pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."* This confirms the obfervation we have been all along endeavouring to inculcate refpecting the uniformity and perfeverance of the divine procedure. Men ftart from purpose to purpose, from purfuit to purfuit; they lofe fight, they tire of their object; they wafte their ftrength, they are difcouraged by oppofition, they began to build before they counted the coft. But "known to God are all his works from the beginning." He forms his plan, and undeviatingly pursues it. "I am the Lord, I change not." He lays his foundation, and it standeth fure, and the building rifes; "he willeth and none can let it." "God made man upright;" and to maintain or restore that uprightnefs is his great aim and end, under every difpenfation of his providence, under the law and the gofpel, by Mofes and by Chrift. -A prophet must have the neceffary qualifications for his office, must be inftructed in the mind of God, be filled with zeal for his glory, be animated with ardent love to mankind, be fortified against the affaults and oppofition of ignorance, and prejudice, and envy. And fuch an one was Mofes, "whom the Lord knew face to face," with whom he conversed as a man with his friend; his zeal was inextinguishable; for the good of Ifrael he was ready to make the facrifice of self; his meekness was unruffled, his patience not to be fubdued, his perfeverance indefatigable, his refolution undaunted. How much more eminently confpicuous were these characters of a prophet, in the great "Author and Finisher of the chriftian faith?" The only begotten Son who is "in the bofom of the Father, he hath declared him ;" "the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." "I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that fent me." "The cup which my Father giveth me, fhall I not drink it ?" This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."+ VOL. V. M + Matt. iii. 17. Mofes LECT. XIII. Mofes converfed forty days with God, in the mount; but thus faith uncreated Wisdom, "The Lord poffeffed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old, I was fet up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was ;"" before Abraham was, I am." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The fame was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.' The fpirit of Mofes was fometimes ftirred within him; he dashed the tables of the law to the ground, he fpake unadvisedly with his lips;" he incurred the difpleasure of his heavenly Father, he drew down a fentence of just condemnation upon his head; but the fpirit of the chriftian Leader was in no one inftance difcompofed." He did no fin, neither was guile found in his lips." He fuffered indeed and died, but it was without a crime, " the juft for the unjuft, that he might bring us unto God." Mofes expreffed a willingness to be blotted out of God's book, to be deprived of his perfonal right as a fon of Ifrael, provided Ifrael might receive the remiffion of fin, have their rights preferved, and the covenant of promife be confirmed. But Chrift became "a curfe for us," was "hanged on a tree," was "cut off from the land of the living," became "a propitiation for fin," "bare our fins in his own body on the tree," "became fin for us, though he knew no fin, that we might be made the righteoufnefs of God in him." -A prophet muft exhibit the figns of his miffion. Men will not believe him on his own report, will fufpect him of attention to his own fame, or intereft, or authority. To prove therefore that he came from God, that he speaks in his name, that he is vefted with his authority, he muft do the works of God. And thus was Mofes commiffioned and permitted to prove * John i. 1 4. his miffion. By fign upon fign he demonftrated that the Lord had appeared unto him, and spake by him; earth and water and air bore their united testimony to his divine legation; and the most enlightened nation of the globe was made to feel his afcendant by argu. ments addreffed at once to the fenfes and the underftanding. Is it needful to fay that the great Prophet, "Apostle and High-Priest of our profeflion," by fim. ilar means, by more irrefiftible evidence, evinced that he was "a teacher fent from God?" I fhall fay nothing refpecting the greater number, variety and notori ety of Chrift's miracles; though every one of these circumftances furnishes ample matter of difcuffion; I fatisfy myself at present with mentioning two particulars which ftrikingly establish Chrift's prophetic character, and give it a clear and decided fuperiority to that of Mofes. The latter acted by a delegated authority, according to a prefcribed form; he affumed nothing to himself, but was checked, reproyed, condemned, the moment he prefumed to arrogate independence, to fpeak or act for himself. But Jefus Chrift wrought miracles in his own name, by his own power, as the Lord of nature, as poffeffed of independent fovereignty. Again, the figns which Mofes exhibited were of a mixed nature, they declared both the mercy and judgment of God, they poured down hail, and tempeft, and peftilence on Egypt, as well as dropped manna on the tents of Ifrael; whereas the figns which Jefus adduced in support of his miflion were all miracles of mercy; the powers of hell alone felt the rod of his anger; and the miracles by which he confirm. ed his doctrine breathed its meeknefs and gentleness and charity. "Of the things which have been spoken this is the fum: we have fuch an High-Prieft, who is fet on the right hand of the throne of the Majefty in the heav A minister of the fanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man.”* M 2 ens. “Holy Heb. viii. I, 2. "Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, confider the Apostle and High-Priest of our profeffion, Christ Jefus; who was faithful to him that appointed him, as alfo Mofes was faithful in all his houfe. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Mofes, inafmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by fome man; but he that built all things is God. And Mofes verily was faithful in all his house as a fervant, for a teftimony of thofe things which were to be spoken after; but Chrift as a fon over his own house: whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end."* "We ought to give the more earneft heed to the things which we have heard, left at any time we fhould let them flip. For if the word fpoken by angels was stedfaft, and every tranfgreffion and difobedience received a juft recompenfe of reward; how fhall we efcape if we neglect fo great falvation, which at firft began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God alfo bearing them witness, both with figns and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will ?"" He that despised Mofes's law, died without mercy, under two or three witneffes of how much forer punishment, fuppofe ye, fhall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was fanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" Having now, in the courfe of these exercises, through a series of years, endeavoured to trace the history of mankind, in a series of characters, from Adam to Mofes, copied from the original portraits which the pencil of infpiration has itself vouchfafed to delineate; the whole in general, and every one in particular, *Heb. iii. 1—6. + Heb. ii. 1—4· Heb. x. 28, 29. particular, referring themselves to one great ORIGINAL, from whom their meaning, use and importance are derived,—I hasten to conclude my plan, by turning over to the gospel hiftory, which exhibits that fame Mofes, whom we faw expire on Mount Nebo, and "buried in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor;" whofe dying benediction yet trembles on our ear, and whofe funeral elogy we attempted to fing, alive again on Mount Tabor, and giving perfonal testimony and homage to him whom he prefigured and foretold. The hiftory of Mofes is not properly ended till then: and in vanishing from our fight on the mount of transfiguration, he becomes a glorious harbinger of the "life and immortality which are brought to light by the gospel." History |