Imatges de pàgina
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we propose for our present consideration: the latter will be reserved for future discussion.

The Israelites made an earnest request to God; and God expressed his approbation of it in the words which we have just recited"They have well said all that they have spoken: O that there were such an heart in them!" From hence we are naturally led to set before you the sentiments and dispositions which God approves; the sentiments; "They have welt said all that they have spoken;" the dispositions; "O that there were in them such an heart."

1st. The sentiments which he approves. Here it will be necessary to analyse, as it were, or at least to get a clear and distinct apprehension of, the speech which God commends. It is recorded in the preceding context from the 23d verse. "And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,) that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; and ye said, Behold, the Lord our God has shewed us his glory, and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day, that God doth talk with man and he liveth. Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we trave, and lived? Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say; and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it and do it." Then it is added, "And the Lord heard the voice of your words when ye spake unto me; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken."

Now in this speech are contained the fol lowing things-An acknowledgment that they could not stand before the Divine Majesty-A desire that God would appoint some one to mediate between him and them; and lastly, An engagement to regard every word that should be delivered to them through a Mediator, with the same obediential reverence, as they would if it were spoken to them by God himself. And these are the sentiments, on which the commendation in our text was unreservedly bestowed.

The first thing then to be noticed is, Their acknowledgment that they could not stand before the Divine Majesty.

Many things had now occurred to produce an extraordinary degree of terror upon their minds. There was a blackness and darkness in the sky, such as they never before beheld. This darkness was rendered more visible by the whole adjacent mountain blazing with fire, and by vivid lightnings flashing all around in quick succession. The roaring peals of thunder added an awful solemnity to the scene. The trumpet sounding with a long and increasingly tremendous blast, accompanied as it was by the mountain shaking to its centre, appalled the trembling multitude; and Jehovah's voice, uttering with inconceivable majesty his authoritative commands, caused even Moses himself to say, I exceedingly fear and quake.* In consequence of this terrific scene we are told that the people "removed and stood afar off,"† lest the fire should consume them, or the voice of God strike them dead upon the spot.‡ Now though this was in them a mere slavish fear and the request founded upon it had respect only to their temporal safety, yet the sentiment itself was good, and worthy of universal adoption. God being hidden from our senses, so that we neither see nor hear him, we are ready to think lightly of him, and even to rush into his more immediate presence without any holy awe upon our minds: but when he speaks to us in the thunder or by an earthquake, the most hardened rebel is made to feel that "with God is terrible majesty," and that "he is to be had in reverence by all that are round about him." This is a lesson which God has abundantly taught us by his dealings with the Jews.-Among the men of Bethshemesh, a great multitude were slain for their irreverent curisioty in looking into the ark; as Uzzah also afterwards was for his well meant but erroneous zeal in

*Compare Exod.xix.16-19, with Heb.xii.18-21. † Exod. xx, 18, 19. Ver. 21, above cited.

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presuming to touch it. The reason of such acts of severity is told us in the history of Nadab and Abihu, who were struck dead for offering strange fire on the altar of their God; they are designed to teach us, "that God will be sanctified in all that come nigh unto him, and before all the people he will be glorified "*

The next thing to be noticed is, Their desire to have some person appointed who should act as a mediator between God and them. They probably had respect only to the present occasion; but God interpreted their words as general, and as importing a request that he would send them a permanent Mediator, who should transact all their business, as it were, with God, making known to him their wants, and communicating from him the knowledge of his will. That God did construe their words in this extended sense, we are informed by Moses in a subsequent chapter of this book. In 18th of Deut. and 15th and following verses, this explanation of the matter is given. "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more that, I die not. And the Lord said unto me, they have well spoken that which they

*Lev. x. 1-3.

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have spoken. I WILL RAISE THEM UP A PROPHET FROM AMONG THEIR BRETHREN like unto thee, and will put my words in HIS mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I command him: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which He shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." Who this Prophet was, we are at no loss to declare; for the apostle Peter, endeavoring to convince the Jews from their own scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, and that Moses himself had required them to believe in him, cites these very words as referring to Christ, and calls upon them to regard him as that very Mediator, whom God had sent in answer to the petitions which had been offered by their forefathers at Mount Horeb.*

Here it should be remembered that we are speaking not from conjecture, but from infallible authority; and that the construction we are putting on the text is, not a fanciful interpretation of our own, but God's own exposition of his own words.

Behold then the sentiment expressed in our text, and the commendation given to it by God himself; it is a sentiment which is the very sum and substance of the whole gospel; it is a sentiment, which whosoever embraces truly, and acts upon it faithfully, can never perish, but shall have eternal life. The preceding sentiment, that we are incapable of standing before an holy God, is good, as introdue

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