. 
 Well, when Moses heard the noise and " saAV the calf and 
 the dancing," his feelings were so excited that he let fall the 
 tables of stone, and broke them. This was the result of 
 excitement, of indignation, of anger, or rather I should say, 
 judging from liis character here, of grief. But when he 
 came into the camp, we liud that " he took the calf which 
 they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and grourid it to 
 powder, and strewed it upon the water, arid made the chil- 
 dren of Israel drink of it," as it is stated in a parallel pas- 
 sage, of which they were obliged to drink, as they had noth- 
 ing else, in order to humble thein. 
 
 Now, just notice the force of one great character amid a 
 
EXODUS XXXTI. 271 
 
 crowd. Here were millions of people ; a pojiulation nearly 
 approaching in number that of London, marching through 
 the desert ; they might have stoned Moses, they might have 
 killed him; and yet such is the influenee and force of a great, 
 a vigorous, and a powerful mind, going Ibrth with its own 
 great will, and expressing that will with determination, iliat 
 it made them all instantly give up. They gave up because 
 there was the consciousness of guilt within them ; he j)re- 
 vailed because it was an upright mind, reminding them 
 again of the duties^ that they owed to their God, and which 
 they had forgotten that day. 
 
 Aaron then came forward, and said, " Let not the anger 
 of my Lord wax hot." Aaron seems to have been a very 
 cold, collected, calculating person, and yet he was a very 
 eloquent person. Moses was not eloquent. Aaron was ; 
 and he therefore says, " Let not tlie anger of my Lord wax 
 hot." But what a miserable apology does he make! "Thou 
 knowest the people, that they are set on mischief" — then 
 why did not Aaron try to set them uj)on what was not nns- 
 chief ? " For they said unto me, 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 I said unto them" — what would you have ex- 
 pected to find that he said, — "Do it not, for God has said, 
 Thou shalt not make any graven image ? " but he did not 
 say this — " I said unto them. Whosoever hath any gold, let 
 them break it off. So they gave it me " — unexpertedly on 
 my piu-t — " then I cast it into the tire ; " and then he says, 
 with apparent innocence, but with real wickedness, ^ and 
 there came out this calf," as if he had never had the least 
 hand in it; the old plagiarism from Adam and Eve — "The 
 woman gave it me, and I did eat ; " and when God came to 
 the woman, she said, " The serpent beguiled me, and I did 
 eat." And so here, Aaron tries to vindicate his own inno- 
 cence, and indirectly to cast the blame on the providenliiU 
 
272 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 government of God, which permitted the gold to go into the 
 furnace, and to come out unexpectedly in the shape of a calf ! 
 
 Then it is said, " the people were naked ; " that does not 
 mean naked in the sense of being destitute of clothing, but 
 it means naked in the inner and moral sense of the word, 
 that they were before righteous, but that they now were 
 sinful. 
 
 Then with respect to the command given to the sons of 
 Levi, it was not Moses that ordered the three thousand to 
 be slain ; it was God that commanded it. Moses was the 
 judge who pronounced the sentence, the sons of Levi were 
 the executioners that carried the sentence into effect. It 
 was not man's hasty and passionate judgment, but a solemn 
 sentence pronounced by God's bidding and executed by 
 God's command. 
 
 But how is it that amid so many that were guilty three 
 thousand only were slain ? The answer is, there seems to 
 have been three thousand who still remained outside the 
 camp; for the language of Moses, in the 27th verse, is, 
 " Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out 
 .from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man " 
 — it was evidently, the men that still remained outside the 
 camp, and continued in their sin, that were slain ; and those 
 who began to see their sin in its true light were permitted 
 to escape, but were plagued or jjunished with subordinate 
 penalties and other chastisements. 
 
 We then read after this that Moses addressed the people, 
 and said, " Ye have sinned a great sin : " that is, those who 
 were still living, which shows that it was only tlie impenitent 
 that were slain : '' and now I will go up unto tlie Lord ; per- 
 adventure 1 shall make an atonement for your sin." And 
 then he says, " Oh, this peo[)le have sinned a great sin" — 
 when there is very strong feeling, very often that feeling 
 checks itself before it is uttered, if I may so speak — thai 
 is to say, it is too deep for utterance ; and in the 32d verse, 
 
EXODUS xxxir. 273 
 
 we have a proof of it : " Yet now, if tliou wilt for^^ivo their 
 sin — ;" and he stops in the middle of the sciitenct' ; lii.s 
 emotions were too strong for utterance; it is .an unlini.sh^Ml 
 sentence, it occurs in alManguages ; "and if not," then lie 
 adds, " blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast 
 written." Now, I have lieanl many j)ersons say that AIoscs 
 asked to be condemned to misery himself if God would only 
 spare his people ; but I am quite satisfied that the book that 
 is alluded to here is a book that is elsewhere referred to in 
 Scripture, and denotes simply being numbered with the 
 living that are upon earth, the book of theli\ing; :uid in 
 several passages we find allusions to it : " J^et my name," as 
 if he had said, "be numbered no more with the living upon 
 earth" — "Let my lot be no more with the living upon 
 earth." See Psa. Ixix. 20 ; Philip, iv. 3 ; Ezek. xiii. D ; 
 Isa. iv. 3, — and all that Moses therefore asked liere was, 
 not that God should blot his name out of Ilis own hidden 
 book, which shall be produced at the great white Throne ; 
 but that God would, if it pleased him, take away the life of 
 Moses, if he Avould only spare the people that had been 
 guilty of so great a sin — "let me be no more numbered 
 with the living creation if thou wilt only spare tiiese " — 
 " let my life be taken instead of the lives of the oftenders 
 that have been guilty before thee." God said, " "Whosoever 
 hath sinned against me, him will I blot out" — puni>hment 
 shall be light upon the guilty head ; 1 cannot take tlue as a 
 substitute. 
 
 "And the Lord plagued the people," tluit is, m.ule 
 them feel their sin afterwards, whilst he did not destroy 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 MOSES' TRAYER, GOd's GLORT. HEAVEN, THE GROWING REVE- 
 I.ATION OP IT. GLORT IS GOODNESS. HOW GOD IS GLORI- 
 FIED. 
 
 In the previous chapter, which we read last Lord's day- 
 morning, we had that most distressing and humbhng ac- 
 count of the apostasy of the children of Israel, even at the 
 foot of the mount that burned with the glory of God, and 
 with the accents of heaven still ringing in their ears. You 
 will recollect, at the close of it, the intercession of JMoses, 
 who prayed, not that he might be blotted out of the Book 
 of Life in heaven — which is a very common, but a very- 
 mistaken apprehension of the passage — but that his name 
 might cease to be numbered with the living upon earth, if 
 his death could only secure for the people that had so 
 greatly sinned, the favor and the protection of God. 
 
 In this chapter we have Moses, tiie man of God, brought, 
 if possible, still nearer to God ; for the Lord spoke to him 
 " face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." The 
 chapter opens with the beautiful announcement of God him- 
 self, that, notwithstanding all the sins of the past, his prom- 
 ises should not fail ; " Depart, and go up hence, thou and 
 the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of 
 Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to 
 Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it." 
 How wonderful is this ! The sins of a nation do not 
 always repel the protection of God. When man is unfaith- 
 
EXODUS XXXIII. 27') 
 
 ful to his fluty, tliough he forget God's precepts, yet (lod 
 remembers his promises of grace, wlien man has ceased to 
 be worthy of them at aU. In other words, olten in the ex- 
 perienee of nations, as well as in the exi)erience of individ- 
 uals, " where sin hath abounded, there grace hath much 
 more abounded." But God says to tliem, " 1 will send an 
 Angel before thee ; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the 
 Amorite, and the Ilittite, and the Perizzite, the llivite, and 
 the Jebusite : unto a land flowing with milk and honey : for 
 I will not go up in the midst of thee ; for thou art a stitl- 
 neeked people." Now, I think this verse, and also verse 5, 
 where God says, " Ye are a stiflfhecked people : I will come 
 up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume tln-e," 
 are rather threatcnings of what Israel deserved, than abso- 
 lute promises or prophecies that God desired to fulfil. It 
 seems to me as if he were trying them, to see whether they 
 could appreciate his presence, and whether they would feel 
 his absence and removal from them to be a great personal 
 and national calamity ; because we find that afterwards he 
 returns to them in loving-kindness and in mercy, and pities 
 them as a father pities his children. 
 
 One sometimes wonders that God should so condescend to 
 reason with us. AVe often think ourselves a very important 
 race, and our world a very magnificent orb; but in truth, 
 if this little orb in which we live were expunged from the 
 orbs of creation, it would make no greater gap, relativ«dy, 
 than a grain of sand taken from the sea-shore would make a 
 gap there. We are much less in any sense than we think 
 ourselves; and if we are great, we are great only in the 
 splendor of that greatness that pities us, and bears with us, 
 and forgives us. 
 
 We read that Moses took the tabernacle, and carric.l and 
 pitched it without the camp; and when he came out into 
 the tabernacle, all the people rose up; and when he talked 
 with the Lord, "all the people rose up and worshii.pcd, 
 
276 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 every man in his tent door." It seems from all this, as if 
 the terrible judgment on the three thousand in the previous 
 chapter had been sanctified. Unsanctiiied judgments are 
 the worst of all judgments ; but judgments sanctified lose 
 their character as penal visitations, and become paternal 
 ministries. To the rest of the people, therefore, this judg- 
 ment seems to have been sanctified ; for we find them now 
 exhibiting a devotional spirit, and showing an obedience to 
 God that thej did not manifest before. 
 
 We have a most interesting and beautiful account of 
 Moses' communion with God — a communion that is here 
 made visible — but that still exists between the soul and 
 God as closely, as really, as truly, as it existed between 
 God and Moses at the foot of Mount Horeb. The soul can 
 still communicate with God. In that dispensation every 
 thing was done visibly ; it was the infancy of our race, and 
 God was guiding them with leading strings. But now the 
 same closeness and communion is realized spiritually ; the 
 inner life being as real as the outer life, though not visible 
 like it. 
 
 ' God then speaks to Moses as knowing him by name ; and 
 Moses, encouraged by God's condescending approach to 
 him, begins instantly to pray for more than he had. The 
 more a believer has, the more he asks. It is not the man — 
 strange enough — that needs most that prays most ; but it is 
 the man that has got most that prays the more, seeks for 
 more ; because the more we have, the deeper we feel the 
 wants that still remain to be supplied; the more precious 
 we feel what we have, and live in the enjoyment of blessed- 
 ness thjit we felt not before ; like Moses, we make one grant 
 the pretext for asking another, and one blessing a reason for 
 seeking more. Therefore Moses says, "I pray thee, if I 
 have found grace in thy sight," — not merit, — "if I have 
 found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may 
 know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight," — not that I 
 
EXODUS XXXIII. 277 
 
 have deserved it, — "and consider tliat tliis nation is thy 
 people." Then God gave liiiu the promise of liis pres- 
 ence: "My presence shall go with thee, and I will jrive 
 thee rest." And Moses felt the need of that presence so 
 deeply, that he said that nothing could be a substitute for it. 
 "If tliy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." 
 Then the Lord said, "I will do this thing also that thou iiast 
 spoken ; for thou hast found grace in my sight ; " that is, 
 What thou hast now asked of me, I will do. 
 
 Then Moses makes a very grand [)rayer, "I beseech 
 thee, show me thy glory." What, had he not st^cn it in the 
 burning mount, when the earth shook, and Israel treml)le(], 
 and the mount was crowned with a coronal of the intensest 
 glory ? Had he not seen God's glory wl^en they marciied 
 through the channels of the deep dry-shod? Had he not 
 seen it in the rock in the wilderness ? Had he not seen it 
 in the pillar of fire by night ? What else could he want to 
 see? My dear friends, it is the law of our being, that the 
 more we know, not only the more we discover remains to be 
 known, but the more we pray that we may know. 1 believe 
 that heaven will consist in endless approximation to God ; 
 not only in character, not only in hai)piness, but also in 
 knowledge. I believe that all we know at present, com- 
 pared with what remains to be known, of mystery, and 
 beauty, and greatness, in the world of creation, in the world 
 of providence, is a mere drop in the bucket. Even the 
 great Newton could say, when he was congratulated on his 
 attainments, in some such words as these, '* I am but like a 
 child that has picked up a few beautifid shells upon the sea- 
 shore, where the great unsounded ocean, that I know notli- 
 ing of, stretches far away before me." And we shall find in 
 heaven that it will be rising constantly to a new iiorizon ; 
 the verge of the horizon to-day becoming the centre of 
 another to-morrow ; and every day bringing new stores of 
 light, as well as new accessions of joy. If there be prayer 
 24 
 
278 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 in heaven, where all is praise, that prayer will be, "I be- 
 seech thee, show me thy glory ; " and every apocalypse of 
 his glory will only make you long to see more ; and the 
 more you know, the more you desire still to know. 
 
 God instantly answered him ; and how very beautifully 
 does he answer him ! " I beseech thee, show me thy glory." 
 " And God said," I will do what ? " I will make all my 
 goodness pass before thee." What a beautiful connection is 
 that — that God's glory is seen in comparison as God's 
 goodness is felt ! I think that is one of the most striking 
 thoughts in the whole Bible — that God's name is covered 
 with its richest lustre, when God's goodness is felt most 
 deeply by the greatest number of believing hearts. God 
 was covered with glory, when he said, upon the circum- 
 ference, if I might so call it, of the heavens, " Let there be 
 light : and there was light ; " but he appeared in yet richer 
 glory when he stooped from the cross, amid his agony and 
 bloody SAveat, and said to the malefactor, " This day shalt 
 thou be with me in Paradise : " because creation glory was 
 the manifestation of omnipotent power ; but redemption 
 glory was the exhibition of his greatest goodness ; and where 
 his goodness is felt most, there his glory is best seen. You 
 will understand what is meant by giving glory to God. You 
 remember the question I have often quoted — I think the 
 grandest question that can possibly be asked — the first that 
 we learn in the North in infancy, and the highest that a 
 philosopher can study, — " What is the chief end of man ? " 
 " To glorify God." That is the first thing ; not to make 
 money, not to get rich, to become great, but to glorify God. 
 How do we do so ? We cannot add any thing to God's 
 being; God, as an Infinite Being, is glorified just in pro- 
 portion as he is seen. A man is glorified by something 
 added to his rank, or to his wealth, or to his power. A 
 creature must be added to in order to be glorified ; but the 
 Infinite is glorified just in proportion as he is seen as he is. 
 
EXODUS XXXIII. 279 
 
 The more you see of God, the more you glorify God ; ami 
 the more in your lite you prove that you know what God is, 
 the more God is gloritied in you. 
 
 God said to Moses, You c<annot bear the intense hght. 
 Now, it is evident that the glory of God is not only moral, 
 but it seems, judging from the Shechinali, or the pillar of tire 
 by night, and also from the description in the dose of the 
 Book of Revelation, that there is a visible glory about Deity. 
 It is said at the close of the Book of Revelation, "There is 
 no need of the sun or of the moon," implying that a greater 
 lustre than either has superseded them. And what is that 
 greater lustre? The '• glory of God and of the Lamb;" 
 so that it seems in the age that is to come, there will be a 
 glory beside which the sun and the moon will grow pale ; a 
 glory so intense that the eye cannot now bear it ; and Closes 
 even, Avho spoke with God face to face, had to go into a elefl 
 of the rock and be covered with God's hand ; and the 
 apostle says that rock was Christ ; and he could only catch 
 there a glimpse of the intolerable splendor as it swe})t by. 
 
 May we be found standing on that Rock ; may we be 
 found in Christ, and so taste God's goodness, and see God's 
 glory, and be thus happy ! 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 MOSES PREPARES NEW STONES. GOd's APOCALYPSE ON THE MOUNT. 
 MOSES PRAYS, THE EXTERMINATION OF THE CANAANITES. TUB 
 EXPULSION OF ROMANISM. SABBATH IN HARVEST. FASTING. 
 PEOTESTANTISJI AND POPERY. 
 
 In a former chapter, you will recollect that it is written 
 that God himself prepared the stones on which the Ten 
 Commandments were to be inscribed; and with his own 
 Divine linger — that is, by his own special power — im- 
 printed on those tables of stone the words of the Law that 
 abideth for ever. Moses, you will recollect, broke the stones 
 in his f^reat indignation at the terrible apostasy which began 
 to manifest itself among the children of Israel, aided, most 
 criminally aided, by Aaron the pi'iest, who ought to have 
 taught them to be steadfast and immovable, and to keep to 
 the truth, as that truth had been revealed. On this occasion 
 you will see that God does not either make, or hew, or pre- 
 pare the stones, but tells Moses to get ready the stones, and 
 to prepare them, and to shape them after a model which he 
 had seen on the mount, and which came originally from the 
 plastic hand of Deity. Moses did so ; but it is said, the 
 Lord wrote the law upon these tables of stone, though they 
 differed in this respect in the second instance, that Moses, 
 not God, hewed or shaped the stone. What was the reason 
 of this it is dillicult to say ; perhaps it was a less visible 
 memorial and residence of the glory of God vvith the chil- 
 dren of Israel in consequence of their apostasy, and to 
 
EXODUS XXXTV. 281 
 
 remind them, throughout their nation's liistory, of tliat ^n-at 
 and grievous sin, their idohitry at the bottom of the mount. 
 
 Moses, in obedience to tlic command of CJod, went up to 
 Mount Sinai, and presented himself before God. He only 
 could do so; he was a typical mediator, a representative, a 
 figurative symbol of Jesus Christ, the only mediator, who 
 has passed into the true holy place, and appears in the pres- 
 ence of God for us. But it is very beautiful to see that on 
 that very mount which burned with lire, was shrouded witli 
 blackness, and from which the deep bass of the thunder 
 rolled continually into the ears of quaking Israel — that on 
 that very mount, whose antecedents had been so dark and 
 so terrific, God revealed the most beautiful and comforting 
 description of himself recorded, perhaps, in the whole Bible ; 
 to show that Israel was not to be under mere law ; but while 
 they saw and learned what the law was, they were also to 
 have a foretaste of what the Gospel was also. We asso- 
 ciate with Sinai every thing that is terrific ; the contact and 
 the presence of a sovereign, a legislator, a judge. But we 
 should not forget that on Sinai also was revealed that beauti- 
 ful portrait of Deity : " The Lord God, merciful, and gracious, 
 longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping 
 mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, 
 and sin." This, again, corroborates what I have freiiuently 
 remarked, — that God never says a word of terror that is 
 not followed by two of comfort ; that he never shows the 
 dark cloud without seams in it letting forth a portion of his 
 love, mercy, and beneficence; in short, that behind tlie cloud 
 he hides a Father's face. 
 
 When he had made this revelation of himself to Moses, 
 Moses bowed himself and worshipped, and said, -If now I 
 have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray 
 thee, go among us ; for it is a stilfnecked people ; and par- 
 don our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheri- 
 tance." Kow, what gave Moses conlidence to ullcr such a 
 24* 
 
282 SCKIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 petition as this ? On Sinai, while tlie law was given, he 
 uttered no such prayer. It is said that Moses then quaked, 
 and trembled. But here, you observe he addresses God in 
 prayer, seeks pardon, and not only seeks pardon for the 
 past, but prays for a favor, the richest and greatest that 
 God could bestow — that he would make his people his 
 very inheritance. Man's inheritance is that which he 
 prizes ; if it be an estate, if it be wealth, it is something 
 that he takes to himself, and that he prizes highly because it 
 is valuable. Now, Moses says to God, " IMake this very 
 people, this stitFnecked people — pardoning first their sin — 
 that peculiar people, that chosen nation, that royal priest- 
 hood, that holy generation, thine own very inheritance 
 which thou wilt prize for ever and ever. That which 
 emboldened Moses thus to pray was the manifestation of 
 God's character just previously — " The Lord God, merci- 
 ful and gracious." As if Moses had said, " Well, if this be 
 the God I have to deal with, I need not hesitate to ask of 
 him any thing that I want for me or mine." In other words, 
 the revelation of God in all his excellency, is not only the 
 ground of prayer, but the highest possible encouragement 
 to pray. When we pray, we do not pray to God the judge, 
 or to God the legislator, but we begin our prayer as we 
 should ever begin our creed, " Our Father which art in 
 heaven." And why do we say " Father ? " Because he 
 has first revealed himself our Fatlier in Christ, foro-ivinof 
 iniquity, transgression, and sin ; and seeing the revelation 
 of liimself that he has given us, we make that the basis of 
 our asking the largest blessings that heart can conceive, or 
 the tongue of prayer can give utterance to. 
 
 God next instructs ]\Ioses what he was to do among this 
 pco[)le. He says first of all, that he would drive out before 
 them all the heathen inlui])itants of the land, "the Amorite, 
 and tlie Canaanite, and the Ilittite, and the Perizzite, and 
 the Ilivite, and tlie Jebusite;" and we read that they were 
 
EXODIS XXXIV. 283 
 
 driven out by battle, and Ijuninc, ami sliuiLrlilcr, an.l by ter- 
 rible punishments. The scei)tie lias often cavilled at this, 
 and said, " How can we suppose that the (lod who revealed 
 himself thus upon the mount would have exterminated 
 whole races in the way he has done ?" I answer, lirst: — 
 God is revealed as a God of love, justice, truth ; therefore, 
 what he did, even if we could not see how, he did justly, 
 truly, righteously, and well. And in the second place : ■ — 
 Are not individuals punished in society for their crimes ? A 
 criminal is seized by the police, condemned by the law, 
 driven to a penal settlement, or disposed of by the jiid^re; 
 that is, a man sins against society, and society, with all its 
 mercy, feels it a duty it owes to itself to remove the indi- 
 vidual who has become guilty against the lirst laws, and 
 rights, and duties of our social system. — When God drove 
 out those nations, he acted as a judge. They were crimi- 
 nals, not hidden criminals, but proved criminals. You are 
 told their sins had risen to heaven ; they indulged in the 
 most abominable, the most depraved, and revolting prac- 
 tices ; and when God drove them out, it was not simply — 
 as a sceptic would make you think — to make room for the 
 Israelites, but it was punishing justly and righteously a 
 guilty race, and giving their empty land to a people, not 
 innocent, for they were a stiffnecked people, but a people 
 that he had chosen to make by his grace what they should 
 be — kings and priests unto God and unto his Christ. 
 There was nothing unjust in this expulsion of these nations, 
 in order to make room for the children of Israel. The ex- 
 pression " God is a jealous God," and the warning to Mo^^es 
 not to make any covenant with the Canaanites, but to 
 destroy their altars, must suggest itself the reason for it. It 
 seems strange that the Jews should be so prone to idolatrous 
 practices ; yet I ought not to say so ; it is too common now. 
 The Jews were meant to be a nation insulated from the rest 
 of the earth, to be, as it were, a model peoi.le, or, if not a 
 
284 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 model people, a specimen of what human nature is when 
 left to itself for a moment, and what grace can make out of 
 the very worst of human nature by its transforming power. 
 Now, their only safety was in their complete insulation ; the 
 moment that they had any intercourse with the surrounding 
 nations, that moment they adopted their habits. Now, how 
 do you account for this ? Because we are a fallen race. If 
 men were born, as the philosopher guessed, or thought he 
 was born — his soul, his heart, his conscience, like a tabula 
 rasa — that is, like a blank piece of paper with nothing on 
 it, then whatever influence man is first exposed to would 
 write itself deepest, and would be the great and the ruling 
 one. But we know every man is born, not a blank, but 
 blighted, stained, depraved, sinful ; and being so, his sympa- 
 thies are with what is evil, and against what is good. And 
 if such be his nature, you can see that to keep him away 
 the furthest from the evil is a necessary step to enable him 
 to resist and overcome, as well as to obtain the influence of 
 the good that is promised. And therefore God said, " Ye 
 shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down 
 tlieir groves." That is the truest philosophy. If in this 
 land. I think, they had effaced every lingering impression 
 of former superstition, every thing that was imported from 
 Romanism, even if in itself indifferent at the Reformation, 
 there would not have been again the unhappy attempt to 
 construct Romanism in the midst of a truly and constitu- 
 tionally Protestant Church. In the Scotch Church, they 
 weeded out Romanism, root and branch, most thoroughly, 
 so that it has never found a nook, or a crevice, or a corner 
 to sprout in, from John o' Groats to the Tweed. It has been 
 completely expunged from the Church, because neither 
 grove nor altar, nor image, nor any thing of the kind what- 
 ever has been retained. I believe such was the feeling of 
 Latimer, and Cranmer, and Ridley, but they were not able 
 to do all that they wished. One is only thankful that they 
 
Exonrs XXXIV. 285 
 
 did so mucli, and oanicslly do we ])r;iy tliat wliat tlicy did 
 may always predominate, liut in all these thinj^s tlic '^vr-dt 
 object is clear separation from wliat is evil. AVe know, as 
 Knox himself said, roughly it may be, but truly, speaking 
 not of the churches, bat of the monasteries, that, when the 
 nests are pulled down, the rooks will fly away. 
 
 AYe read, here, of several observances, anion"; which is 
 one very remarkable : '' Six days thou shalt work, but on the 
 seventh day thou shalt rest : in earing time and in harvest 
 thou shalt rest ; " that is, You shall not violate the Sabbath 
 day because it is harvest. I have heard persons say. It has 
 been six days very wet; the corn is standing, and Sunday 
 happens to be a bright sunny day ; and they say. We ought 
 to go and cut down the corn on the Sabbath day. Here is 
 a provision for this very possibility. God says, Even in 
 harvest and earing time you shall still keep the Sabbath 
 sacred to God. And I have noticed, although I admit my 
 observation has been very limited, that that man who has 
 cut down his corn on the Sunday in order to get it in well, 
 did not succeed one whit better in the long run, than he that 
 observed the Sabbath as holy, and waited for sunny week- 
 days in order to do his weekday work. I admit that there 
 are works of necessity and mercy tliat are proper to be done 
 on the Sabbath day; and I can conceive the possibility that 
 a time may come — an autunni may come — when, even 
 upon the Sabbath day, you should be obliged to cut down 
 the corn in consequence of unfavorable weather on the 
 weekdays ; but you should first be well satisfied that there 
 is no prospect of sunshine during the six days that are to 
 follow. Do not forget that Ciod said — not as ceremony but 
 morality — that in earing time, and in harvest even, ihuu 
 shalt rest, or sabbatize, or keep the Lord's day. 
 
 After reading of certain injunctions that God made, we 
 find that JNIoses was forty days and forty nights on llie 
 mount — " he did neither cat bread, uor drink water." This 
 
286 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 was not the fast that they attempt at Rome, and which they 
 do very badly, by simply abstaining from flesh, and eating 
 vegetables, and even sometimes fish ; but it was an absolute 
 fast ; it was total abstinence from food. So, when our 
 Blessed Lord fasted in the desert, it was an absolute fast. 
 But I cannot see that fasting is one of the imitable perfec- 
 tions of Christ; we cannot follow his example by totally 
 abstaining from food for forty days. There are some things 
 in Jesus that are not for us to imitate : his walking on the 
 waves of the sea ; his raising the dead ; his forgiving sins. 
 Christ is our example in all his imitable perfections ; but 
 there w^ere traits in his character which are inimitable, and 
 I cannot see that the forty days' fast is at all imitable. And 
 if to fast totally was the practice of Moses here, and if 
 Jesus fasted totally during those days he was in the desert, 
 it is quite certain that we cannot do it ; if the experiment 
 be made desperately, it must end fatally ; and if made im- 
 perfectly, I do not see the good to the conscience, or the 
 sanctification to the heart, that can possibly follow from 
 stinting and starving the flesh. It is, my dear friends, so 
 important to remember, that to mortify the flesh is Popery ; 
 to mortify the lusts of the flesh is Protestantism. To do 
 penance, by walking upon pebbles twenty miles, is Roman- 
 ism; to repent, is Protestantism. But the former is very 
 easy to human nature, — the latter needs the Holy Spirit 
 of God to inspire and teach it. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 5—7. 
 THE SAVING NAME. 
 
 SAVING NAME. MORAL GLORY. IIOAVARD AND BYRON, EACH 
 ATTRIBUTE. SOLUTION OF SINNERs' DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 "And the Lord clescended in the cloud, and stood Avith 
 him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And 
 the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Loud, 
 the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and 
 abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thou- 
 sands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and tliat 
 will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the iniquity of 
 the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's chil- 
 dren, unto the third and to the fourth generation." 
 
 The petition of Moses was most unselfish ; as if ho had 
 said, — Lord, do not give me an illustrious name; do not 
 make me to be remembered to all generations ; let my 
 name be eclipsed by the splendor and magnificence of thine. 
 Lord, show me not my fame, my destiny, nor even my name 
 in the Lamb's book of life ; but show me thy glory, let me 
 see it as it shines in the firmament when the heavens arc 
 telling, and all the stars are the syllables that compose it ; 
 let me see that glory on earth ; in the quiet ix-aufy of mom, 
 in the meridian strength of noon, in the matron dignity and 
 soft shades of evening, let me see thy glory. Let me see it 
 in providence, overruling its most com})lieate(l events, to 
 beneficent and glorious issues. But above all, show mc thy 
 
288 SCllIPTURE HEADINGS. 
 
 glory, wliere that glory is concentrated as in the brightest 
 and most refulgent mirror, in Christ crncilied, in whom alone 
 I trust, and Avho is " the brightness of thy glory, and the ex- 
 press image of thy person." 
 
 Now, when Moses asked this very natural grant, " Show 
 me Thy glory," the answer that God gave to him was a very 
 guarded one, if such criticism ought to be ventured at all ; 
 but just the answer w^e should have expected, or if not ex- 
 pected, that we can see to be so precious ; " And God said, 
 I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will 
 proclaim the name of the Lord." The request is, " Show 
 me Thy glory ; " the answer is, " I will make all my good- 
 ness pass before thee." How precious is the thought sug- 
 gested by this — that when God is seen to be most good to 
 his creatures, he is then seen to be most glorious in the uni- 
 verse ; that the glory and the goodness of God are so con- 
 nected together that where the one is most revealed, the 
 other shines in its richest splendor. Not power in creating, 
 not justice in punishing, but goodness in saving, sets forth 
 most the glory of God. Creation is the mirror of his power ; 
 Sinai is the pedestal of his justice ; but Calvary is the scene 
 of his goodness, and therefore of his great glory. And we 
 all know that great genius may make us wonder, great riches 
 may make us envy, great strength may startle us ; but great 
 goodness rises upon the soul with an influence like the 
 sun in his shining light, making us love as well as admire, 
 and reverence, and esteem. Lost as man is, goodness is 
 still most impressive on the heart of the very worst. Even 
 Avitli all our depravity, who does not admire Howard, the 
 philanthropist, vastly more than Byron the poet? There 
 may have been little genius in Howard, as the world calls 
 genius, but there was a beneficence that went into the re- 
 treats of fever, into the lairs of vice, shut its eyes to monu- 
 mental remains of ancient days, and opened his heart only 
 to the cry of them that were appointed to die. And when 
 
EXODUS XXXIV. 289 
 
 one hears what he did, and what he dared uii.lcr tlic in^pi- 
 ration of goodness, one is not awed, but clianncd arid de- 
 lighted, with the cliaracter of Howard. But wlicn w(! sfc, 
 on the other hand, great g(Miius — and our. caiuK.l hiii ailinirt- 
 sueh a genius as that gifted nobleman had — wewoiKh-rat 
 the greatness and the versatihty of inteUeet ; but when that 
 intellect was used only to scathe, and to wither, and to bla>t, 
 we look upon it in the same way as upon the sirocco in the 
 desert, we are rather terrified at it, or retreat from it, or 
 would rather wish we should not see it at all. l*ut how- 
 complete is the contrast between goodness in a Howard, and 
 mere power in a Byron ! And is there one in this assend>ly 
 that would not infinitely rather take the example of Howard 
 as his model, than wish the power of Byi-on to be liis pos- 
 session? But this is in the human, and I (juote it in the 
 human only to show you more clearly the truth I am trying 
 to teach ; that not the manifestation of power, not the mani- 
 festation of justice, but the manifestation of goodness, is the 
 most impressive on the heart. God adds also, '' I will pro- 
 claim the name of the Lord." Thus we see that God's 
 goodness, God's glory, and God's name, are one and the 
 same thing. How truly, then, has John summed up the 
 whole of this beautiful revelation — "The Lord God, merci- 
 ful and gracious," in one short sentence ! " God is love," lie 
 might have said, " God is power," " God is justice," " God is 
 truth," and it would have been all correct ; but love, and 
 mercy, and goodness, were what the old Puritans called the 
 darling attributes of God. He singles out that attribute 
 which strikes the human heart with the greatest force, and 
 sanctifies what it strikes. " God is love ; " this is his name, 
 this is the epitome of ''The Lord God, merciful and gra- 
 cious." Now, every attribute in this name is just a syllable 
 setting forth and composing together God's name. " '1 he 
 LourV' that is one syllable, "the Loud God" another; 
 "merciful, gracious, longsufVcring, abundant in goodness uud 
 25 
 
290 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 truth ; forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin ; these syl- 
 lables form the complete or perfect name of God. Let us 
 look at them, and very briefly. First of all you notice it is 
 in capital letters. In reading the Scriptures you must have 
 observed that wherever the word is Jehovah, there the word 
 Lord is in capital letters ; but in another instance, where 
 the word " Lord " is not the translation of Jehovah, you will 
 find it is printed in small letters. In the 9th verse, "And 
 he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, Jehovah, 
 let my Lord " — our translators have very properly put 
 " Lord " in the second passage in small letters. In the first, 
 " Lord " is the rendering of Jehovah ; in the second it is 
 of Adonai. In the New Testament the first is Kvpioq, and 
 the second is {5fCT7ror?/f, from which comes our word despotism, 
 and which means " master," or " governor," or " ruler." 
 The first syllable here is " the Lord," that is, Jehovah ; and 
 the meaning of Jehovah is " the everlasting," " the self-exist- 
 ing;" and this word to the Jews was so sacred, that in read- 
 ing the Old Testament Scriptures, they do not mention it ; 
 they substitute the other Hebrew word, adonai, in its stead. 
 If a Jew found the word Jehovah on a slip of parchment 
 torn out of one of his sacred books, that piece of parchment 
 was consecrated for ever, as if the very name of God upon 
 it made it sacred. It was called the incommunicable name 
 of God. But in order to complete it, there is added, " The 
 Lord — Jehovah — God." The word here is the translation 
 of El, the same word which Jesus said upon the cross when 
 he said " Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani ? " that is, " My God, 
 my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " and the meaning of 
 it is strength, omnipotent power. It is very important, that 
 this declaration of so rich goodness should be prefaced by a 
 declaration of Almiglity power ; and that when you read, 
 God is merciful, God is gracious, God is ibrgiving, you may 
 know before you read, that he has power in himself to give 
 all he offers, and apply every attribute that subsequently 
 
EXODIS XXXIV. 201 
 
 occurs in liis name ; his groat nes;.s begins tliiit wo may not 
 presume upon liis goodness ; his gooihiess Ibllows that we 
 may not be awed or terriliod by his grcatiioss. The Lonl 
 God, it is added in the next ijlacc, is mcn-itiil. Now, what \n 
 mercy ? It is an attribute of God that could not l)e existent 
 if I can make myself understood, unless there were sin in 
 the world. Mercy is love through Christ in contact with 
 sin. If you take a three-sided piece of glass, called ai)ri>m, 
 and let the rays of the noonday sun pass througli it, tin; 
 pure white light will be refracted into what we commonly 
 call seven colors, but what more scientilically are called three 
 colors. Well, mercy is love refracted through Christ ; it is 
 love reaching us through Jesus, and in contact with our sins. 
 But the idea of atonement is also in it plaiidy enough, 
 from the fact, that "the mercy-seat " is properly "the afone- 
 ment seat ; " atonement by '' mercy " is tlui best way oi" con- 
 veying the original meaning. And therefore, whenever you 
 read of God's mercy, hear the undertone of sin in the crea- 
 ture, and of love in God reaching that sin, in order to forgive 
 it through Christ Jesus. 
 
 It is next declared that God is gracious. Now, the mean- 
 ino- of grace is, that whatever God does, he does in sove- 
 reignty ; that it has not to be purchased, that his imons 
 cannot be paid for. The prayer of Wicklitl'e, the morning 
 star of the Reformation, is a very beautiful one ; " Lord, 
 save me gratis ; " or as it is in New Testament language, 
 " Save me by grace." A Jewish commentator says, " We 
 call that grace which we bestow on any man to whom wc 
 owe nothing." Now, when God is gracious, it is something 
 that he bestows upon us when he owes to us nothing. No 
 gift of God can be purchased — not intellect, not memory 
 can be purchased; no grace of God can be purchased; 
 neither sanctiiication nor peace. But how interesting, that 
 while God's blessings are in one sense unpurcha>alde l»less- 
 in"-s, in another sense they are as cheap as a summer day, 
 
292 scRirTURE readings. 
 
 free as the atmosphere that we breathe ; they may be had 
 gratis. Because tliey are unpurchasable, they are not there- 
 fore inaccessible ; they are given freely by grace to those 
 ■vvho ask them. 
 
 The next syllable of this beautiful name is " longsuffer- 
 in"-." I have often thought this is one of the most wonderful 
 attributes of God. Just think that if this earth on which 
 we live were expunged, if God were to-morrow, by his Al- 
 mighty fiat, to quench this little spark in the universe that 
 we call the world, by the breath of his nostrils, or the bid- 
 ding of his word, it would not be one whit more missed than 
 a child would be missed from the thiee millions that com- 
 pose London ; than a grain of sand would be missed upon 
 the ever-sounding sea-shore, and God would not thereby part 
 with one atom of his happiness ; he might fill its place with 
 a world ten times more beautiful, with people ten times 
 more holy, happy, obedient, and loyal. And yet, while he 
 could do all this, oh ! wondrous feature! His blessed char- 
 acter, he has borne six thousand years nearly with this 
 world, rebellious, resistant, disloyal, sinful. But let us indi- 
 vidualize God's longsutfering ; I take an individual ; every 
 beat of his heart is a rebound to God's touch ; every expi- 
 ration and inspiration of his lungs is the immediate power 
 of God. AVe call it nature, because we are accustomed to 
 it; but it is as much God as raising the dead ; a living man 
 is a greater miracle, that is, a greater manifestation of God's 
 power than a dead man raised out of the grave ; only we 
 are so accustomed to it, that we do not see it to be so. I 
 take this individual, living not only without God, but in 
 opposition to God ; grieving God, and breaking his holy 
 law, and yet God bears with him, is longsulfering. What a 
 wonder that it is so ! God gains nothing by it; he would 
 lose nothing by his death. Why is lie so longsutfering ? 
 AVe cannot explain it ; only let us not, from fear of destruc- 
 tion — for that is a low and vulgar emotion — but let us, 
 
EXODUS XXXIV. 203 
 
 out of gratitude to him, out of love \o liiin wlio has so long 
 borne with us, cease to do evil, and Irani to do w.ll. Let 
 us close with the offers of his word, let us tiiist in lii> iianif, 
 and serve him in righteousness and holinc.-s all th.- dav> of 
 our life. This attribute is well expressed by the Psalmist 
 when he says, " He hath not dealt with us after our sins." 
 How true is this I And then he adds that very beautiful 
 verse, I think so touching — it is the highest poetry — "As 
 a father pitieth his children, so doth the Lord pity them that 
 fear him." And it is added, in no less exquisitely beautiful 
 language, " P^or he knoweth our frame ; " he knows what a 
 frail thing it is, and that our days are as grass, and as the 
 flower of the grass. He is longsull^ering. Only do not for- 
 get that his longsutiering has limits, though we have not yet 
 seen them ; those limits will be for certain a judgment-scat, 
 — they may be sooner ! 
 
 It is added next, "' He is abundant in goodness." What 
 an attribute is this! "Where sin hath abounded, grace 
 hath much more abounded." He is not a god that has 
 mercy and goodness as a cistern holds its contents, that may 
 be soon emptied ; but as a fountain wells Ibrth its refreshing 
 w\ater, inexhaustible, so he is abundant in goodness and 
 truth. 
 
 And he " keeps mercy for thousands ; " not thousands of 
 men, but thousands of generations. He knows that they 
 will sin, but, how remarkable ! he has laid up a store of 
 mercy in heaven, just to be drawn ui)on by them that sin 
 against him. He keeps mercy Ibr a thousand generations. 
 
 °And then comes the climax, — " forgiving iniiiuity. trans- 
 gression, and sin." All sorts of sin — iniquity, transgres- 
 sion, and sin; sins before conversion, and sins after; sins 
 of youth, and sins of old age; sins of thought, and sins of 
 word, and sins of deed, " forgiving iniquity, transgression, 
 and sin." Now, my dear friends, he that at a dying hour 
 can i-ealize that Name in his heart never will be lo^t. It is 
 '2o* 
 
294 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the secret of pardon, the source of peace, the Avellspring of 
 eternal jov. 
 
 But there are added two clauses that need to be ex- 
 plained, " He will by no means clear the guilty." This looks 
 like a contradiction, but it really is not so. He will not 
 clear the guilty — that is, at the judgment-seat, guilt will 
 not, in a single instance, go unpunished : if the guilt has not 
 been visited and exhausted on the Substitute, then it will be 
 visited and exhausted on the sinner. It will be seen to the 
 whole universe that God's mercy and love are perfectly 
 compatible with his punishing sin, his doing justly, his being 
 a holy God. He wijil not clear the guilty ; where guilt is 
 found, just as sure as the conductor brings down the light- 
 ning from the skies to the earth, so sure will that guilt bring 
 down retribution on him on whose head it rests, at the judg- 
 ment-seat of Christ. 
 
 Tliere follows another clause, " Visiting the iniquity of 
 the fathers upon the children." If this be applied literally 
 to parents and children, then, in that sense, it is not a ques- 
 tion of theology, it is matter of fact. For instance, in this 
 world it takes place physically ; a parent spends his money, 
 destroys his property, injures his health. What is the 
 result? The children suffer the consequences of it. Now, 
 if that be fact before your eyes, why complain, not of the 
 creation of that fact, but of the simple declaration of that 
 fact ? In the next place, if a parent, a nobleman for 
 instance, is disloyal, and loses his coronet, his children, as 
 we know from 1745 in Scotland, become commoners ever 
 afterwards. We see it as a matter of fact, that when par- 
 ents sin, children do suffer. But some persons have 
 attached to this the idea that children will be punished 
 hereafter for the sins of their parents. This is not true ; 
 it is not said ; but the very reverse is said ; in the book of 
 Ezekiel we read, " What mean ye, that ye use this proverb 
 concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have 
 
KXODUS XX XIV. 295 
 
 eaten sour grapes," — that is, have coiuiniiUMl sin, — "ami 
 the children's teeth," inheriting the resuhs, "arc >»i on 
 edge? As I live, saith tlie Lord God, ye shall not have 
 occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel, lichold, 
 all souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, so al,-o the 
 soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth, it shall die ;" 
 that is, through everlasting ages, each one shall per.-onally 
 stand or fall by what he is personally by nature, or what he 
 has been made personally by grace ; and it is not true that 
 there is one lost child in ruin that will be able to say, " I 
 am here, not by my own criminality, but for the evil that 
 my fathers have done." He adds, '' to the third and fourth 
 generation" — not of them that love me, but of them that 
 hate me. He visits the sins of the fathers that hated him 
 jn past generations upon the third and tburth generations of 
 them that still hate ; for it is they that do as their fathers 
 did that will thus be visited morally for their fathers' 
 offences. But all that I have said assumes that it means 
 parents and children. Now, I do not think that it really 
 does mean this ; I believe it relates to rulers, governors, 
 kings, and subjects. Fathers is a common ex})ression in the 
 Old Testament for rulers and governors. I do not no\? 
 give instances. Cruden's Concordance will show you that 
 it is so. If our House of Lords and House of Commons 
 and our ministry go to war with Russia, justly or unjustly, 
 what will be the result ? That our children will have to 
 pay the expense of it. Justly, we believe, and because it 
 was right, our fathers went to war with France. What is 
 the result? That our taxes at this moment are the result 
 of our battles ; and we, the children, have to pay, and it is 
 very proper that we should, for the victories gained by the 
 heroism and the chivalry of our forefathers. You s.m;, 
 then, that if any thing occurs in the conduct of rulers, it 
 they cause war, or if they do any thing that is positively 
 wrong, or if they expend the national revenue, or exhaust 
 
296 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the treasury, or squander the money that belongs to the 
 nation, we find it as a matter of fact that ourselves, their 
 successors, and our children, must suffer for it ; and there- 
 fore "sve have an interest that our rulers in Parliament 
 should be in the right way, not merely on our own account, 
 but because of our children's, and our children's children. 
 And therefore, well does the apostle say, '' I will therefore 
 that prayers be offered for all that are in authority," — for 
 rulers, and for kings, and for magistrates ; not, " I will that 
 we rebel," not, " I will that we abuse them ; " but " I will 
 that we pray for them." And you may depend upon it, 
 earnest prayer at the throne of grace for our representa- 
 tives in Parliament will do them more good than twenty 
 articles attacking them in the newspapers. Let us pray, 
 therefore, for our rulers that God would guide them to all 
 that is right and good ; and then we will not fear for the 
 ultimate results. 
 
 Having thus explained each syllable in this glorious 
 Name, let me notice, tliat in this Name there is a reply to 
 every objection that an anxious inquirer — that a poor, sin- 
 ful, anxious inquirer can possibly entertain. If any one in 
 this assembly say, " I have no Christianity at all ; I do not 
 believe I have the least particle of the grace of God in my 
 heart," well, suppose it to be so ; his Name is Jehovah, and 
 w^hat is the meaning of that? It can create sometliing out 
 nothing. So it follows from this tliat you are not beyond 
 God's reach. But do you say. It is worse than that ; I 
 am not only without grace, but I am loaded with transgres- 
 sions, there " is a law in my members stronger than tjie law 
 of my spirit ? " Well, God's Name is " the Lord God " — 
 the Almighty God ; and if your heart be of stone, he can 
 turn it into flesh. But perhaps you add, " But I am a sin- 
 ner : and how can I, a sinful creature, draw near to a holy 
 God?" The next syllable of his Name is "merciful;" and 
 I showed you that mercy is love in contact with sin. " But," 
 
EXODUS xx.xiv. 207 
 
 you say, "I have notliiiig to ijivc liini loi- it ; aii.l if Im- be 
 merciful, it' he be niiiijlity, it' he be tlie Creator oi" som»thin*» 
 out of nothing, what ean I give him for it 'i " The answer is, 
 his gifts are uiipurchasabh- ; he is "gracious;" he saves 
 you, as he saved John Wiekhli'e at the Kcforuiation, gratis. 
 "But," you say, "I liave sinned so long, that my hairs are 
 grown gray in the service of Satan, and tlie world, and >in ; 
 and I fear that by this time God has cast me olK" You 
 have yet another syllable of his Name added — he is " long- 
 sutfering." " But," you say, "I fear that I have drawn uj)on 
 his goodness so often, and so much, and sinned and drawn 
 upon it again and again, that I fear it is ail exhausted." 
 Do not be afraid of that — he is "abundant in goodness 
 and truth." "But the world," you add, "has lasted so 
 long — now nearly six thousand years, and so many have 
 drunk at this fountain, that I fear it has dried up." You 
 need not be afraid of that : " he keeps mercy," not for one 
 generation, but " for thousands " of generations. " But," 
 you add, " 1 have been guilty of all sorts of sin — sins 
 against law, sins against love, sins of thought, sins of word, 
 and sins of deed." Well, he ibrgives all sorts of sin ; 
 " iniquity," — that is one sort ; " transgression," — that is 
 another sort; and "sin," — that is a third .-ort. But if you 
 should add still, " Is it possible that such a God can l)c? 
 and if this be so clear, then will not men sin, and j)rcsume 
 upon his goodness?" No; "he will not clear the guilty." 
 The sin must be put away — the love of it, the condemna- 
 tion of it, the pollution of it — the sin must be i)ut away, or 
 you will suffer for it. No man need sink into that most un- 
 christian state — despair — who heai-s these sweet soimds, 
 and on whose hearts there is impressed the Name of the 
 Lord. It is, if there be any difference, more wicked to 
 despair, than it is to presume ; neither is riglit, but despair 
 is infinitely the worst : the devils do not presume, but they 
 do despair. 
 
298 scRirTURE readings. 
 
 Having thus seen the Name, let me explain to you, in 
 the next place, where you can behold it. Moses was told 
 by God to go into a cleft of the rock when the Lord made 
 his glory to pass before him ; and God says, even while he 
 went into the rock, " I will cover thee with my hand, while 
 I pass by ; and thou shalt see only," — it might have been 
 translated — " the skirts of my glory ; " the mere parting 
 wing, as it were, of the vision as it swept past. Now what 
 does this show ? That there would be something in the full 
 flash of God's glory that would be altogether intolerable to 
 man in his present state. We see more of it than Moses 
 saw. I believe that the glory of God is the original arche- 
 type of the light that covers our world. Things in this 
 world are the shadows of things in the heavens ; and I 
 think it is a poet — or Plato — I forget which, that made 
 this sublime remark, — The light of noonday is the shadow 
 of God. What a magnificent thought ! and so magnificent 
 because so true — the meridian light is the shadow of God. 
 The glory of God is something real. 
 
 The New Jerusalem, it is said, had no need of the light 
 of the sun nor of the moon. Why — what was the substi- 
 tute ? " The glory of God and of the Lamb was the light 
 thereof," showing that this moral glory has a splendor that 
 will light up the universe till sun and moon become as use- 
 less as a distant star of the sixth magnitude at present. And 
 I believe that one of the enjoyments in heaven will be see- 
 ing God in the way that we have never seen him before. 
 If God had revealed all his glory — if he had not put the 
 shadow of his hand ujjon Moses, if he had not revealed 
 merely his skirts, as it were, as he passed by — Moses would 
 have been overwhelmed. And this explains to you what is 
 often said in Scripture, " No man can see God and live," — 
 not because God would destroy the man, but because the 
 glory would be so intense that it would overwhelm him. 
 Moral grandeur may be over|>owering, and we learn in his- 
 
EXODUS xxxiv. 209 
 
 tory that there have been cases where iiKiital einoti'.u Iiuh 
 struck dead the physical economy. Jn the time of the 
 South Sea specuhition, some thought tliey were so surf! of 
 making a fortune, that persons are recorded to lia\e dird 
 from joy in consequence of the success they supposed to be 
 theirs. At the restoration of Cliarles the Second, several 
 of the nobles were so deliglited at the restoration of their 
 rank, their dignity, and their estates, that it was too much 
 for them, and they died soon afterwards from tjie shock they 
 had received. Pope Leo the Tenth died beneatli the ex- 
 citement of joy at a battle which his troops had gained. A 
 celebrated American astronomer was watching the transit 
 of Venus over the sun's disk ; he believed that that transit 
 would take place at a specified moment ; and when he saw 
 the shadow of the planet appear on the disk of the sun, 
 such was his excitement or gratification, that he fainted 
 away from excess of joy. Sir Isaac Newton was so over- 
 come by the sense of the magnitude of his discoveries, or 
 of the extent of What he saw in consequence of the great 
 principle he had laid down, that irom excess of feeling he 
 was unable to carry out his own grand calculations, and 
 others had to do it for him. Now, if excess of knowledge, 
 of joy, or prosperity, have these powerful effects uj)on tiic 
 human frame, we can conceive that too grand an apocalypse 
 of God would be unbearable now ; just as the eyeball would 
 be blinded by excess of light. But you can conceive what 
 a splendor and majesty we shall behold when we see God, 
 not through a glass darkly, — the smoked glass or lens 
 through which we look at great brightness, — but we shall 
 see him face to face. And what a change will have p:u«sed 
 upon us when we can bear to look upon Deity and not 
 shrink! The Apostle Paul said he was raisr-d to the third 
 heaven, and he saw sights that he could not tell, that he 
 could not speak of. And in a beautiful poem, where it 
 speaks of two supposed to be admitted to heaven, these 
 beautiful lines occur, — 
 
300 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 " But these were crushed with joy; 
 Eeturn, they said, we cannot this sustain." 
 
 There was too much of the glory visible for human nature 
 to sustain. 
 
 When this vision passed before Moses, not only was the 
 shadow of God's hand laid upon him, but we read that he 
 was also placed in a crevice of the rock. What that rock 
 was, we are told very plainly and beautifully by the apostle, 
 
 — that rock was Christ. In creation, in its brightest Alpine 
 peaks, in its spring, its summer, its autumn, and its winter, 
 we can only see partial and imperfect glimpses of the pres- 
 ence of God, and those which we see are so contradictory 
 that we do not know whether to conclude he is our Father 
 or our Foe. In providence, again, there are many perplex- 
 ing things : we see vice prosper, virtue suffer ; we see good- 
 ness sad, cast down, depressed ; we see the bad man happy. 
 Now, if God is, and acts in the world, how is this ? why is 
 this ? We see sorrow, suffering, sick-beds, death-beds, graves 
 
 — is God angry ? If he be angry, will he condemn us all — 
 or if he save any, will he save all ? Thus in creation and 
 in providence we can see enough of God to believe in God, 
 but we cannot see enough of God to let us know what he 
 will be to us his creatures. Again, if you look at God on 
 Sinai, all there — the blackness, the thick darkness, the 
 thunders and the lightnings — indicate wrath. In creation, 
 in providence, God is uncertainty to us ; on Sinai God is 
 hostility. In the rock, in the clift of the rock, in Christ 
 Jesus, we see not only his glory pass by, but like an aureole 
 surround the head of our blessed Lord, in which mercy and 
 truth have met together, and righteousness and peace have 
 kissed each other. When Jesus walked upon the waves, he 
 trod out glory in every step ; when he raised the dead, his 
 glory passed by ; when he hung upon the cross his glory 
 burst forth. Then it passed with the splendor, but with the 
 evanescence of a meteor ; now it is fixed in heaven — the 
 
EXODUS XXXIV. 301 
 
 bright and the morning star, — visible to all that have an- 
 ointed eyes to see and ears to hear, and hearts to feel. Thus 
 we not only see what Moses saw, but a great deal more. 
 He saw this Name pass by under tiie shadow of (iod's hand, 
 in the elefts of the rock; but we see in the Ni'W T«'staniciit 
 revealed in Christ all that is possible oftli<.' glory of (iod — 
 we eould not bear more of it. The veil is taken away Iroui 
 our faee whieli was upon the face of Moses, and twilight is 
 now the noonday. 
 
 Do we, let me ask, trust in this Name? "They that 
 know thee," says the Psalmist, " will put their trust in thee." 
 It is revealed not for our admiration, not to satisfy our curi- 
 osity, but for our apprehension by faith, and our trust in and 
 through Christ Jesus our Lord. How thankful should wc 
 be that we have not to discover it by laborious scare!), but 
 that it is revealed to us from heaven. The Bible i.> not a 
 discovery ! that man strikes out ; but a revelation that God 
 sends down. We could not go up to him ; he has in his 
 mercy come down to us. 
 
 May w^e glory in that Name ; may we rejoice to spread 
 it; may it be our rock, our refuge, and our hope, for Christ's 
 sake ! Amen. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE TABERNACLE. THE SABBATH. VOLUNTARY OFFERINGS. ALMS 
 IN KIND AND IN CURRENCY. SELF-LOVE AND SELFISHNESS. 
 ZEAL AND DEVOTEDNESS. 
 
 The words I have read, constitute strictly the preface to 
 the development and completion of that edifice, which was 
 to last whilst the Israelites were in the desert, and only to 
 be superseded by the yet more magnificent and splendid 
 temple of Solomon. You will find at the beginning of this 
 chapter, that the Sabbath is still to be observed as a day of 
 rest from any work, done even in the sacred service of the 
 Tabernacle itself. God seemed to regard this day as so 
 obligatory upon each and all, and so peculiarly consecrated 
 for man's highest good, and for God's present glory, that he 
 would not allow the Sabbath to be used even in the building 
 of that very house which was to be for his worship, and the 
 assembling together of his worshippers. It was to be still 
 a holy day ; a day specially set apart for rest. The penalty 
 denounced is not a penalty that belongs to it now ; but it 
 was peculiar to the circumstances in which they were placed ; 
 because the least departure from the discipline and organi- 
 zation established by God himself in the desert, would be, 
 not simply the violation of a divine law — in itself bad 
 enough — but far worse than that ; it- must be remembered 
 that in a theocracy, where God was visibly and audibly 
 their King and their Lord, the observance of the Sabbath 
 
EXODUS XXXV. 303 
 
 was not merely in itself a j^r.ind moral oljligation, but bccamo 
 binding as an act of allegiance from tbeir peculiar relation 
 to God ; and, therefore, the violation of that <lay would be 
 so overt an act of treason, and disloyalty, and rebellion, that 
 the highest penalty in these circumstances — not stretching 
 into ours — was attached to the violation of it. The expres- 
 sion in the third verse has been perverted by the dews : 
 "Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations ujion 
 the Sabbath day." They hold that this applied, at least in 
 after ages, to private houses ; but it seems to me that you 
 must interpret the text — I can only appeal to you as 
 reasonable men, and ask you, looking at the narrative, to 
 judge — as connected with the subject that God is s})eaking 
 of, and Moses recording. That subject is the building of a 
 tabernacle, that required blacksmiths and forges, and weav- 
 ing, and embroidering, and melting of metals, and a great 
 amount of employment of that kind. Now, God says : "Ye 
 shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations" — that is, 
 yom* tents that are now pitched in the desert — "on the 
 Sabbath day." But a fire here evidently means, a fire for 
 preparing metals, for building the Tabernacle ; as he is 
 speaking of the use of the Sabbath in connection with the 
 building of the Tabernacle ; and the prohibition here not to 
 kindle a fire in their habitations on that day, is, therefore, 
 associated exclusively with the building of which God is 
 speaking; but is not an obligation not to kindle a fire to 
 prepare their ordinary food on the Sabbath day, when they 
 were settled permanently. 
 
 AVe find Moses speaking from God, and commanding the 
 children of Israel in the name of God to bring their otfer- 
 ings. But though it was a command, they were to bring 
 them with a willing heart. Moses tells them. You arc to 
 give because it is a duty ; but yet you arc to give, not under 
 constraint, — to purchase something, or to atone for any 
 thing, — but you are to do it with a willing heart, that is, 
 
304 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 spontaneously ; not for show, or ostentation, or by constraint. 
 I think that when we make collections in Christian congre- 
 gations, we ought to do it in the way that will lead those 
 that give, to give most spontaneously. Any attempt to make 
 people give, in order that they may feel ashamed by not 
 giving, seems to me preposterous, antichristian, and absurd. 
 Better have the little that comes from the willing heart, than 
 the large sums which are given by constraint, or from any 
 earthly or worldly motive. In this chapter you will see 
 how strongly this is insisted upon ; they that gave, gave, it 
 is said, with willing hearts — every one whom his spirit 
 made willing brought an offering to the Lord — the children 
 of Israel brought a willing offering to the Lord, every man 
 and woman. And therefore, if in these circumstances the 
 ecclesiastical rulers of Israel did not dare to prescribe, or 
 bid the people give, on any other ground than that of a 
 willing heart ; so, I think, now, were the rulers of any 
 chui-ch, whether Protestant, or Romish, or Jewish, to inspect 
 every man's income, to take an inventory of every man's 
 property, to institute a sort of inquisition into every man's 
 circumstances, and to say : " You ought to give this sum per 
 annum to support the church, and you ought to give that 
 sum per annum to support missions ; " it would seem to me 
 most unscriptural and most unchristian, and must be, in its 
 effects, disastrous to moral and spiritual character. If it is 
 to be what is called a voluntary system, let it be so in all its 
 freedom and in all its influence ; and you may depend upon 
 it, wherever a heart is touched by grace, there the hand will 
 be extended in beneficence, and men will give largely, be- 
 cause God has providentially given liberally and largely to 
 them. 
 
 In the second place, every man gave willingly, not what 
 he had not, but that which he had. Some had gold, and 
 they gave that ; some had silver, and they gave that ; some 
 had brass, and they gave that ; some had linen, and they 
 
EXODUS XXXV. 305 
 
 gave tliat ; some skins of rams, some badgers' skins, some 
 goats', and some could carve Avood, and cut stones, and do 
 all manner of cunning work, and they gave that. Now, 
 what is implied by all this ? There was no money in the 
 desert ; there was no representative currency. If there had 
 been a currency established amid these nomade tribes of 
 Israel, every man would have given his shilling, or his six- 
 pence, or his sovereign, or whatever he chose to give ; but 
 as they had no money, they gave that which money repre- 
 sents ; each gave the substance that he had, and could give, 
 not being expected to give that which he could not. Now, 
 in so far, in modern times it is changed. When you give 
 to a collection for the building of a churcli, or for the ex- 
 tension of the Gospel, you do not give badgers' hair, and 
 goats' hair, and rams' skins, and bracelets, and ear-rings ; 
 but you give that which your cutting of stones, your dyeing 
 of skins, or weaving of fine linen, has enabled you to earn ; 
 and which is the representative, in your position, of your 
 genius, your labor, your skill, your patience, your time, your 
 capital. Hence it is still the same thing in substance, but 
 difierent in form ; ours the more convenient, theirs in the 
 desert the more primitive and natural. 
 
 In the next place, you will notice that the women, as well 
 as the men, gave. This was truly important and becoming. 
 AYoman has a deeper interest in the spread of real religion 
 in this world than even man : it is to it that she owes all 
 that she is ; it is in its reflected splendor that she shines so 
 beautiful ; it is from Christianity that she has borrowed the 
 position she now holds ; and therefore, when she gives to the 
 spread and maintenance of true religion, she really gives to 
 the assertion of her own just position, and to the mainte- 
 nance of her dignity and her privileges amid mankind. I 
 do not say that this ought to be the only motive ; but there 
 is no doubt that it should come in. It is very absurd of 
 people to say, that we ought to give without any thought of 
 20* 
 
306 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 self; I think we ought to give on every ground tliat is just 
 and good, and in itself holy and expedient. Selfishness is 
 sinful, but self-love is not sin ; on the contrary, '' Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself,'" is a command to love thyself 
 as thy neighbor : and therefore self-love is not sinful ; in its 
 place it is most subservient to good. But when that self- 
 love degenerates into selfishness, just as when anger degen- 
 erates into revenge, then that which was in itself most holy, 
 and beautiful, and right, becomes degraded and depraved. 
 We may, therefore, give to the maintenance of religion, be- 
 cause it benefits our country, because it adds to our great- 
 ness, because it is a benefit and a blessing indirectly to our- 
 selves : and when we do so from this motive, as a sub- 
 ordinate one, we do not do that which is wrong In the sight 
 of God, or reprobated in any part of the Bible. 
 
 And in the last place, you will notice the intense zeal 
 with which they gave. It seems to remind one that they 
 themselves felt how sinfully they had acted in the matter of 
 the golden calf, when they made an idol, and worshipped it 
 instead of God ; and that they were anxious — if I may so 
 speak — to compensate for the past by greater devotedness 
 for the future. They redeemed the past by these efibrts ; 
 reminding one, in the next chapter of Exodus, of what the 
 apostle says, while he seems to have had this history in his 
 mind, as he wrote : " Godly sorrow worketh repentance to 
 salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world 
 worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sor- 
 rowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, 
 yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, 
 what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, 
 what revenge ! In all things ye have approved yourselves 
 to be clear in this matter." They seem, as it were, to have 
 repented of the ])ast, and become rich in good works more 
 and more. Their liberality was so great, that Moses had 
 positively to restrict them, and assign limits to the exercise 
 
EXODLS XXXV. 307 
 
 of it ; something in tlio same way in wliicli the apostle 
 speaks in the same P^pistle to the Corinthians — '' How that 
 in a great trial of afliiction, the ahnndance of their joy and 
 their deep poverty abounded unto tlic riclics ofthfir HIhthI- 
 ity. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond 
 their power, they were willing of themselves : " showing us 
 how much grace can do, where it makes the heart willing, in 
 making the hand open, and in seizing all the means of glo- 
 rifying God, and doing good, not by impulse, but with all 
 the elements of progress and of permanence. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 god's pkescriptions carried out. reasons for minute spec- 
 ifications. LIBERALITY OF THE PEOPLE. RESTRAINT NEC- 
 ESSARY, god's WISDOM. GIVEN TO BUILDERS. 
 
 The chapter seems at first sight an extremely dry and 
 uninteresting detail of mechanical arrangements requisite in 
 the construction of the Tabernacle, and unsuggestive in 
 their mere catalogue of any important personal and practi- 
 cal lesson. But yet no doubt the object that God had in this, 
 and indeed in the chapters that follow onward to the fortieth, 
 was in all probability to show, that the minute specifications 
 that he gave to Moses in the previous chapters respecting 
 the erection of the Tabernacle, were not carried out loosely, 
 or slovenly, or in the rough, but in the minutest jots and 
 particulars, according to all the j^attern that was showed him 
 on the mount. It is, therefore, not altogether uninstructive 
 that we should see in our perusal of the chapter, that what- 
 ever God enjoined, and however minute the instructions 
 that he gave, all received their fulfilment. We have in 
 some parts of the Bible a prophecy : then, in subsequent 
 parts, we come to the fulfilment of that prophecy. We had, 
 in the previous part of the Book of Exodus, a precept ; 
 and we have, in the chapter we have now read, the fulfil- 
 ment of that precept. It is just as important that we should 
 see God's precepts carried out into practical development, as 
 that we should see God's prophecies unfolding themselves in 
 successive and continuous fulfilment ; teaching us, that 
 whatever God enjoins, and whatever God predicts will 
 
EXODUS XXXVI. 309 
 
 be, — that heaven and earth may pass away, but one jot or 
 one tittle shall not fall from his word till all be fuKillcd. I 
 think I stated to you on a former occasion, that there was a 
 reason for all these minute specifications, arising from the 
 fact, that this Tabernacle was not a mere tent in the desert 
 for a place of worship, but was prefigurative of a house not 
 made W'ith hands, finding its full accomplishment and illus- 
 tration in the close of the Apocalypse, where we read of 
 God's temple being with men, and the glory of God and of 
 the Lamb filling it. I cannot believe that this catalogue of 
 minute details in the mechanical construction of a taberna- 
 cle in the desert was for no pui-pose. AVe are not to wring 
 out meaning from each of these details as if it were a type; 
 but no doubt it had an end and an object, which is to be 
 seen in the future. And if in that respect we cannot see 
 what its ultimate end and object may be, we are satisfied of 
 this, — these half-savages, as many of the Jews at that mo- 
 ment were; — a stifFnecked and a rebellious, an uncultivated 
 and an illiterate people, needed such. No wonder they 
 were sunk — they had been slaves for forty years ; and 
 generally man sinks down to the condition under which he 
 is pressed and borne down ; and they were incapable of 
 themselves, without divine instruction, of carrying out God's 
 plan, or doing according to his wmII, except from line upon 
 line, and precept upon precept. If they had been left to 
 fill up a single niche after their own taste, they would have 
 put an Egyptian idol in it ; if they had been left to do one 
 thing in- the construction of this Tabernacle after their own 
 taste, they would have copied something from Egypt. And 
 all experience shows, that the thin edge of the wedge intro- 
 duced in spiritual and moral things, does not stop there till 
 the whole is rent asunder. Such is man's tendency to idola- 
 try — such is man's tendency to what is sensuous in wor- 
 ship. I do not say, sensual — I say sensuous inworshi|); 
 that is, to worship after the senses, that, leave him the least 
 
310 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 latitude, and he is sure, even in these more enlightened 
 times, to turn that liberty into licentiousness. How much 
 more need, then, had these nomade tribes — just escaped 
 from the serfdom of Egypt — of very minute, very specific 
 details, even to pins and bolts, and tenons and taches, in 
 order to keep them from what in the end might have led 
 them to forget God, who had brought them out of Egypt 
 with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm ! 
 
 Bezaleel and Aholiab had no sooner begun to work, and 
 Moses had no sooner asked the people to furnish them with 
 all the materials of work, than all the people vied one with 
 the other in their contributions towards this Tabernacle ; 
 and a fact was presented there rarely presented in these 
 more modern times — that the liberality of the people had 
 to be restrained. The constant tendency, the constant prac- 
 tice now, is to excite the liberality of Christian people, by 
 showing them reasons for it ; but then, the rare and beauti- 
 ful fact was exhibited of Moses being obliged to restrain the 
 liberality of the people, by telling them that they had given 
 more than was amply sufficient, and asking them to contrib- 
 ute no more. 
 
 It needs God's inspiring wisdom to teach a man to build 
 an earthly temple, just as it needs God's grace to make a 
 builder of the true temple, or to fit a Christian for any of 
 the duties and responsibilities of the Christian character. 
 God inspired Bezaleel and Aholiab with understanding to 
 work ; he inspired Joshua with bravery and wisdom to fight ; 
 he inspired Moses with instruction from on high to lay down 
 plans ; he inspired evangelists to write, apostles to preach. 
 Every grace and gift is from above, even from the Father 
 and Fountain of all wisdom and of all light. The word 
 " wise-hearted," applied to those that worked, corresponds 
 more properly to another word now employed ; w^e say, a 
 " skilled laborer," meaning one who is not only a clever 
 laborer, but one who knows the subject of the work, or trade, 
 or handicraft, in which he is employed. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 KEASOKS OF RECORDS OF MINUTE WORKS. TABERNACLE FURNI- 
 TURE. THE ARK. THE MERCY-SEAT. THE SHECHINAH. EARTH 
 RELATED TO OTHER ORBS. CHURCH OF CHRIST NOT TIED FOR 
 EVER TO A LAND. CANDLESTICK. CHRIST THE IIIGH-rKIEST 
 IN THE HOLY OF HOLIES. SKILL OF ISRAELITES. 
 
 You will remember what I stated in the course of my 
 reading the previous chapter — that the 36th to the 39th 
 chapters of the book that we have so nearly gone over in 
 successive lessons, contain the fulfilment of all that Moses 
 was commanded in the previous chapters to do ; and in these 
 last portions of the book we have the historical record that 
 he did exactly as he was commissioned by God. The rea- 
 son why so minute and elaborate details are given in these 
 chapters seems to be to show to us that Moses carried out 
 exactly, rigidly, and minutely, every order that he received ; 
 not determining in his own mind, " This is not important, 
 and therefore I may omit it," — and " that is important, and 
 therefore I must do it ; " but acting rigidly and strictly, ac- 
 cording to the pattern that was showed him on the mount, 
 and the prescriptions set forth by God. This chapter, like 
 those that succeed it, records the fiict that Moses did so. 
 
 I explained many of the institutions and contents of the 
 tabernacle, which was typical of a greater and a more glori- 
 ous one, in our readings on previous chapters. In this one, 
 it is recorded of Bezaleel and those who assisted him in the 
 work, that they made first of all the ark, and the mercy-seat 
 that was on it, and the cherubim that overshadowed it. Taul 
 
312 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 says, in his Epistle to the Romans, that Christ Jesus is our 
 propitiation, as it is rendered in our transhition ; it is in the 
 original, " our mercy-seat." And were there not there this 
 special allusion, there are other reasons for concluding that 
 this ark, with its golden lid, and the glory, or the shechinah, 
 or bright effulgence that rested upon it perpetually, was a 
 type and a symbol, in its place and in its measure, of Christ 
 Jesus, our only Atonement. In the ark, it says, were the 
 tables of the Law, which represented the Law magnified 
 and honored in Christ Jesus. Over the ark, there was the 
 golden lid, on which there rested that glory which was 
 called the shechinali — to teach us that mercy, and truth, 
 and righteousness, and peace — the true shechinah, the true 
 glory of God — are illustrated, and brought together, and 
 made real, in our salvation in Christ Jesus. 
 
 We read that over this mercy-seat were the cherubim, 
 whose faces were toward each other, the tips of whose wings 
 touched over the glory ; to denote the interest that the in- 
 habitants of other worlds feel in the grand transactions that 
 are being consummated in this ; that into these things, so 
 wonderful, angels desire to gaze. And this is perhaps a faint 
 hint or lesson of that great truth, that this orb of ours in 
 which we live — physically so small, among the least of the 
 great orbs of the universe — is morally the most important 
 of them all ; that it is, in fact, the lesson book of God's 
 great universe — the world at which other worlds look in 
 order to learn what they cannot learn except in the Atone- 
 ment — how just, how holy, how merciful, how loving, how 
 glorious God is. Now these cherubim gazed upon this glory 
 whilst their wings touched each other ; as if to denote the 
 perfect unity that exists among them. 
 
 We notice, in the next place, that this ark, with all its 
 beauty and its glory, and its exhibition of great truths, was 
 not a fixture — it had rings in it, and staves in it for remov- 
 ing. This teaches us that the Gospel is not given to any 
 
EXODUS XXXVII. 313 
 
 nation a perpetual fixture. The seven Churches of Asia 
 were once the most illustrious of Christendom — now scarce 
 a vestige of their glory remains. Other lands have had ihc 
 Gospel just as we have it, but God in judgment removed it ; 
 and we have the ark in the midst of us now, but it dcptMids 
 upon us — how we are thankful for it, what use we make of 
 it, how far we sacrifice to make known the treasures it con- 
 tains — whether it shall remain in the midst of us or not. 
 The candlestick is movable, the ark had rings and staves 
 in it, and was movable also. The Gospel in a country is 
 given not for misuse, not for abuse, but for daily, sanctify- 
 ing, practical usefulness in the midst of us — if it tail to 
 produce these, it takes its departure. 
 
 We have a description of the candlestick, which was 
 formed also of gold, and consisted of seven branches. Now 
 recollect, in what was called "the holy of holies" in the 
 tabernacle — and tliere was the very same distinction in the 
 temple that superseded the tabernacle — there was no win- 
 dow to admit the light of heaven. The only light where 
 the high-priest went once a year was the light of the golden 
 candlestick in the midst of it; and this golden candlestick 
 was therefore given to be put into that place. We read that 
 when Christ died, the vail of the temple was rent. Now 
 that was, I think, one of the most significant facts in the 
 Bible; for it taught us this — that now there is no distinc- 
 tion; the chancel end and the nave end are exactly the 
 same ; there is no rood screen to separate the clergy from 
 the people, the priesthood from the laity. All true Chris- 
 tians are priests unto God; all have the same right of 
 access to God ; all can ai)proach equally near to God in 
 Christ Jesus ; and the minister of the Gospel has ceased to 
 be a priest, because a priest has nothing left to do ; he is 
 simply a teacher, a pastor, an evangelist, an overseer, a 
 presbyter, or if there be any other equally expressive and 
 Scriptural phrase. 
 
 27 
 
314 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 Into this holy of holies, we are told, the high-priest went 
 once a year, and not without blood. We are told now that 
 our great High-Priest has entered into the true holy place, 
 and we know that all the time he is there he ever liveth to 
 make intercession for us. The lesson taught by that inci- 
 dent is a very beautiful one. The high-priest first made 
 atonement without, upon the brazen altar; secondly he 
 went into the holy of holies, not without blood, with the 
 names of the twelve tribes of Israel upon his breastplate, 
 making intercession for them. Thirdly, the people waited 
 outside, judging by the sound of the bells upon his robe 
 whether he was living or not, and accepted or not. And 
 then the high-priest, having finished the intercession, came 
 out of the most holy place, and pronounced the benediction 
 upon the people, " The Lord bless thee and keep thee." 
 See Numb. vi. 22-27. This exactly corresponds to our 
 Lord. He made the sacrifice without ; he hatli finished 
 transgression, made an end of sin ; no more atonement is 
 needed, no more can be, no more has been since. Secondly, 
 he has gone now into the true holy place, where he ever 
 liveth to make intercession for us. And thirdly, we the 
 people are waiting outside, where the suffering once was, 
 looking for the return of our great High-Priest from the 
 holy place not made with hands, to pronounce upon earth 
 and upon all its people a blessing that will make its very 
 deserts rejoice, and its most solitary places to blossom even 
 as the rose. That is our position at the present moment, or 
 as it is expressed in Scripture, looking for the glorious ap- 
 pearing of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour. 
 
 In speaking of this I may notice that it has been doubted 
 here, where it is said that " he made the candlestick of pure 
 gold," whether that meant that this was a candlestick of 
 gold, or whether it means that it was gilt. It has been 
 thought by some that it meant gilding, and that gilding was 
 an art well known to the Egyptimis, and would naturally, 
 
EXODUS xxxvir. 315 
 
 therefore, be known to the Isnielites. It has also been said 
 by some, How could these nomadic tribes just escaped from 
 the brickkihis of Egypt — how could they, being wander- 
 ers in the desert, find all this gold and silver? The answer 
 to that is that they carried with them immense treasures out 
 of Egypt; in the language of tlie passage that describes it, 
 it is said that " they spoiled the P^gyptians." And these 
 treasures that they thus carried with them out of Egypt 
 were devoted to the service of God. 
 
 And then the other question, how they could be sup- 
 posed to know it ; the answer is a very easy one ; God 
 raised up Bezaleel and Aholiab, and other wise-hearted 
 men whom the Spirit of God inspired to do it. Artisanship 
 requires the teaching of God's Spirit just as much as Chris- 
 tianity. "VYe ought to give to God the glory of a gifted 
 intellect as well as the glory of a gracious heart. From him 
 coraeth down every good and every perfect gift — from the 
 tiniest light to the blaze of meridian day; and to him we 
 should give the glory of all that we are individually, that 
 we are nationally, and that we hope to be when time shall 
 be no more. 
 
CHAPTER XXXYIII. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF INVENTORY OF THE TABERNACLE. WEALTH OF 
 THE ISRAELITES. LOOKING-GLASSES. 
 
 This is just the continuation of the catalogue, to us the 
 apparently dry and uninteresting inventory of temple goods, 
 which began two chapters before, and is continued onward 
 to the close of this, and almost of the next chapter also. It 
 is the minute description of Moses fulfilling in fact those 
 precepts which God had most minutely given for the con- 
 struction of tliat edifice which was meant to be a type in 
 its place of the tem])le ; and the temple again, as we shall 
 . see, the type and symbol of a yet more glorious edifice — a 
 house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It is 
 impossible to suppose that God gave such minute directions 
 for the erection of tliis tabernacle, if it was to be an ulti- 
 mate thing, destitute of any prospective reference, without 
 typical or symbolical import. The minutics, therefore, con- 
 tained in the inventory that is here given — and those 
 minutice done in answer to God's express command — indi- 
 cate to us that there was something deeper in it than we 
 see, and that it had a prospective reference which we on 
 whom the ends of the world have come, can now very 
 readily and very distinctly understand. I stated before 
 that the reason why all these tilings are so minutely reca- 
 pitulated liere is to show to us that Moses performed, by 
 himself, or by the instrumentalities he employed, exactly 
 
EXODUS XXXVIII. 317 
 
 and minutely every order, however great or however small, 
 that God hud given him on the mount. 
 
 The tabernacle, thougli a Irail, must have been a very 
 splendid thing. The wealth that was consumed or em- 
 ployed in the decoration of it was immense. It has been 
 calculated, on the most just and accurate grounds, that the 
 amount of* gold jind silver alone employed in the decoration 
 of the tabernacle, must have been worth something near a 
 quarter of a million of pounds sterling. 1 know it will be 
 objected, How could these tribes of slaves, refugees from 
 the brickkilns of Egypt, have got so much gold? The 
 answ^er is, that they went out with great riches from Egypt; 
 and Egypt — the wealthiest land, then, in the world — 
 gave them her treasures, and were too thankful to give 
 them ; some in order to get rid of them, others in gratitude 
 and obligation that they felt to them for the benelits they 
 had left behind them. It is certain, therefore, that they 
 carried immense wealth with them. And when you recol- 
 lect that this marching column that crossed the Red Sea, 
 that traversed all the windings and the sinuosities of that 
 intricate desert, amounted, men, and women, and children, 
 to a population nearly equal to that of London — nearly 
 three millions — having about seven hundred thousand men 
 in the midst of it able to bear arms and able to work, you 
 can see at once what a magnificent procession it was, what 
 immense possessions — having each gone out enriched from 
 Egypt — they must have had ; and how easily it was possi- 
 ble for them to execute all the orders here given ; partly 
 from the multiplicity of hands, — for every one knows that 
 things are best done when each has his own jiart ; and 
 when the part assigned to him is very small, he is able to 
 expend more care on it, and the result is the more satis- 
 factory. 
 
 In the next place, there is an expression that occurs in 
 the 8th verse that looks like contradiction, and requires to 
 27* 
 
318 SCIUPTURE READINGS. 
 
 be explained. It says, " He made the laver of brass, and 
 the foot of it of brass, of the looking-ghisses of the women." 
 Now if these were made of ghiss, how^ could they be turned 
 into brass, or gold, or silver ? The truth is, our translators 
 have used " looking-glass " as the popular phrase to denote 
 something that reflects the likeness of the human counte- 
 nance. We are so accustomed, for instance, to speak of a 
 mile-stone on a turnpike-road, that you may hear persons 
 say, if a wooden post were substituted, " That is a wooden 
 mile-stone." It is in itself a contradictory expression ; it 
 cannot be wood if it be stone ; but we are so accustomed to 
 use the material out of which it was originally made as 
 representative of the thing itself, that when that material is 
 changed we keep up the old name, even at the risk of per- 
 petrating a very palpable contradiction. So here, our trans- 
 lators are so accustomed to think of a mirror as made of 
 glass, that when speaking of a mirror they have called what 
 was not glass " a looking-glass," when glass was not invented 
 or thought of The right translation would have been better 
 — not better, perhaps, only it would have avoided the ap- 
 pearance of absurdity if it had been rendered, " He made 
 the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the mirrors 
 of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of 
 the tabernacle of the congregation." These mirrors were 
 small things, something of the size of an ordinary fan, with 
 a handle ; made first of all of copper, then of brass, some 
 of them of gold, but ultimately almost universally of polished 
 silver ; occasionally of polished steel, but, owing to the sus- 
 ceptibility of steel to rust, the silver was preferred. In 
 South America they have discovered very ancient mirrors, 
 highly pohshed, made of stones — a kind of pyrites, and 
 some other stones suited for that purpose. From a very 
 early period such w^ere introduced. According to Milton, 
 Eve had none ; but she made the sweet crystal streamlet 
 her mirror, the most primitive of all ; but soon after the 
 
EXODCS XXXVIII. 319 
 
 Fall mirrors were introduced, and the Fiibstance they were 
 almost universally made of was silver, with a highly pohshed 
 surface. These mirrors, which the women used who as- 
 sembled at the door of the tabernacle — partly as deacon- 
 esses, or Levites, or watchers — were cheerfully surrendered 
 by them, though very dear to them, in order to form the 
 laver in which the priests washed when they entered to offer 
 sacrifice, and the other instruments that were employed in 
 the service of the tabernacle. 
 
 I stated that all the gold and silver that was here em- 
 ployed was of very great value and amount ; and that the 
 tabernacle, though a temporary thing, must have been 
 really a very beautiful and splendid creation ; inferior, of 
 course, to the temple that succeeded ; and that temple in- 
 ferior still to that true temple — the Church of the living 
 God, built of living stones. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 DETAILS OF THE BUILDING OF THE TABERNACLE. 
 
 Scarcely a single remark remains to be made on the 
 chapter — or the epitome of the construction of the taber- 
 nacle — which I have not made in the course of my expo- 
 sitions of what must seem very monotonous details merely 
 when adopted as instructive reading for a Christian congre- 
 gation. But all this, however, had its value ; and you will 
 notice in this chapter that, at the close of every account of 
 every thing that they performed, there is added a clause 
 which shows how minutely they carried out the commands 
 of God — " as the Lord commanded Moses." At the close 
 of every separate branch you find that clause added ; to 
 denote that what God commanded minutely, they performed 
 minutely, to the very letter. We have evidence in this 
 chapter that engraving of stones had made very great pro- 
 gress, even at that early period of the world's history. And 
 it is remarkable enough, that some of the engraved stones 
 and jewels of ancient and pagan nations are so exquisitely 
 beautiful, that our masters in the art have not been able to 
 reach the perfection of other days. 
 
 It does seem, however, rather remarkable that these 
 tribes, who had been slaves in Egypt, should be able to en- 
 grave the delicate and difficult tracery that was required 
 upon the precious stones — the diamond, the topaz, the car- 
 buncle, and others — on which were recorded the names of 
 the twelve tribes of Israel — there being twelve stones, and 
 
EXODUS XXXIX. 321 
 
 each stone having the name of a tribe ; all on the breast- 
 plate of the high-priest, when lie went to make intercession 
 for the people in the holy of holies. 
 
 You will notice, again, that a great many of the robes 
 were made of pure linen. And this figure is evidently 
 employed in the Apocalypse, when the question is a.-ked, 
 " What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? and 
 whence came they ? " And in another place he speaks of 
 "linen white and clean, which is the righteousness of 
 saints " — evidently showing that the white robes of the 
 priests were typical of those moral robes which the priests 
 and kings unto God shall wear for ever and ever, where 
 they serve him in his tabernacle — the true tabernacle — 
 without ceasing. 
 
 After all the details of the completion of the workman- 
 ship of the tabernacle, we read that Moses inspected the 
 whole, as the master-mind, pronounced it to be satisfactory 
 when compared with the precept of God, and pronounced 
 upon the people that blessing which he could utter in word, 
 but which God impressed upon the hearts of all, as he still 
 impresses upon the hearts of those that truly obey him. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 CLOSE OF EXODUS. SCRIPTURAL FORMS. KOMISII RITES SUPPOSE 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT NOT WRITTEN. ALTARS. OILS. HOLY 
 WATER. TYPE OF A PROTESTANT CHURCH. 
 
 AYe arrive, in the chapter I have read, at the close of 
 one of the most deeply interesting Books in the whole of 
 the Old Testament Scriptures. If this Book were ex- 
 punged from the annals of the history of the world, we 
 should have lost the most striking and impressive proofs of 
 the providential, the gracious, and the merciful government 
 of God. We have read in chapter after chapter, till it 
 seemed almost bordering on the wearisome, minute, and 
 specific details of Moses fulfilling the minute and specific 
 commands of God in the erection of the tabernacle. But 
 I have told you before, that so minute specifications must 
 have shown some ulterior end, or they would not have been 
 given. It is impossible to suppose that the God who gave 
 that magnificent revelation of himself — most magnifi-cent 
 in thought, magnificent in word — the Ten Commandments, 
 could have descended to give the petty details contained in 
 these chapters, if those details were ultimate and final 
 things. We must, therefore, infer, as indeed we shall see, 
 that all these had a distinctly typical import, and were the 
 rudiments and the foreshadows of great, and blessed, and 
 glorious things to come. 
 
 In the next place, you will notice here, that if any 
 modern church were to be built after the type and model of 
 
EXODUS XL. 32'3 
 
 this tabernacle, or after the tyye and model of its more per- 
 manent development — the temple, it would in one sense, 
 the builder might say, be most scriptural; for lie could 
 quote all these texts, and say, " Here is an order for a 
 golden altar, and an order for a brazen altar ; an order for 
 holy water to wash in ; an order for anointing oil to be an 
 unction ; " and he would really seem to have Scripture 
 thoroughly upon his side : but then, it would be Scripture 
 on his side not looked at in the light of the rest of Scrip- 
 ture. If you tear a text from its context you may prove 
 any thing upon earth, because you treat Scripture in a way 
 you would not treat an Act of Parliament, a law, or a legal 
 document of any sort. You must read every passage of 
 Scripture in connection with and in the light of passages 
 that directly and distinctly refer to it. So, when you read 
 Exodus, which you ought to read, be sure to read it with 
 commentaries, if you like ; because commentaries are most 
 useful when you use them as helps, and not as substitutes ; 
 though there is a wide distinction between the two. But 
 when you read Exodus, read it especially with the inspired 
 commentary of the Epistle to the Hebrews lying beside it; 
 and you will see from that Papistic that a Christian church 
 after the model of the ancient tabernacle would be in the 
 letter most scriptural, but in fact most unscriptural and anti- 
 christian ; because all these things have here had their ful- 
 filment; and when the antitype comes, the type disappears; 
 when the sun rises, the stars retreat ; when the fruit is ripe, 
 the blossom withers and falls away. The end and the 
 object of this institute is come, and to keep it up still is to 
 try to expunge two thousand years or three thousand years 
 from the world's history, and to try to make ourselves Jews 
 in the Christian and New Testament dispensation. Now 
 this was the great blunder that misled a late most excellent 
 minister of the Church of England, who embraced Koman- 
 ism. He took the Books of Exodus and Leviticus, and he 
 
324 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 assumed that all this was the description of something that 
 still should be ; and, doing so, he naturally landed in a 
 church which certainly is the nearest approach in its out- 
 ward details to the Levitical church — namely, the church 
 of Rome. It has incense altars ; it has sacrificing altars ; 
 it has anointing oil for extreme unction ; it has holy water 
 to be sprinkled with when you enter ; it has vestments and 
 robes of the richest kind and texture for the priests ; it has 
 candles burning in the chancel, as the seven candles burned 
 in the holy of holies. Nothing is more scriptural than the 
 forms of the Romish church in the letter, and on the sup- 
 position that the New Testament was never written ; but 
 admit the fact of a New Testament, and there is an end to 
 its claims and its pretensions altogether; for these things 
 are all fulfilled by our Blessed Lord. For instance, the 
 altar of brass on which sacrifices were offered is now lost in 
 what is called by the apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 the true altar — Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever. Then propitiatory sacrifices are now done 
 away, for the simple reason that a perfect sacrifice has been 
 offered — a sacrifice whose merits fill all time, and conse- 
 crate all space ; and so perfect that it needs not to be 
 offered year by year in order to do what the Levitical sacri- 
 fices could not do ; so perfect that it is as available eighteen 
 hundred years after it has been offered, as if it had been 
 offered this very day. We do not want these sacrifices ; 
 the end of them is come ; the perfection of them is ar- 
 rived ; they lose their place, they cease to be appropriate, 
 because that which they were meant to foreshadow is come; 
 and now Aaron, and Moses, and Levi, disappear, and lose 
 their function, their mission, and their office, in the splendor 
 of the appearance of that Great Iligh-Priest, who, by 
 one sacrifice, offered once for all, has redeemed the 
 souls, and forgiven the sins of all that believe in his blessed 
 name. 
 
EXODUS XL. 325 
 
 So, in the same manner, the anointing oil now used for 
 extreme unction in the Romish church — the apostle says, 
 There is an end of that. He says, " Ye " — speaking to 
 Christians; not to ministers, but speaking to Christians, and 
 speaking — what would shock those that are offended at the 
 laity being supposed to have any place in God's house at all 
 — to the elect laity, he says, " Ye have an unction from the 
 Holy One, and ye know all things ; " and that unction is ex- 
 plained to be the Holy Spirit. Therefore we have the Holy 
 Spirit to anoint our hearts ; we do not want Aaron's oil to 
 anoint our heads. AVe have the true unction, and the type 
 disappears when the antitype arrives. 
 
 So again, washing with water before they entered into 
 the sanctuary. David had a clear apprehension of what 
 was the meaning of that when he says, " I will wash mine 
 hands in innocency ; so will I compass thy altar, O Lord ; " 
 showing that he, even in his day, a prince upon his throne, 
 looked beyond the material symbol, and saw the moral sig- 
 nificance of that symbol in the pure hand and the clean 
 heart, as the best preparation for the worship and the ser- 
 vice of God. And thus you will see that all these insti- 
 tutions of Levi and of Aaron had a distinct and definite re- 
 lation to a future thing ; and the Jews and the Israelites of 
 that day — the more spiritual amongst them — saw along 
 the vista of many thousand years, and like Abraham rested 
 not on the material symbol, but saw Christ's day, and whilst 
 they saw it they rejoiced. 
 
 And now, in this chapter we have the tabernacle finished 
 and complete, with all its furniture and apparatus for wor- 
 ship, according to the command of God. I believe there is 
 wanted — and I think I have taken the opportunity to say 
 so before — still in modern times the true type of a truly 
 Protestant church. What are called the mediaeval cathedrals 
 of Europe are most appropriate to Roman Catholic service : 
 nothing can be more tit. I admire their beauty, I can ap- 
 28 
 
326 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 preciate their magnificence and grandeur ; as mere appea,l3 
 to wliat is sensuous and tasteful in man nothing can be more 
 triumphant than the very stones seeming to blossom and to 
 shape themselves into every thing that is beautiful. They 
 are most appropriate Avhere there is a sacrificial altar in the 
 east end ; where there are processions in honor of the 
 Virgin, of stoled and white-robed priests, the nave that will 
 hold a large multitude, of great dimensions and of great 
 length, and where side-chapels for the saints are used, and 
 where there are transepts — nothing can be more appro- 
 priate ; they are exactly fitted for these. But when you go 
 into some vast and noble cathedral in England, you find 
 that there is service only in one end, and that three fourths 
 of the cathedral are merely turned into a sort of museum, 
 or a place for monuments, which are the mementos, and so 
 far appropriate, of great and illustrious men. But still that 
 shows that they are not fitted, and were not meant, for our 
 service. The only attempt to take possession of them is in 
 Scotland, where they make the nave into one parish church, 
 and the choir into another parish church ; and thus out of 
 one Romish church they make two good Protestant churches. 
 But it is quite plain to me that these are not the proper 
 edifices. And so remarkable is this, that a very distin- 
 guished Northern divine, very noted for his ultra notions, has 
 now come to the conclusion, and avowed it, I believe, that 
 median-al cathedrals are not fitted for Protestant worship, 
 and thatthere still is required the type and the model of a 
 perfect Protestant church, fitted for peifect Protestant wor- 
 ship. And that one can easily conceive. Tlie great use 
 of the Protestant church is, first, prayer or worship ; and, 
 secondly, preaching and teaching ; and if one is to lead the 
 worship, the people ought to be so situated that all can hear 
 him. A church, if one is to preach to be understood, ought 
 to be so appointed that all can see, and hear, and be en- 
 lightened. Let it be as tasteful as you like ; I think it is 
 
EXODUS XL. 327 
 
 wrong that we should dwell in splendid mansions, and God's 
 house be a barn ; let it be as tasteful and as beautiful as you 
 like. But when you do, as I was reading in the newspapers 
 they have done in an English Presbyterian chapel in South- 
 ampton, not taken up the old Romish saints, which is bad 
 enough, but canonized modern Christian men, and put them 
 into the church, cutting them out of stone — thus breaking 
 the second commandment, which says, " Thou shalt not 
 make unto thyself any graven image, nor the hkeness of 
 any thing that is in the heaven above, nor in the earth be- 
 neath," — it seems to me intolerable. We have no business 
 with pictures in the house of God, of Deity ; we do not 
 want pictures of human beings. It was the commencement 
 of such practices that led to an utter apostasy ; and there- 
 fore any thing approaching the images of men, saints, and 
 angels in the house of God seems to me incompatible with 
 the command, " Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven 
 image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in the heaven 
 above, nor in the earth beneath." 
 
 It is quite true we need to state this in connection with 
 the fact, — that the true church, after all, is not the taber- 
 nacle, nor is it the temple, nor is it granite, nor brick, nor 
 wood — but the company of living Christians. The church 
 is the company of believers ; the cathedral is merely its 
 covering from the wind and the rain. The church is within, 
 the building may or may not be. There is a true church — 
 the germ of a true church — wherever two or three are met 
 together in Christ's name ; for, " there," says he, " I am in 
 the midst of them." 
 
THE SHECHINAH. 
 
 " Then a cloud covered the tent of tlie congi-egation, and the glory of 
 the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into 
 the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the 
 glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken 
 up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all 
 their journeys: but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed 
 not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was 
 upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of 
 all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys." — Exodus xl. 
 3-1 — 38. 
 
 I HAVE selected the passage T have read, not simply be- 
 cause it refers to the chapter, but because it is one of a suc- 
 cessive series of allusions to this glory, or cloud, or pillar of 
 fire, which we have frequently read, and on which I have 
 been able to offer comparatively so unsatisfactory instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 I have traced every allusion in Scripture to this cloud, or 
 pillar of fire — this glory that shone between the cherubim, 
 and rested on the tabernacle ; and I have tried to gather 
 from all the allusions to it, contained and scattered through- 
 out holy Scripture, what was its object, its significant import 
 and allusion to the times, and the truths that the New Tes- 
 tament reveals. I will therefore endeavor to direct your 
 minds to those passages of Scripture, as briefly as I possibly 
 can, which refer to this subject. We have read so much of 
 it that we must naturally desire to understand precisely 
 what it was, what its meaning is, and what profitable lessons 
 we, on whom the ends of the w'orld are come, may gather 
 from this supernatural phenomenon. 
 
THE SHECniNAH. 329 
 
 First, let me notice, it was called by the ancient Jews by 
 the name — a name extremely significant — their siiecii- 
 INAH. This word — the shechinah — is derived from a lie- 
 brew word, shakan, which means " to dwell," or " to have a 
 habitation ; " and it was called " the habitation," or, " the 
 shechinah" because this glory — ever marching with them 
 — a reddened pillar of fire, a majestic appearance by night, 
 and a dark cloud towering from earth to the sky by day — 
 was called the shechinah, because it afterwards rested on the 
 lid of the mercy-seat in the chancel, or the holy of holies ; 
 and there, from between the cherubim, and from the mercy- 
 seat, sent forth its bright beams as the symbol and the proof 
 that God was present in the midst of Israel. All those pas- 
 sages therefore that appear in Scripture, speaking of God's 
 dwelling, are allusive to this. That beautiful Psalm, tlie 
 80th, " O Thou that dwellest between the cherubim," trans- 
 lated into its allusive language, would be, " O Thou who art 
 the shechinah between the cherubim ; " or, in the language 
 that we have been reading, " Thou who art the pillar of 
 cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night ; the glory of 
 thy people Israel, between the cherubim and on the mercy- 
 seat." So, again, in such passages as these : — Psalm Ixxiv. 
 2, " Mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt ; " a passage ren- 
 dered thus by the Chaldee paraphrast, that is, a commen- 
 tator among the Jews — " Wherein thou hast made the 
 shechinah to dwell." In Haggai i. 8, it is in our version, 
 " Build the house, and I will take pleasure therein, and be 
 glorified : " the Jewish commentator translates it, " Build the 
 house, and I will make my shechinah to dwell therein," — 
 showing that the Jews always understood this habitation or 
 dwelling of the Most High to have a definite reference to 
 the shechinah : and this shechinah, as I shall show you by 
 other passages of Scripture, was the representative symbol 
 of a present and a propitious God. 
 
 But there seems at first a sort of contradiction between 
 28* 
 
330 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the words of Scripture. We find that Moses and Aaron, in 
 their intercourse with God, speak constantly of seeing God ; 
 and we shall find in other parts of Scripture distinct asser- 
 tions that God never was seen, is not seen, and cannot be 
 seen. Let us, for instance, refer to that passage in John i. 
 18 : " No man hath seen God at any time." Colossians i. 
 15 : " The nnage of the invisible God." 1 Timothy vi. 16 : 
 " Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which 
 no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor 
 can see." 
 
 Now, all these definitions square with our own appre- 
 hensions of God, — that he is a Spirit, invisible, and not to 
 be beheld by the human eye, or by any created being. But 
 having these passages so plain, let me read other passages 
 now which seem directly to contradict them. Exodus xxiv. 
 9 : " Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, 
 and seventy of the elders of Israel ; and they saw the God 
 of Israel;'' " they saw God, and did eat and drink." Ex- 
 odus xxxiii. 11:" And the Lord spake unto Moses face to 
 face." Isaiah vi. 1 : " I saw also the Lord, sitting upon a 
 throne, high and lifted up. — Then said I, Woe is me ! 
 for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean lips, 
 and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for 
 mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Now, 
 how do we reconcile passages so apparently contradictory ? 
 Let me just say, if this book or composition had been that 
 of a man who was writing what he knew not to be true, 
 and wishing to palm upon the world a document as Divine 
 which was really human, he would have taken care to avoid 
 such apparently palpable contradictions as these ; because 
 they are not the incidental contradictions of a fallible mind, 
 forgetting itself, and falling into error ; but they are evi- 
 dently so decided, and so reiterated, that there must be some- 
 thing beyond the letter that will show there is light and 
 harmony where there seems to be palpable and irreconcil- 
 
THE SIIECIIINAII. 331 
 
 able discord. Now, what will explain that? The first 
 series of expressions, " God is invisible," arc all most true. 
 The second series of expressions, namely, Moses saw God, 
 Isaiah beheld God, and Nadab and Abihu also saw God, 
 are to be explained by this, — that it was the shechinah that 
 they saw; and that shechinah — what I have called the 
 pillar of cloud, and the pillar of fire — that glory was to 
 Israel precisely what Christ — the brightness of the shech- 
 inah, the brightness of his glory — is to us, on whom the 
 ends of the world are come. In other words, there always 
 has been a manifestation of God to the creature in a form 
 in which he could either see, or hear, or know, or under- 
 stand him. The shechinah was God visible to Israel, as 
 Jesus is God manifest to us. AVhile it is true, therefore, 
 that no man hath seen the invisible God, it was no less true 
 that they had seen God face to face, — speaking from the 
 cloud, manifesting himself from the glory, and marching 
 with them in majestic procession through the wide desert 
 till they arrived at the borders oi' Canaan : the glory then 
 no more to sojourn in the desert, but to rest for a little sea- 
 son between the cherubim in the tabernacle or the mercy- 
 seat of the temple. 
 
 We have, tlierefore, in the shechinah, the ancient reve- 
 lation or manifestation of God ; the type and symbol of 
 Him who is to us God manifest in the fiesh. Moses went 
 near to it ; and when the glory was so great that he could 
 not bear it, it was the darkness opening, or a rent taking 
 place in the cloud, and the bright beams coming out. I 
 can conceive nothing more beautifully descriptive, as a type 
 of our blessed Lord, than a mass of dark cloud embosoming 
 in its centre a brilliant and intolerable splendor : Deity in 
 humanity ; the invisible God in the shape of the human. 
 Out of that cloud God also spoke to Moses, and made known 
 his mind and law. 
 
 In order to show that the Jews always understood that the 
 
332 SCKIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 shechinah was in some way associated with the Messiah, I 
 will quote from a Jewish commentator, who has rendered 
 several passages of Scripture that alhide to this. For in- 
 stance, in Genesis iii, 8 : " They heard " — Adam and Eve 
 heard — " the voice of the Lord God walking in the gar- 
 den." I believe that was not the Father, but the Second 
 Person in the glorious Trinity. I believe it is true from the 
 beginning, the Father no man hath seen, nor can see ; and 
 that the Great Being that had constant intercourse with 
 Adam and Eve in Paradise, with Abraham in Ur of the 
 Chaldees, with the Jews in Egypt, with the Israelites in 
 the desert, with Solomon and David in the temple, down- 
 ward to the advent of Christ in the flesh, was the Second 
 Person in the glorious and adorable Trinity. And the Jews 
 singularly enough, whose testimony in this respect must be 
 very valuable in that it was undesigned, are our best aux- 
 iliary here. That passage, " They heard the voice of the 
 Lord God walking in the garden : " the Chaldee paraphrase 
 renders, " They heard the voice of the Word of God walk- 
 ing in the garden." The passage, " God appeared unto 
 Jacob : " the Chaldee paraphrase reads, " The Word of the 
 Lord appeared unto Jacob," Exodus xxx. 6 : " Where I 
 v/ill meet with thee : " the Chaldee paraphrase has rendered 
 " Where I will appoint for thee my Word." Ntimbers xi. 
 20 : " Ye have despised the Lord which is among you." 
 The paraphrase renders it, " Ye have contemned the Word 
 of the Lord, which is the shechinah dwelling among you." 
 Deuteronomy i. 30 : " The Lord your God which goeth 
 before you," — language allusive to the pillar of cloud, you 
 observe — is given thus : " The Word of the Lord thy God, 
 thy leader." Again, in the 32d verse: "The Lord your 
 God, who went in the way before you, to search you out a 
 place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night," is paraphrased 
 " The Word of the Lord who went before you as your 
 leader by night." In every instance, you observe, the Jew 
 
THE SHECniNAH. 333 
 
 assumes that the Jehovah who appeared to Adam and Eve 
 in Paradise, who marched the chikh'en of Israel through 
 the wide spread desert, was not the Father, but the AVord, 
 that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 What will show also that this was the idea of the Jews, 
 is John's own allusion to it in his Gospel, where he says, 
 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God;" 
 and Jesus is called " The Word," because " God, who at 
 sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto 
 the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken 
 unto us by his Son." God's speaking voice to mankind is 
 Christ. W^hat is Christ ? God's love audible, God's mercy 
 visible, God's justice unveiled: God in all his glory re- 
 vealed to man ; brought within the horizon of man's appre- 
 hension, and comprehended by man as far as it is possible. 
 
 And if other arguments were wanting, one text is conclu- 
 sive. " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us." 
 A Hebrew, translating the New Testament out of Greek 
 into his own tongue, would render it, " The Word was made 
 flesh, and was the shechinah in the midst of us," — or, " the 
 tabernacle containing the shechinah in the midst of us." 
 The language is so allusive to the shechinah that it is im- 
 possible not to see that the Evangelist John meant that the 
 shechinah was a type of our Blessed Lord. So, in the 
 burning bush ; which was not a bush — whether bramble, 
 or furze, or any thing else, that burned with material fire — 
 but that blazed by the presence of the splendor that shone 
 between the cherubim, and was the pillar of cloud by day, 
 and the pillar of fire by night. 
 
 It was this same glory, we are told, that appeared to 
 Abraham, and on Sinai at the giving of the Law ; on Mount 
 Sinai, where there was thunder, and lightning, and tempest, 
 and all that could terrify. The lightning that was there, 
 the glory with which the mount was crowned as with a 
 fiery coronal, was, I believe, the shechinah. And the proof 
 
Oo4 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 of it is this : — In Deuteronomy iv. 12, we read: "And the 
 Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire ; ye heard 
 the voice of the words, but saw no similitude" And again, 
 in the fifth chapter, at the twenty-second verse : " These 
 words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount 
 out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick 
 darkness, Avith a great voice ; and he added no more. And 
 he wrote them on two tables of stone, and delivered them 
 unto me." You see there that Moses, who was competent 
 to pronounce, even if he had not been inspired, says it was 
 the shechinah, or the glory, that appeared on Mount Sinai, 
 and spoke to the children of Israel. 
 
 Now if this be so — if the shechinah was the type of 
 Jesus — and I think the passages I have quoted prove it, 
 and especially the statement of John that the Word was 
 made flesh, and was the shechinah in the tabernacle in the 
 midst of us ; for that is the meaning — if this was the type 
 of Christ, then the inference that we draw from it is 
 most conclusive that Jesus was what we know and are sure 
 that he is — Jehovah, in the highest possible sense of that 
 expression. To show that this shechinah was Jehovah, we 
 find in Exodus xiv. 19, — "And the angel of God, which 
 went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind 
 them ; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their 
 face, and stood behind them : and it came between the camp 
 of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel ; and it was a 
 cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to 
 these : so that the one came not near the other all the 
 night. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea : and 
 the Lord " — evidently identifying here the Jehovah, — 
 an"-el of the Lord — and cloud. This identification will be 
 more manifest to you when I tell you that the phrase, 
 "Anf^el of the Lord " — about whom we read so often in 
 Exodus — is literally translated, " The sent one Jehovah." 
 It is not in the Hebrew, "Angel of the Lord : " it is 3Ielech 
 
THE SnECIIINAH. 335 
 
 Tehovah — literally, "Angel Jehovah." And this angel of 
 the Lord was not a created intelligence, but plainly Jehovah 
 himself. And in Exodus xxxiii. 8, we have, if possible, a 
 still more distinct allusion to it. "And it came to pass, 
 when Moses went out into the tabernacle, that all the people 
 rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked 
 after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it 
 came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle " — 
 mark the words — " the cloudy pillar descended, and stood 
 at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with 
 Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at 
 the tabernacle door ; and all the people rose up and wor- 
 shipped, every man in his tent door. And Jehovah spake 
 unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." 
 There can be no mistake here that this cloudy pillar, which 
 was the outer shrine of the inner glory that talked to Moses, 
 spoke to him face to face, is called in this very passage the 
 sheckinah. And, what is still more striking, we read, in 
 Isaiah Ixiii. 9, that " in all their affliction he was afflicted, 
 and the angel of his presence saved them ; " — that is, the 
 cloud, this cloudy pillar, the pillar of fire, was called by the 
 Israelites, "the presence of the Lord." The shewbread, 
 which was called " the bread of faces," or " of his presence." 
 " The angel of his presence " is the same being as " the 
 angel Jehovah," the same as " Jehovah," the same as the 
 pillar of fire by night, and the pillar of cloud by day. And 
 this very same Being is alluded to by Malachi, where God 
 himself speaks, and says, " Behold, I will send my angel ; " 
 it is in our version very properly " my messenger, and he 
 shall prepare the .way before me ; and the Lord " — Jeho- 
 vah — "whom ye seek, sliall suddenly come to his temple, 
 even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in : 
 behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." Here you 
 have God the Father — the Lord of hosts — predicting 
 that Jehovah shall come to his temple — (or, translated into 
 
336 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the language of ExodUvS — " the glory," " the shechinah in 
 the midst of the tabernacle ") — " shall come to his temple, 
 and dwell in it, even the Lord Avhom ye delight in." 
 
 We have in all these passages, clear proof of identity 
 between this glory and the Jehovah ; and if that glory was 
 the type of Christ, it is identity no less complete between 
 Jehovah and the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 One other passage I will read, which seems to prove 
 what I have been saying. In Deuteronomy i. 31 : "And in 
 the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy 
 God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way 
 that ye went, until ye came into this place. Yet in this 
 thing ye did not believe the Lord your God. Who went in 
 the way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your 
 tents in, in fire by night, to show you by what way ye 
 should go, and in a cloud by day." Thus in Deuteronomy 
 it is expressly stated that the pillar of fire by night, and the 
 pillar of cloud by day, was Jehovah going before them. 
 
 Now, after reading all these indications of Jehovah, the 
 Messiah, as the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire 
 by night, just see what significance the first chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrew^s has when you read it in this light : 
 " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in 
 time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last 
 days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed 
 heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds ; who 
 being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of 
 his person, and upholding all things by the word of his 
 power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down 
 on the right hand of the Majesty on high ; being made so 
 much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance ob- 
 tained a more excellent name than they. For unto which 
 of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this 
 day have I begotten thee ? And again, I will be to him a 
 Father, and he shall be to me a Son ? And again, when he 
 
THE SnECniNAH. 337 
 
 bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And 
 let all the angels of God worship him. And of" the angels 
 of God he saith, AVho niaketh his angels spirits, and his 
 ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saitii. Thy 
 throne, O God, is for ever and ever." You observe that 
 God, who in times past spake to us by the cloudy pillar, 
 hath in thokse last days spoken to us by liim who is its anti- 
 type — His Son. God, who in times past guided them by 
 the burning brightness of the pillar of fire by night, now 
 guides you by Him who is the brightness of his glory and 
 the express image of his person. And the angel Jehovah 
 that guided you through the desert was not a created 
 angel — " for unto which of the angels said he at any time, 
 Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And 
 again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a 
 Son. And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten 
 into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God wor- 
 ship him." Therefore, argues the apostle with irresistible 
 logic, the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by 
 day, with Jehovah — the Angel Jehovah — that spoke from 
 it, was not a created angel, but Jesus Christ himself, the 
 brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of 
 his person. 
 
 Having seen up to this point the identity between the 
 two, let me mention another fact which will still further 
 illustrate it. This angel, this pillar of fire by night and 
 pillar of cloud by day, was God's medium of communica- 
 tion with the children of Israel; for we read in Exodus 
 xxxiii. 9 — which passage I have already quoted — that 
 " the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people saw the 
 cloudy pillar." When he wished to know what was the 
 mind of God, he ai)proached this pillar of cloud by day, 
 and pillar of fire by night : and what that was to Israel, 
 Jesus Christ is to us. Their shechinah was the type ; Jesus 
 is the true Shechinah: from him we are to hear clearer 
 29 
 
338 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 and better words than Moses heard from the perishable 
 type. And the whole New Testament is evidently allusive 
 to this. A very remarkable evidence of the identity be- 
 tween this glory, or the shec/iinah, and Christ, is what the 
 apostle says: "We beheld his glory" — or his shechinah — 
 "as the only begotten of the Father." And St. Peter, 
 alluding to the Mount Tabor, says, " We were eye-witnesses 
 of his glory." And to show that Peter had in his mind, 
 even when he had almost lost his senses on the Mount in 
 the midst of that excessive splendor, some clear apprehen- 
 sion of the connection between what he saw there, and 
 what we read here, he said, " Let us make three tabernacles, 
 one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias." What 
 could have put tabernacle into Peter's head ? His beholding 
 the shechinah : and, in the language of the Gospel, " not 
 knowing what he said," but having a dim sense of connec- 
 tion in his mind between the glory on Mount Tabor and the 
 ancient tabernacle, he said, " Let us make three tabernacles, 
 one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias." It is, 
 therefore, I think, perfectly clear that this shechinah — ■ 
 whether as the leader and the guide of Israel, or as the ora- 
 cle that taught them — was no less than the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, God manifest in the flesh. So that we have in 
 Christ all that can be known of Deity, and more than 
 Israel ever could have known. 
 
 You say — what is quite true — " We do not see Christ 
 now." But that does not matter. It is not the features of 
 the face that constitute the man: it is the words he has 
 spoken, and made permanent ; it is the acts he has done, 
 whose echoes live. Take, as illustration, any great histo- 
 rian, or great orator, or poet, or statesman : I feel that to 
 compreliend the man, to understand his character, to have a 
 thorougli apprehension of what he was, I do not need a 
 picture of him. Call to mind any great statesman, great 
 soldier, or sailor; read their documents or despatches, their 
 
THE SITKCTIIXAIT. 339 
 
 communications or writings, or the history of their deeds, 
 and you comprehend them perfectly. I comprehend Lord 
 Nelson or the Duke of Wellington more distinctly at this 
 moment, though they are not to be seen in the llesh, than 
 ever I could do by merely seeing them. Now, to illustrate 
 heavenly things by earthly, I have a more clear comprehen- 
 sion of Jesus from reading my New Testament than ever 
 Peter, John, or Paul had by seeing him upon the streets of 
 Jerusalem and upon the fields of Palestine. Jesus is here ; 
 so that when I listen to those words that ever live, and 
 never die, I hear Christ speaking: when I read of him 
 marching upon the wave, and laying his hand upon the 
 ocean's mane, and it obedient as the steed to its rider, I can 
 see his power : when I read of him at the grave of Lazarus, 
 dropping a tear upon the dead dust, what an evidence that 
 lie was my brother ! but, speaking to the departed soul, and 
 it returns to the shrine it had forsaken, what an evidence of 
 him as my God ! When I see all this, I comprehend Jesus 
 most thoroughly. I have the glory in the cloud present 
 with me now. I need no picture of him. I need not his 
 personal presence now : one day that also will be. I can 
 clearly hear God's voice and see God's character in Christ ; 
 and know and be assured that he is — what the Unitarian 
 is so deluded in denying — God himself, in the attributes, 
 and the functions, and within the limits of my humanity. 
 
 Now let us gather from all this two or three lessons, prac- 
 tically instructive to us ; and also still further explanatory. 
 The cloud, we are told in this passage, covered the tent, 
 and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. This taber- 
 nacle was simply a beautiful erection, of purple, and blue, 
 and linen, and sockets, and pins, and planks, until the glory 
 rushed into it, and filled it with its unapproachable splendor. 
 This is " the place of my throne, and the place of the soles 
 of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children 
 of Israel." No beauty in that erection was of any avail till 
 
340 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 the glory went into it : it was a tabernacle, beautiful and 
 complete when Moses finished it ; it became a choice pal- 
 ace and a holy sanctuary the instant that the glory entered 
 into it. 
 
 It is so still. You will comprehend now that beautiful 
 text, and see its force : " Where two or three are met to- 
 gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Let 
 ten thousand people be in the largest cathedral of Europe, 
 and there is no church over them, and no church among 
 them : there is a grand cathedral, there is a mighty crowd ; 
 but let Christ, the glory, enter into the midst of them : let 
 it be true, " Met in my name, and I in the midst of them," 
 and the crowd becomes a congregation, the mighty multitude 
 becomes a church, and the glory of the Lord is there in the 
 midst of them. So again : " Lo ! I am with you always, 
 even to the end of the w^orld," that is, the pillar of fire by 
 night and cloud by day. Tiie truth is, therefore, (and what 
 a pity that this is not known in every church, and chapel, 
 and cathedral of England,) that a church is not a building, 
 neither a basilica, nor a cathedral, nor a chapel, nor a meet- 
 jng-house ; but it is, the company of God's people. What 
 makes a church is, a people met in Christ's name, with 
 Christ the ShecJdnah dwelHng in the midst of them. jS^oth- 
 ing else can make a church. All the bishops and general 
 assemblies of Christendom cannot do it ; all tlie architects 
 and builders of the world cannot do it. It is a mother that 
 makes a home; it is a queen that makes a palace: it is 
 Christ among a people that consecrates a crowd into a 
 cliiircli. 
 
 i'liis presence of Jesus, the true Shechinah, is now the 
 object of faitli — it will one day be the object of sight. I 
 have said, that I comprehend Christ perfectly, from his own 
 })icture of himself. And the best i)icture of Christ surely 
 is the New Testament. It does seem to me so stuj)id in 
 ecclesiastics to try and get up oil-paintings of our blessed 
 
THE SHECIIIXAH. 311 
 
 Lord, when we have the inner portrait complete and perfect 
 from his own inspiring Spirit. I have said, we compreliend 
 Christ now — we comprehend him by faith, beheving the 
 testimony of the Gospel ; but a day comes when we shall 
 see him face to face. And from what I proceed to (piote it 
 seems as if this tabernacle was the beginning, or the rude 
 sketch, of some grand thing that is to be. I quote from 
 Revelation xxi., where the language is clearly allusive to it : 
 " I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down 
 from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for 
 her husband." You notice how John has no idea of the 
 church being a house — It is a company of living people, 
 represented by the bride adorned for her husband. Now 
 mark what follows : " And I heard a great voice out of 
 heaven, saying. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men !" 
 Once it was in the desert with the Jews, in the temple with 
 the Jews still ; in Christ for men ; then in the MiUennium 
 it will be with men — in the midst of them ; and he will 
 dwell, (mark the language,) he will dwell with them — hter- 
 ally, "He will be the shechinah in the midst of them" — 
 and God himself shall be with them — visibly manifested in 
 the midst of them : and he shall be their God. And then 
 the tenth verse : " And he carried me away in the spirit to 
 a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city," 
 — that is, the bride — " the holy Jerusalem, descending out 
 of heaven from God, having the glory of God " — being 
 the shechinah. The shechinah is not with the Jew literally, 
 the shechinah is not with the Jew truly, because he denies 
 Christ ; but it is with us by faith : but a day comes — the 
 sound of whose approach reverberates through Christendom 
 at this moment — when the glory — the shechinah — shall 
 be revealed in the midst of the world, and shall be with us. 
 Let me notice this other lesson. When the glory de- 
 scended on the tabernacle, we learn that it filled the whole 
 house. " The glory of the Lord filled the whole house " — 
 29* 
 
342 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 that is, every ray of light in the midst of that tabernacle was 
 from Christ. And if Christ in the midst of his people be 
 to us what the glory Avas in the midst of the tabernacle, 
 then, in the house of God, Christ's name should be above 
 every name ; Christ's glory should supersede all glory ; 
 Christ's presence should till the hearts of his people. Hence, 
 all such names as Church of England, Church of Scotland, 
 Wesleyan Church, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Independent 
 — all these, that we are apt to glory in, are only the proofs 
 that we glory in our shame ; they are the evidences of our 
 childhood in Christianity. Just as the glory of the shecJdnah 
 filled the whole tabernacle, and no light besides, so Clirist's 
 name should overspread the whole sanctuary ; and the 
 names of Reformers, however illustrious, should not be 
 legible to me. In the days of Athens — its most palmy 
 days — an architect raised a magnificent temple ; but he 
 put his own name as the architect on a very prominent 
 place ; and that so shocked the aesthetic taste of that culti- 
 vated people that they ordered that part of the building to 
 be utterly destroyed. Now, whenever Luther's, or Wesley's 
 or Knox's, or Ridley's, or Latimer's, or Augustine's, or St. 
 Jerome's names are heard in the sanctuary, or seen, or 
 prided in, it is man in the 19th century eclipsed by Athens 
 nearly three thousand years ago — trying to introduce the 
 tiny rushlight of the creature in the place of Christ — the 
 Shechinah — the all and in all. 
 
 In the next place, we read that Moses, when he approached 
 the tabernacle, was unable to enter in because of the exces- 
 sive glory in the midst of it. In this respect there seems to 
 have remained in the tabernacle a portion of the peculiar 
 dispensation of which it was a part. God was revealed on 
 Sinai as the consuming fire ; and some sparks of that con- 
 suming fire appear to have been mingled with the revelation 
 of God's glory. We must not forget that the Jewish econ- 
 omy was imperfect ; that it was only a step in the grand 
 
THE SHECIIINAH. 343 
 
 progression ; and that a great deal of Sinai, revealed in tlie 
 Jewish economy, is only now snper>eded by that better 
 Mount, which is the spiritual centre in our econouiy. It 
 seems that the glory was so intense that jNIoses could not 
 enter ; and, singular enough, in the case of the temple, the 
 same thing occurred ; for we read in 1 Kings viii. 10 : " And 
 it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy 
 place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that 
 the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, 
 for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord." 
 And what shows that there was judgment or terror in some 
 degree connected with this, is that in one of the great judg- 
 ments recorded in the Apocalypse, we have this very same 
 figure employed to denote its terrible character. We read 
 in Revelation xv. 7 : " And one of the four living creatures 
 gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the 
 wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the 
 temple w^as filled with smoke from the glory of God, and 
 from his power ; and no man was able to enter into the 
 temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were ful- 
 filled." Thus, therefore, there seems to us, what, no doubt, 
 it conveyed also to Moses and the children of Israel, that in 
 the shechinah, as manifested then, there was a remnant of 
 the burning and consuming fire that there was on Mount 
 Sinai ; but in our case this is all gone, and Christ now is 
 the manifestation of God's glory — so real tliat I can see 
 God in him, and see him to be so truly my brother, that I 
 can approach to him not as Moses approached — unable to 
 penetrate further because of the unearthly splendor — but 
 I can approach with boldness to the throne of grace, be- 
 cause I have a Great liigh-Priest, who ever liveth to make 
 intercession for me. 
 
 The next practical remark 1 will make is this, that this 
 pillar of cloud by day turned into a pillar of fire by night, 
 by the cloud simply reddening, was the sole guide of all the 
 
314 SCRIPTURE READINGS. 
 
 cliildren of Israel through the desert. Now, mark what 
 they were to do, and they are a precedent for us : They 
 were not to select the road that was geographically the 
 nearest ; they took a road that was most circuitous : first 
 they advanced forward, then they retreated backward, then 
 they moved forward ; and they occupied forty years in their 
 journey, when it might have been accomplished in the 
 course of twelve or eighteen months. Neither Aaron, nor 
 Moses, nor Joshua were to select the course that was geo- 
 graphically the nearest to Canaan : they were not even to 
 select the road that was smoothest : they were not to avoid 
 nooks, and bays, and firths of the sea, that stretched into the 
 land, and might seem to them an obstruction : they were 
 simply to fasten their eyes upon the cloud, and follow it ; 
 not looking at the road they traversed whether it was I'ough 
 or smooth : their business was to look only upon the cloud, 
 and follow it, wherever it led them. And, my dear friends, 
 is not this our course? We are not responsible for the 
 length of the road ; we are only responsible for obeying the 
 command of Him who has placed us in it. In walking 
 through life, we are not to look to the right, nor to the left ; 
 but to look to Christ. And it seems to me — what I did 
 not think of before — that the beautiful passage, in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, " Seeing we are compassed with so 
 great a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race set before us, 
 looking unto Jesus," alludes to this — we look not to the 
 nature and the roughness of the road, nor the length of the 
 race, — we look neither to the right, nor to the left, nor be- 
 fore, nor behind ; but to the pillar of cloud by day, and the 
 pillar of fire by night. How simple does a Christian's 
 course become, when his eye is riveted on the Lord of 
 glory ; and he follows him, not gathering from others the 
 route that he is to take, but looking to Jesus ! And how 
 intensely Protestant, let me add, is that ! The apostle says, 
 " Seeing we are compassed with so great a cloud " — that 
 
THE SIIECIIIXAn. 315 
 
 is, a multitude — " of witnesses," these witnesses, T believe, 
 the spirits of the just made perfect — "seeing we are com- 
 passed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run tlie 
 race set before us " — looking at the cloud of witnesses ? 
 No ; nor at any of them. It is, literally, in the original 
 Greek, a(popcjvTeg — looking off from the cloud of witnesses, 
 in order to look to Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our 
 faith. Let us, then, run the race ; let us traverse the 
 desert ; let us march towards Emmanuel's land, looking only 
 for guidance, for strength, for pardon, for peace, for suc^cess, 
 to the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by 
 night, — the brightness of the Father's glory, God manifest 
 in the flesh, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 And, in the next place, as another practical remark, let 
 us hear his voice, and his voice only. The Jews listened to 
 the voice from the cloud ; the Christian is to listen to Christ's 
 voice. But what is his voice? It is a voice unspent in 
 eighteen centuries ; it sounds along the ages now, as if it 
 had just been uttered. Every man that has the Bible iu 
 his hand — as all may have it — hears that voice. 
 
 Every one that has that New Testament in his hand, has 
 the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. 
 And these Chinese revolutionists — to whom we propose 
 sending Bibles — if they may be called by that name, — 
 anxious to get rid of the usurping and intruding Tartar 
 dynasty, send evidently taught the leading truths of Chris- 
 tianity—for I have read accounts, as lent to me by a 
 friend, with great care and with great delight, — these Chi- 
 nese, in getting the New Testament from us, may, by God's 
 blessing, see the necessity for a nobler and a more impor- 
 tant revolution than that of a dynasty — of a more mighty 
 change than that of political regimes ; may, by God's grace, 
 become a fulfilment, as I believe they will be soon, of what 
 is to take place in the very last days of all, when a nation 
 shall be born in a day. 
 
340 SCRIFTURE READINGS. 
 
 The voice of God is everywhere. Amid the roaring of 
 the waves, amid the tumbling avalanches, in the din of bat- 
 tle, in all places, in all time^, and under all circumstances, 
 we may get directions from the shechinah — guidance from 
 the pillar of cloud. 
 
 God has spoken to us, in these last days, by his Son. If 
 they escape not who listened not to Moses and the prophets, 
 how much less shall we escape, if w^e trample underfoot the 
 words of the Son of God ! 
 
 May He bless to us these truths, and to his name be 
 praise. Amen. 
 
THE VAILED niOPIIET: 
 
 OK, THE GLORY DIMMED. 
 
 "And it came to pass, when ]\Ioses came down from Mount Sinai with the 
 two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the 
 mount, that Moses wist not that the sliin of his face shone while he 
 talked Avith him. And Avhen Aaron and all the children of Israel saw 
 Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come 
 nigh him. And Closes called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers 
 of the congregation returned unto him : and Moses talked with them. 
 And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them 
 in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount 
 Sinai. And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on 
 his face. But when IMoses went in before the Lord to &peak with him, 
 he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake 
 unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. And the 
 children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face 
 shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to 
 speak with him." Exodus xxxiv. 29-35, 
 
 "Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: 
 and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of 
 Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 
 but their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same 
 vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament; which vail is 
 done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the 
 vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, 
 the vail shall be taken away. Now, the Lord is that Spirit: and where 
 the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face 
 beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 
 glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 CoiaNTiiiANS iii. 12-18. 
 
 It appears that Moses on the mount, in contact with the 
 shechinah or glory of tha Lord, carried otF a portion of it, 
 shining from his countenance ; tlie outward material splen- 
 dor — the symbol of inward repose — attracted the notice, 
 
348 THE TAILED rKOI'IIET ; 
 
 and, as we shall find in the sequel of the narrative, alarmed 
 the minds, of the children of Israel. Before I advert to it 
 further, however, let me notice the fact, that Moses went up, 
 as we are told, to the Mount Sinai alone, and he was there 
 with the Lord alone forty days and forty nights. He went 
 up into the mount alone. Of course in parts of his conduct 
 there was much that was official, and therefore not imitable 
 by us ; but in his own character and conduct, too, there was 
 much that was personal, and therefore a precedent for us. 
 He went up to the mountain top, where God was pleased to 
 reveal himself, and to whose presence he had been invited, 
 and there alone he saw what God was, and beheld his glory. 
 We too should go up to the mount alone ; we too should 
 draw near to God in personal and individual communion. 
 The religion of many is that of the crowd ; it burns only 
 amid sympathy — it is kindled only by contact with thou- 
 sands ; and the instant that the crowd is dissolved, and they 
 go alone into their homes and their closets, all their light is 
 put out, all their warmth is cooled : religion with them is a 
 social and public sacrifice, not at all a personal thing. But, 
 if I understand Christianity aright, it is emphatically the 
 individual's transaction of an everlasting matter with God 
 alone ; and he that has never held communion, converse, 
 conversation if you like — for it does not need the lips to 
 speak to God ; the heart speaks to him and he can speak to 
 the heart — has reason to question the dej)th at least, if not 
 the reality and substance, of his own religion. Let us not 
 forget, as an illustration of religion as a personal thing, that 
 God looks at each individual in the solemn assembly alone 
 just as if there were no other individual in the universe ; 
 he looks at each heart as minutely as if the only one in this 
 gigantic metropolis. The interior of solemn cathedrals, the 
 intricacies of individual hearts, are luminous and transparent 
 to the God with whom we have to do. He hears the beat- 
 ing of a babe's heart as distinctly as he hears the rolling of 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMED. 349 
 
 the thunder or the worship of tlie cliernbiin. If wc could 
 only realize that one fact — if we could only insulate our- 
 selves from the crowd, and feel that we are just as ntdvcd to 
 God, as clearly seen by him, and present as great an inter- 
 est to him as if he has nothing else to do in the world than 
 to minister to me, and forgive me, and sanctify me, — our 
 religion would thus, by becoming more personal, become 
 more deep and real. 
 
 I think it is one of the grandest features of Deity, that 
 the smallest thing indicates an expenditure of labor as great 
 as the very largest. Take the wing of the minutest insect, 
 you will fnid that the texture of the web is as exquisitely 
 woven as is the manipulation of a fixed star, or the shaping 
 of the big bright sun ; so exquisitely done is the petal of the 
 wildest tield flower or the wing of the beetle or the bee, 
 that, on examining it with all the aids of microscopic analy- 
 sis, we could almost feel as if God had spent the last five 
 thousand years in doing nothing else but shaping and weav- 
 ing it. It is the evidence of his greatness that the very 
 least things that the microscope detects are as elaborately, 
 as exquisitely, as beautifully done as the very largest things 
 that the telescope brings within the horizon of our view. 
 And if that be so in the material world, it is an analogy, 
 and so far a proof, that he does the same in the spiritual 
 world. A believer's sorrow, his sighs, his wants, his woes, 
 the world cannot see ; griefs and tears that cannot wash out 
 his sorrowful reminiscences ; his longings and his yearnings 
 after a perfection and a beauty that he sees looming in the 
 distance, but that he cannot yet grasp — God understands; 
 and every instant, by night and by day, and everywhere, 
 upon the mountain and in the valley, and on the ocean — 
 I repeat the precious thought, a thought that is worth re- 
 peating — there God is present, as if he had nothing else 
 in the universe to do but to minister to that individual's 
 soul, and make it holy and happy, and fit for heaven. 
 30 
 
350 THE VAILED PROPHET 
 
 If this be so, let us try to realize it. The fjict is, it is not 
 more knowledge that we want, not more novelty brought 
 into sermons, but to liave the same precious truths reitera- 
 ted, and set in such lights that we cannot mistake them, and 
 accompanied with the prayer over them that He that can 
 preach to the heart would so impress upon that heart those 
 pointed, personal, sanctifying truths, that you shall feel your 
 soul and God to oe the only two grand things in the uni- 
 verse worth recollecting, knowing, loving. That we ought 
 sometimes to try to feel alone with God I may inculcate by 
 reminding you that \Ve must all die alone. What a thought 
 is that ! The physician may accompany you to the sick- 
 bed, beloved relatives may sympathize with your sufferings 
 and weep over your departure ; but no friend on earth can 
 walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death — 
 you must die, in the strictest sense of that expression, alone. 
 Is it not well, then, when we know that all human friends 
 must leave us, or rather, when we must leave them, save 
 One that sticketh closer than a brother — is it not well to 
 hold communion and fellowship, private and alone, with 
 him now; so that when we come into the valley of the 
 shadow of death we may find it no strange place, but trod 
 smooth by our Elder Brother's foot, resounding with his 
 own blessed welcome, and teaching us to sing — not to 
 say, " O death, where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy 
 victory ? " 
 
 We must stand at the judgment-seat of Christ — and I 
 say it with all the recollections of the description of it — 
 alone. True, there will be a great multitude grouping 
 around the Great White Throne, with different aspects, 
 hopes, and fears within, and lights and shadows, that indicate 
 fears and hoj)es, playing on the countenance without; but in 
 that solemn hour every one of us shall feel at the judgment- 
 seat alone, absorbed by what each of us is within, and what 
 God has been to us before. We shall feel, amid its light 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMED. 351 
 
 and its glory, as if none but God and we were tliere. The 
 silence of that moment will be so intense that every man 
 shall hear the beating of his own heart. You know that in 
 moments of the dreadest suspense — upon the eve of battle, 
 the calm that precedes it is breathless and inconceivable ; 
 and so, at any great crisis, men hold their breaths in silence. 
 At the judgment-seat you will feel so truly alone, amid the 
 intense light and the awful silence, that you will feel as if 
 God and you — the Judge and yourself before the judgment- 
 seat — were the only twain in the universe. How important 
 that we should now be alone with Him whom we sliall 
 meet at the judgment-seat ! How important that we should 
 not meet a stranger tliere ! How joyous and blessed will 
 be that view when, upon the throne of judgment, is seen the 
 Lamb who spoke to us from the throne of grace ; and when 
 we shall hear, not a new and strange sound, but the old and 
 familiar accents, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
 the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world ! " Thus Moses went up the mount, and held com- 
 munion with God alone. 
 
 Lei me remind you, too, in the next place, that of all 
 things Satan will make the strongest efforts to avert the pos- 
 sibility of personal communion with God. He will not care 
 that you should be religious in the crowd if he can only 
 prevent your holding communion with God alone. To pre- 
 vent this he will give you every excitement you can desire ; 
 he will divert you with the prospects of business ; he will 
 involve you in all the cares and pursuits of a world that 
 must pass away ; he will tempt you with every pleasure ; 
 he will draw you under the influence of every attraction, if 
 he can only keep you from personal, close communion and 
 intercourse with God. But, you may depend upon it, there 
 will be no deep religion in public unless it be fed from 
 springs in individual lives; there will be no warmth in the 
 sanctuary that will last unless it be kindled from individual 
 
352 THE VAILED PROPHET ; 
 
 hearts. It is the religion of tlie closet that makes so real 
 and so pure the religion of the sanctuary and of the church 
 without. Some perhaps may ask, how is it possible to have 
 personal communion with God ? We are so constituted that 
 by an introspective effort of the mind — looking within — 
 and a circumspective effort, if I may use a corresponding 
 phrase, looking around, you can hold intercourse with the 
 absent and the distant. If a mother has a son in a distant 
 land, she can hold communion with him ; she can think what 
 he was ; she can recollect wdiat his temptations, his weak- 
 nesses, were ; and she can conceive perfectly how he feels 
 towards her and thinks of her: and thus, by an intercourse 
 more rapid than that of electricity itself, the broad deep 
 seas are bridged, and the parent holds communion with the 
 son who is far distant from home. And if this be possible 
 in the things of this lower sphere, where all is imperfect, 
 and limited, and obscure, who shall conceive it impossible 
 for God, that fills all space, penetrates all recesses, is here, 
 and there, and everywhere, to hold communion with us, or 
 for. us, conscious of his presence, to hold communion with 
 -him? What is prayer to him but speaking to God -^ and 
 what are answers from heaven but God's reply to us ? And 
 wherever, therefore, — in the closet, or in your study, or in 
 the world, or amid the array of this world's difficulties, — 
 wherever you may be, you can lift up the heart and feel, 
 " Thou God scest me ; " or say, " Whom have I in lieaven 
 but thee ? and there is none iijjon the earth that I desire 
 beside thee ; " or, " Lord Jesus, remember me when thou 
 comest into tliy kingdom ; " or, " Blessed Lord, I will arise 
 and come to thee, my Father." AVhcrever such expressions 
 rise from the heart, on the stones of the Excliange, on the 
 floor of Parliament, behind the counter, or in the counting- 
 house, they are ten times more precious than when they are 
 statedly expressed at morning dawn and at evening close ; 
 because they are the spontaneous, the unprovoked expres- 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMED. 863 
 
 slons of a heart that in its silent depths is in communion 
 with God, and lets forth only the incidental evidences of its 
 deep and solemn, but silent, intercourse maintained within. 
 
 Thus, then, we see what is meant by being alone with 
 God, and having personal communion with him. And we 
 may say that w^e always climb this mount when w^e pray, 
 when w^e read God's word, and when we listen to God's 
 voice, as proclaimed by the preacher. But in all these we 
 must recollect this, that the only way of access is Christ 
 Jesus ; whether we pray or praise, whether we speak to 
 God or God speaks to us, remember, the way is not the 
 mountain that Moses chmbed, but the sacrifice that Jesus 
 made, " I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man 
 cometh to the Father but by me." Moses before he went 
 up the mount offered sacrifice ; we, before we enter into 
 communion with God, have no sacrifice to oflTer ; for this 
 Christ died once for all ; by one offering he hath perfected 
 for ever them that are sanctified ; and we have access to 
 God by one Spirit, through Christ Jesus. 
 
 Now^, having thus seen the lessons that we may draw 
 from Moses' holding communion w^ith God alone upon the 
 mount, let me notice another feature in the passage, where 
 it is said that his face shone with the glory when he came 
 down from the mount. His immediate contact with Deity 
 seems to have left a portion of its material splendor radiating 
 the countenance of him wdio was admitted to so close and 
 intimate communion with God. It is rather a singular fiact, 
 that in the Vulgate translation of the Bible — that is, the 
 ancient Vulgate executed by Jerome in the fourth century 
 — the rendering of this passage is, "And Moses had horns- 
 upon his face;" that is the literal translation of the passage. 
 And if any of you have seen the paintings of the ancient 
 masters, you will find Moses always represented upon the 
 canvas with two horns on his head, whicli is evidence how 
 completely a tradition has become belief, and more espec- 
 30* 
 
354 THE VAILED PROrilET ; 
 
 ially how it is possible for a church that assumes to be infal- 
 lible to start upon a wrong basis notwithstanding its infal- 
 libility, and to fall into very great absurdities. The Hebrew 
 word ibr a ray or a beam from the sun is y^p, karan, that is, 
 something that shoots from the sun. The same word is also 
 used for a horn ; because as a horn seems to shoot from the 
 head of an animal, so a ray, or a sunbeam, seems to shoot 
 from the sun ; and the Vulgate has translated the word 
 here which ought to have been rendered " rays " or beams," 
 by the word " horns." Our translators have in one instance 
 made a similar mistake ; and one which needs to be ex- 
 plained in order to be corrected. In the prophet Habakkuk, 
 in the third chapter, at the fourth verse it says, in a very 
 sublime portraiture of God, " God came from Teman, and 
 the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory 
 covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. 
 And his brightness was as the light ; he had horns coming 
 out of his hand." Now that is a perfectly monstrous repre- 
 sentation if one were to understand it literally ; but when 
 you recollect, that the word here translated "horn" is, 
 f)roperly rendered, " ray," or beam of light, then it seems 
 perfectly obvious and natural. " His brightness was as the 
 light ; he had beams of splendor radiating from his hand." 
 Now Moses, going thus into contact with God, seems to 
 have transferred to himself a portion of God's glory. And 
 there is something very remarkable in this, that almost every 
 portion of Scripture represents the moral glory of God to 
 have a physical and material splendor that compensates for, 
 by overwhelming, the very light of noonday itself. You 
 remember in the picture of the New Jerusalem that it says, 
 " There was no need of the sun nor of the moon," — not 
 that they were extinguished, but there was no need of thera. 
 Why? Because "the glory of God and of the Lamb were 
 the light thereof ; " as if that moral glory had a material 
 splendor, the intensity of which should put out the very sun, 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMED. 355 
 
 and moon, and stars, by substituting and rendering tlieni un- 
 necessary. So the glory of God that shone between the 
 cherubim shed in the darkness of the holy of holies an un- 
 earthly, but an unmistakable splendor. So again Moses, in 
 contact with — what? In contact with God's goodness — 
 for it is said, God's goodness was his glory — in contact with 
 God's goodness, carried off upon his countenance a portion 
 of material splendor so brilliant that the children of Israel 
 as they looked upon it wondered and were afraid. And we 
 find, too, another illustration of this very same thing in the 
 Acts of the Apostles, where we are told that Peter and 
 John were preaching to the crowd that there is salvation in 
 none other but Christ Jesus — in other words, they were 
 setting forth God's richest goodness to the very Jews that 
 had crucified the Lord of glory. It is said, " Now when 
 they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived 
 that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled ; 
 and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with 
 Jesus." John, you will notice, (Acts iv.) did not speak one 
 word ; but stood by, backing Peter by his presence ; but, as 
 far as eloquent expression was concerned, Peter alone was 
 the spokesman and the preacher. But the Jews took notice 
 that the silent John, as well as the eloquent Peter, had been 
 with Jesus — as if the countenance of the one sustained the 
 preaching of the other, and both had caught a portion of the 
 glory, by contact and communion with that God whose 
 goodness and salvation they so strikingly displayed. And 
 may not this glory now, if not rest upon the countenance, at 
 least from the heart reflect upon the countenance that peace 
 which is unmistakable and full of glory ? Just as a lamp 
 in the midst of a crystal urn, will send its beams through 
 every portion of the vessel in which it is inclosed, so a heart 
 at peace with God, in close and intimate comnumion with 
 him, will radiate its influence over the whole material econ- 
 omy, and the world itself will take notice that you have 
 
356 THE VAILED PROPHET; 
 
 been with Jesus. Socrates believed of old, and there is 
 some truth in it, that the countenance is the exact exponent 
 of the mind within ; that what a dial is to the machinery of 
 a clock, a face is to the machinery — the moral machinery 
 — that is within. And you will notice, let it be the ugliest, 
 or, to use a less offensive expression, the plainest face in 
 Christendom — let that countenance be lighted up from 
 within with intellect and love and the peace of God, it 
 shines perfectly beautiful. A face that has all the beauty 
 of a statue, whether in man or woman, is utterly worthless. 
 Such beauty has no charm at all ; but a face that has not 
 one feature symmetrical, but is illummated by the love and 
 light of the religion that is in the heart within, becomes, to 
 my apprehension and to my taste, perfectly beautiful, and the 
 evidence and the index before God and man of the peace 
 that passeth understanding, the joy that a stranger cannot 
 intermeddle with, bathing in its unearthly splendor the coun- 
 tenance that is its just and its natural exponent. 
 
 When Moses came down from the mount, after his con- 
 tact with the glory of God, " he wdst not that the skin of his 
 •face shone." The Je^vs saw it ; but Moses himself, in the 
 old Saxon phrase, " wist not," that is, he was not aw^are, 
 did not know that his face shone with splendor. And is 
 there not here a very suggestive lesson for us? They that 
 have the most grace are not least conscious of it, but they 
 are most humble because they are conscious of it. A Chris- 
 tian feels that he ought to be humbled for his sins because 
 they are his own ; and that he ought to be liumblcd for his 
 graces, because they are not his own. And hence you will 
 find that they who have grown most in grace, have gained 
 most richly of the glory and the goodness of God by contact 
 and communion with him, will themselves least be exalted 
 or puffed up by the knowledge of what they have. Abraham 
 said, " I am dust and ashes ; " Job said, " When I saw God 
 I abhorred myself; " Isaiah said, " Woe is me, for I am a 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMED. 857 
 
 man of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the Lord of 
 hosts ; " Paul also said, " I am less than the least of all 
 saints ; " and John said, " When I saw him I fell at his feet 
 as dead ; " teaching us that when we see ourselves in the 
 intense light of the glory of God, however thankful for his 
 apocalypse of himself to us, we are humbled by a sense of 
 what we are in ourselves. And therefore it is beautifully 
 said that Moses wist not — he did not think, he did not 
 recollect this glory ; he was so thinking of his own un- 
 worthiness that he could scarcely venture to think of the 
 worthiness with which God had clothed him. 
 
 Yet it is singular enough, in the next place, that when 
 the Israelites saw the glory on his face^ and informed him 
 of it, they themselves were afraid. Now how can one ac- 
 count for this ? One would have thought, surely they would 
 have hailed with delight a flower from the garden of Para- 
 dise itself; surely they will welcome with hosannas a sun- 
 beam from the Sun of Righteousness himself; surely a leaf 
 brought by Moses from the Tree of Life will be more pre- 
 cious to them than the olive branch brought by the dove to 
 the ark of Noah ; but it was not so. And yet they are not 
 singular in this. Adam and Eve, you remember, hid them- 
 selves when they heard the footfall of God in the silence of 
 evening twilight ; and, in the language of Scripture, " they 
 were afraid." The disciples in the storm, when Jesus walked 
 upon the waves as if they had been plain, w^ere afraid, as if 
 they had seen a spirit. Why is this — that heavenly and 
 eternal future things make mortal man afraid ? Why is it 
 that a man that can brave the bayonet of the foe, or march 
 up in the " forlorn hope " in the face of a park of cannon, 
 shrinks and starts back when he is brought into contact with 
 the immortal, the eternal, the Divine ? How do you account 
 for this ? There is a very simple, though it is to us a very 
 painful, solution : it is, sin in the conscience. The worst 
 man knows well that sin and God are inlinite, eternal ene- 
 
358 THE VAILED rROPIIET ; 
 
 mies, and that sin must be extirpated or God dethroned. 
 The fear of the supernatural, the shrinking from God, is 
 just the effect of guilt in the conscience, which often mutters 
 in its undertone, what it cannot believe, " No God." The 
 Israelites, had just sinned — they had made a golden calf, 
 given worship to it instead of the living and the true God ; 
 and, owing to conscious sin, the least manifestation of Deity- 
 made them tremble. There is in every conscience the rec- 
 ollection of sin — it may be, forgiven in the sanctuary 
 above, but not forgotten nor forgiven by themselves. De- 
 cisive evidence of a state of grace is the absence of terror of 
 God. All man's shrinking from the future, the eternal, the 
 supernatural, is the consciousness that all is not right be- 
 tween the individual heart and God : but when we can go 
 into the presence of God ; when we can stand upon the 
 brink of eternity, and look down its tremendous steeps 
 "without fear or alarm ; when we can look up to the judg- 
 ment-seat, and see reflected from afar its unearthly splendor 
 and yet feel peace — not because of sinlessness, for that no 
 one feels, or insensibility, which a Christian has not ; but 
 because of sin forgiven, for that every one may have — 
 there is the greatest proof that we are at peace with God, 
 and God at peace with us. The best test of character is, 
 how you feel when you are brought into contact with God, 
 witli eternity, with the future — with the truly and the 
 really supernatural. Men can play with the sham super- 
 natural — they can play " fantastic tricks before higli heav- 
 en " with what they call the supernatural, and profess to 
 bring back the spirits of the dead to hold converse with 
 them, by what is called " spirit-rapping," a vulgar and 
 bungling imposture. If Satan were in it, he would acquit 
 himself with much more talent. It is too stupid to be his ; 
 it is a delusion with some, a deception on others, and impos- 
 ture by many who have a consciousness of the supernatural 
 that they cannot quench, but whose consciences will not let 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMKD. 3-,9 
 
 them draw near to the holy supernatural, which is the i)ros- 
 ence of the true and the living God. AVIrmi one can draw 
 near to God, and hold communion with him, and feel peace, 
 there is the evidence, not of sinlessness, which none of us 
 have, but of sin-forgiveness, which is the birtliright and the 
 privilege of all that will. 
 
 Moses, when he saw the terror and alarm of the children 
 of Israel, did — what, indeed, vailed the impressiveness of 
 his own appearance in the midst of them, but was to them 
 an encouragement to draw near, and hear from his lips the 
 wonderful words of eternal truth; — he put, it is said, a 
 "vail" — a piece of gauze — on his face, to dim the sheen 
 of the glory that shone from his countenance, that the chil- 
 dren of Israel might look upon the supernatural which was 
 there, and yet not be afraid. They were not in that state 
 that they could look upon such a manifestation of God with- 
 out terror and alarm. Now the apostle says, in the passage 
 which I have read from the Epistle to the Corinthians, and 
 which is the just and beautiful commentary upon the whole 
 of this incident, that the Jews still see Christ through a 
 vail ; that is, the whole Old Testament dispensation of the 
 Gospel is seen by the Jews dimly, darkly, and obscurely, as 
 through a vail. Every doctrine is seen through a ty])e ; 
 every sacrihce is revealed under a symbol, as a mirror of 
 the sanctuary ; every hope is embosomed in a promise ; 
 every restoration nestles in the midst of a prophecy. The 
 Jew — the spiritual Jew, for he is not a Jew who is one 
 outwardly — sees the vail, catches some stray beams of the 
 inner glory that are stricken through, but he cannot behold 
 in all his naked splendor Him who is the end and the sub- 
 stance of all — Jesus Christ, the brightness of the Father's 
 glory and the express image of his person. The Jew, in 
 the synagogue, sees the high-priest still stand in tlie holy of 
 holies, and gaze upon the glory between the cherubim, and 
 bear upon his breast plate, engraved on sparkling gems, the 
 
360 THE VAILED PROPHET; 
 
 names of the tribes of Jacob ; but he cannot see the True 
 High-Priest, who has entered into the true holy place, and, 
 amid the glory of the inner sanctuary, is making interces- 
 sion for his people. The Jew can see the passover lamb ; 
 he can read its history, he can regret that he is not restored 
 to the only place where he can offer it — Jerusalem and its 
 temple ; but he cannot see through the vail the true and the 
 only Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. 
 They have not the light of the Sun of Righteousness shin- 
 ing on them. And it looked to me a melancholy thing, 
 when one evening I went into their synagogue, and wor- 
 shipped with them — for they sang some precious Psalms, 
 and there Avas something beautiful in joining with a child of 
 Israel in those divine hymns which are to us performances, 
 but, alas ! to his ear are only prophecies — it was melan- 
 choly to see inscribed over the j^orch of that synagogue a 
 prayer, that God would send the Messiah to Israel ; and 
 one could not but breathe the prayer that their eyes might 
 be opened, and that they might hear from his own Divine 
 lips the words that he uttered to one of old, " I that speak 
 unto thee am he." But their longing will soon be gratified; 
 their land is making ready for their return ; the Crescent 
 wanes, the great river Euphrates is exhausting itself by its 
 immense warlike contributions every day ; and by and by, 
 when exhausted, along the dried channels of the stream 
 which is the Crescent's apocalyptic symbol, God's ancient 
 tribes shall move to the land of their fathers, the land that 
 is dear to them, and ineffaceable from their hearts ; and 
 there they will see, no more through the vail, but face to 
 face they shall see the glory on the countenance, not of 
 Moses, but of Jesus, and, whilst they look, they shall live 
 for ever and for ever. When they shall turn to the Lord, 
 says the apostle, the vail shall be taken away. 
 
 But we must not forget, at the same time, that every un- 
 converted man — and the apostle teaches us this distinctly 
 
on, THE GLOKY DHIMED. 301 
 
 in this passage — lias this vail upon his face. And again, 
 in another passage, he says, " The natural man receiveth 
 not the things of the Spirit of God ; they are foolishness to 
 him." You yourselves know that, before you understood 
 what the Gospel is, you used to read the Bible because it 
 was a decent thing, or because there was very beautiful poe- 
 try in it — and there is poetry in this volume compared with 
 which all the poetry of this world is insignificant ; or you 
 read the Bible because it had instructive history in it : but 
 the vail was on your heart. Now the vail has been taken 
 away, and you can see an adaptation, and a glory, and an 
 excellence, in this Book, that is to you the absolute demon- 
 stration that the vail has been taken away. I know not a 
 more triumphant proof of the divinity and inspiration of 
 this Book than this, — that the longer I study it the more it 
 becomes new. There are some books that I have, and that 
 I very often read — some of the old classics, and some of 
 the modern poets. I read them with great pleasure, and 
 return to them again and agam ; but at length they begin 
 to be uninteresting ; I seem to have exhausted every thing 
 tnat is in them. But I find that the longer I read this 
 Book, the more of novelty I find ; not new doctrines, but 
 old ones in new lights ; the more I become acquainted with 
 it, the more of the live glory seems to leap forth from its 
 sacred pages ; till in my mind there is no one thing in God's 
 universe so absolutely certain as that this Book was never 
 "written or conceived by man, but inspired and taught by 
 the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 We read, in the next place, that the apostle, having 
 described the Jew with the vail upon his face, or the Gen- 
 tile, equally blind, describes next the Christian. " We all 
 with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the 
 Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, 
 even as by the Spirit of the Lord." It represents a man 
 looking into a mirror, from which some of the heavenly 
 31 
 
362 THE VAILED PROrHET ; 
 
 splendor is reflected ; the rays of the light that shine from 
 the mirror irradiate the countenance of him that looks from 
 a distance; and looking into it he is transformed by its 
 glory more and more into the likeness of the original that is 
 there. We learn, from this idea of the apostle, that Chris- 
 tians are very much made by what they come into contact 
 with. I read somewhere of a very illustrious painter who 
 never would gaze at an ugly or an imperfect painting for a 
 single moment, lest it should exercise a deteriorating influ- 
 ence upon his own beautiful conceptions. I think there was 
 truth in that ; that which we look at oftenest transfers itself, 
 in a manner, to us. There seems to be a moral daguerreo- 
 type or calotype process as well as a mechanical and a 
 material one ; as if the moral character we most constantly 
 contemplate, and are brought most continually into contact 
 with, exercised upon us its own peculiar character. The 
 man who is always making money — the miser — you can 
 see that he has been in contact with money, and with noth- 
 ing else. Notice the man, again, who has been in contact 
 with the grand scenes of creation, he gives evidence of it by 
 "the expansion of his countenance. Everybody knows that 
 wdiat we are brought most frequently into contact with, does 
 exercise upon the countenance as well as upon the aflfec- 
 tions, the sympathies, and the passions, a very distinct influ- 
 ence. And, if tliis be so, how important that we should be 
 as much as possible in contact with all that ennobles, ele- 
 vates, sanctifies, adorns ! When you come into contact with 
 something very grand — something like sublimity ; if for 
 instance, with the majestic ocean, when it rolls its waves to 
 the strand against which it beats, you are so struck with the 
 sublimity of the scene that you cannot think of any of the 
 poor and paltry transactions of this present world. If you 
 are brought into the presence of vast mountain scenery, you 
 are so elevated by its grandeur that all little and paltry 
 recollections are dissolved and disappear. So when you 
 
OR, THE GLORY DIMMED. 3G3 
 
 come into contact with tlic great, tlic infinite, thn jjiorioug 
 God, and drink deeply into lii.s spirit, and catch upon your 
 soul a portion of his glory, you are moulded silmtiy, hut 
 surely, into liis likeness; earthly cares, and earthly thoughts, 
 and earthly anxieties, are lost and forgotten ; and you can 
 only think — Avhat you feel so profoundly — of the hright- 
 ness, and magnificence, and glory of the Being to wlioui 
 you are brought near. And thus, beholding in God's 
 Word, as in a glass, the glory of G^d in the countenance 
 of Jesus Christ, you are transformed progressively from 
 glory to glory, from strength to strength, till at last you ap- 
 pear before God in Zion. 
 
 And lastly, even this is not done by the AVord alone, 
 but the Spirit also; as if the most effective mirror — God's 
 Word — reflecting most purely Christ's glory, were not 
 enough to transform us without its application by the Spirit 
 of God. The word of God will be the savor of deatii, ex- 
 cept the Spirit, promised to every one that a>ks, is pleased 
 to make it the savor of life. 
 
 May God make these truths with which we have been 
 brought into contact, in the study of this Book, as rays of 
 his glory, transforming us from glory to glory, as by the 
 Spirit of the Lord. Amen. 
 
 Love the Lord, and thou slialt see huu, 
 
 Do his will, and thou shall know 
 How the Spirit lights the letter, 
 
 How a little child maj^ go 
 Where the wise and prudent stumble ; 
 
 How a heavenly glory shines, 
 In his acts of love and mercy, 
 
 From the Gospel's simplest lines. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aaron, ]\Io?es' prophet, 61 ; makes the golden calf, 2GG. 
 
 Affliction, impatience of men under, 70. 
 
 Age of man, 64. 
 
 Altars in the Tabernacle, 234. 
 
 Anger, a natm-al passion, 97. 
 
 Angel — Lord, 22, 182. 
 
 Apostolical succession, 226; Abp. Whately's offer, 227. 
 
 Ark, observations on, 255; its contents, 273; chief glory of Israel, 261; 
 
 grief of Eli at its loss, ib. 
 Artisans of the Tabernacle, inspired, 239. 
 Altar-places, unscriptural notions respecting, 253. 
 Bagster's Engravings of Tabernacle, 259. 
 Bible, inexhaustible. 361. 
 " Borrowing " of the Egyptians, 28, 95. 
 Brick Pyramid, 42. 
 Burglary, law respecting, 173. 
 Burning bush, observations on, 22. 
 Bush, Dr.'s account of Mount Sinai, 152. 
 Calumny, law against, 178. 
 Canaanites, extermination of, vindicated, 282. 
 Candlestick, the golden, 313. 
 
 Catechisms, Roman Catholic, garbled quotations in, 159. 
 Cattle, why they suffer, 77. 
 
 Cherubim at Eden, 201 ; over the mercy-seat, 259. 
 Children suffer for parents, 100; inquisitive, 104; to be instructed, 112. 
 Christians, not known by the world, 53 ; privileges of, 149. 
 Christ, the everlasting High-Priest, 152. 
 Church polity, not defined in New Testament, 205. 
 Consecration, necessity of, 237. 
 Continent, Sabbath on the, 244. 
 Courtesy, instance of, 145. 
 
3G8 INDEX. 
 
 Decalogue, division of, 159 ; tampered witli by Komau Catholic Church, 
 ib.; Christ's explanation, 160. 
 
 Education should be Christian, 241. 
 
 Emotion, power of, 296. 
 
 Evangelical Avorship, 233. 
 
 "Exotlus," explanation of, 1, 2; value of the book, 322; how to be read, 
 323. 
 
 Extermination of the Canaanites j ustified, 282. 
 
 Fasting, the true, 286. 
 
 Fnyoum, pyramid of, 41. 
 
 First-born, sanctified, 110. 
 
 " Genesis," explanation of, 1, 2. 
 
 Gifts of intellect, from God, 240. 
 
 Glory of God, unbearable by mortals, 298; fills the Tabernacle, 341; 
 seen in the smallest things, 349. 
 
 God reveals his glory to Moses, 187. 
 
 God's mode of dealing with nations, 75 ; leads by a right way, 112. 
 
 God's magistrates called, 61. 
 
 Golden altar, 234. 
 
 Grace, definition of, 291. 
 
 Hale, Sir Matthew, anecdote of, 180. 
 
 Howard contrasted with Byron, 289. 
 
 Hawks, Dr., quotation from, 6. 
 
 Heaven, earth is to be, 250. 
 
 Hengstenberg on plagues, 81. 
 
 Hennlker, Sir F., account of Mount Sinai, 153. 
 ■ Hieroglyphics of foreigners, 5. 
 
 High-priest, his dress and office, 217, etc. 
 
 Holy places, distinguished, 210. 
 
 Idolatry, jealousy of God against, 267. 
 
 Israelites, rapid increase of, 2 ; their persecution, 3-5 ; their labors, 6 ; are 
 refused straw, 41; beaten, 42; reproach Moses and Aaron, 43; are 
 exempted from the plague, 77 ; number who left Egypt, 109 ; why led 
 into the wilderness, 112, 137; went out harnessed, 114; take Josepii's 
 bones, ib.; terror at the Red Sea, 117; get safely over, 121; murmur 
 for water, 127; for bread, 130; for water again, 138; opposed by 
 Amalek, 141; enter into covenant at Sinai, 184; promises to, 280; 
 seek an image of God, 264; AvorshIp the calf, 268; their punishment, 
 272. 
 
 Jerusalem, its probable destiny, 255. 
 
 Jethro's character, 145 ; his advice to Moses, 146. 
 
 Jewish laws, excellence of, 171, 177, 183. 
 
 Jews, insulated from other nations, 216. 
 
 "Joseph," the king that knew not, 50. 
 
 Joseph's bones, 114. 
 
INDEX. 369 
 
 Joscphus, extract from, G. 
 
 Judgments, Divine, similarity of, 04; just, though mysterious, 100. 
 
 Judicial laws, 171; burglary, 173; ti'espasses, 182; respecting strangers, 
 175 ; pledges, ib. 
 
 King, or dynasty, new in Egypt, 3. 
 
 " Knew not Joseph," meaning of phrase, 50-58. 
 
 Laver of brass, 23G. 
 
 Law given from Sinai, 148; distinction of moral and judicial, 1G5. 
 
 Lawsuits, 174. 
 
 " Let," explained, 41. 
 
 Levitical institutions, reasons for, 212; significant, 234; why so mimito 
 and precise, 311. 
 
 Lex Talionis, explained, 169. 
 
 "Looking-glass," explained, 318. 
 
 Magicians of Egypt, nature of their miracles, 67, 69, etc. 
 
 Magistrates called gods, 61; not to be reviled, 176; to be just, 179. 
 
 Manna, explained, 132; not found on the Sabbath, 133; lasted forty 
 years, 136. 
 
 Men, treated as rational responsible beings, 114. 
 
 Mercy-seat, its position, 258 ; God answered the people from it, if). 
 
 Miracles, what are, 32; Satan may woi-k, ib.; Romish, 33; Egyptian, 
 were they real ? 65 ; of Jesus, 128. 
 
 iloney, ancient, 172. 
 
 Moses, birth of, 13; beauty, 14; danger, ib.; preservation, 15; named by 
 his mother, 16; his faith, 17; interference in behalf of his brethren, 
 ib.; between his brethren, ib.; is rejected, 18; flees from Egypt, 19; 
 dwells in Midian, ib.; his marriage, 20; the Lord appears to him in the 
 bush, 22; sent to Pharaoh, 26; his hesitation, 31; God's condescension, 
 ib.; Aaron appointed to go with him, 35; leaves Midian, ib.; God 
 gives him a message for Pharaoh, ib.; Moses goes to Pharaoh, 39; the 
 people reproach him, 43; he appeals to God, ib., 45; God encourages 
 him, 45; his unbelief, 48; made a god to Pharaoh, 61; driven from his 
 presence, 93; departs in anger, 97; firmness at the Red Sea, 118; 
 his song, 124; smites the rock, 139; pleads against Amalek, 142; meets 
 Jethro, 145; takes his advice, 147; Moses on IMount Sinai, 184; wrote 
 of Christ, 248; tarries in the mount, 264; pleads for Israel, 268; en- 
 treats the Lord's presence with his people, 274, etc.; vails his face, 
 247. 
 
 Mount Sion contrasted with Sinai, 150. 
 
 Murder, penalty of, 170. 
 
 Nadab and Abihu, 186. 
 
 Name of the Lord proclaimed, 287-297. 
 
 Newman, Dr., on miracles, 32. 
 
 Offerings, description of, 229; to the Tabernacle, 303, 310. 
 
 Oppression, debasing eilcct of, 18, 48. 
 
370 INDEX. 
 
 Ovens, Eg3^ptian, 69. 
 
 Ox or ass, law as to stray, 180. 
 
 Palestine, fertility of, 24; future destiny of, 254. 
 
 Passover, institution of, 101; illustrations of, 107. 
 
 Paul on the Tabernacle furniture, 240, etc. 
 
 Pentateuch, meaning of, 1. 
 
 Pharaoh's heart hardened, observations on, 35, 43, 62, 78; refuses to let 
 the Israelites go, 39; demands a miracle, 64; a type of natural men. 
 68; God's dealing with, 76; Pharaoh's confession, 80; drives Moses 
 and Aaron from his presence, 93; relents, 100; lets the Israelites go, 
 116 ; pui'sues them, 117 ; is destroyed, 120. 
 
 Pictures of the Trinity, offensive, 162. 
 
 Pillar of cloud and fire, 115; a type of Christ, 119. 
 
 Plagues, water turned into blood, 66; frogs, 69; lice, 72; flies, ib.', mur- 
 rain of cattle, 77; boils, 78; hail, 79; Hengstenberg on, 81; plague of 
 locusts, 88; darkness, 90; death of the first-born, 96. 
 
 Precious stones, description of, 222-224. 
 
 Priest, High, Christ the everlasting, 151; dress, etc., of, 217, etc. 
 
 Promises to Jews, 230, etc. 
 
 Prophet, the vailed, 347-363. 
 
 Pyramids, work of Israelites, 5. 
 
 Rabbim, meaning of, 178. 
 
 Eed Sea opens, 120; Moses on the Egyptians, 121; description of, ib. 
 
 Recreation, not lawful on the Sabbath, 243. 
 
 Repentance, God's, explained, 269. 
 
 Robes of the high-priest, 217. 
 
 Rock, The Smitten, 140. 
 
 Romish church adopts much that is Levitical, 323. 
 
 Sabbath, transferred, 133, 163; not merely a Jewish institution, 135; how 
 obligatory on us, 163 ; the index of national morality, 164 ; observed 
 in building the Tabernacle, 242 ; a precious birthright, ib. ; how to be 
 kept, 244; to be kept in harvest, 285. 
 
 " Sandals," etymology of, 23. 
 
 Seventh year, law of the, 181. 
 
 Shechinah, The, 260, 328-346; Jewish notions concerning, 332; a type 
 of Jesus, 334. 
 
 Sinai, giving of the Law from, 148; contrasted with Mount Sioii, UO: 
 identification of, 152. 
 
 Song of Moses, 124-127. 
 
 Slavery, nature of Hebrew, 165. 
 
 Slave-trading, an offence, 168. 
 
 Stephen's description of Mount Sinai, 153. 
 
 " Stone of Moses," 140. 
 
 " Stool," correct rendering of, 4. 
 
 Tabernacle, account of, 189-199; typical, 199; made after a psttorn, 207; 
 
iXDi:x. 371 
 
 furniture of, 24G; fillu.^ion to in Ivcvclation, 251 ; conijilction of, 32); 
 
 filled by the glory of God, 341. 
 Tables of the Law, written by God, 270. 
 Unleavened bread, reason of its use, 112. 
 Voluntary system, 204, 303. 
 War, lawful, 142. 
 Wealth of the Israelites, 317. 
 Well of Closes, 128. 
 Wickliffe's prayer, 291. 
 Wilderness of Zin, 130. 
 
 Works, minute, why commanded and recorded, 311. 
 Worship of God, localized, 201; sincere, acceptable, everywhere, 202; 
 
 instruments of, 214 ; form of, not prescribed iu New Tostaraent, 225. 
 

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