tion, his ordinances, his worship, his promises, his prophets, and his Holy Spirit.

Now, it may be asked what had Israel done to obtain so many favours, and to be the objects of so much love? Had they reached this position by their meritorious actions or their prayers? Certainly not; for no one can possibly merit God's favour. But so far from having done anything of themselves to warrant even a hope of forgiveness, the Israelites had shown nothing but ingratitude, negligence, unbelief, and continued resistance! What, then, was the source of so many privileges? The pure free grace of God. God had chosen this nation, although "all the earth belongs to him." God had given promises to them, and God keeps his promises.

We have considered the office of Moses and the dealings of the Lord; let us now notice the conduct of the people. "And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces (that is to say, their consciences) all these words which the Lord commanded him," namely, all his commands that they should give themselves to him.

of

How pleasant it is to picture the state of the Israelites on that day! Touched with a sense of the mercy God, they exclaimed with one accord, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." Happy would it have been for them if this state of mind had continued,-if they had ever after had such a heart in them to fear God, to love him, and to keep his commandments.1 Then it would have been well with them and their children for ever. But we know that it was not so.

Their future history tells us how they soon turned

1 Deut. v. 29.

aside like a deceitful bow,-forgat the works of God, and the wonders he had shown them, and tempted and provoked the most high God.

Well, God has showed greater things to us than he did to the Israelites. He gave the law to them; to us he gives the Gospel. The law came by Moses; but grace and truth comes to us by Jesus Christ. Let us take heed, then, lest a promise being left us of entering into rest, any of us should even seem to come short of it.

Remark, that as soon as Moses returned and reported to God the words of the people, God promised to do for them greater things still. He would speak to them himself from behind the cloud; but he commanded Moses first to sanctify them for this, that is, to set them apart, to separate them from temporal affairs, that they might prepare their minds by holy meditations and prayers. He commanded them also to wash their clothes; they were to be covered with clean garments, to represent that their souls should be purified. In like manner, that God may speak to us, and that we may profit by the worship that we offer to him, we must sanctify ourselves for his worship; and in order to be pleasing in his sight, we must be washed with "the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which God sheds on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."1

1 Titus iii. 5-7.

XXXIX.

A Day of Rest.

(EXODUS xix. 14-25.)

IN the last chapter we left Israel encamped at the foot of Sinai. Moses had ascended alone upon the mount, had come back with a message from God, and had again joyfully returned to the mount with this answer from the deeply-moved people, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do."

In the above verses we behold a spectacle still more grand. This whole narrative is evidently intended to fill our minds with high thoughts of the majesty of God, of his anger against sin, of his rights over us, and of the duty of holiness: to teach us that " our God is a consuming fire;"1 that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God;" and to cause us to say with David, "If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand ?”3

Let us consider, first, the preparations for the great event of this solemn day, and then the event itself. In the first place, the Israelites had been commanded to "be ready against the third day" (the third of the month, the fiftieth day after their departure from Egypt), "for the third day the Lord will come down in sight of all the people on Mount Sinai." These three

1 Heb. xii. 29.

2 Heb. x. 31.

3 Psa. cxxx. 3.

days must have been a period of anxious and solemn expectation. Then Moses had been commanded to set bounds round about the mountain; and as they were put up he had said to the people, in the name of the Lord, "Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the borders of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: there shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount." Lastly, Moses "had sanctified the people."

But how insignificant were all these preparations in comparison with the terrible majesty of the events that took place on that solemn day, which, so anxiously waited and carefully prepared for, dawned at last; foreshadowing the great day when the Lord shall come to judge the earth! Scarcely had the dawn appeared, when there were thunders and lightnings, a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. And when the sound of the trumpet was heard, "Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God: and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly."

Was there ever before in the world's history such a sabbath, such a religious ceremony, such a sermon? What a preacher! what a pulpit! what an audience! what assistants! what a church! what solemn accompaniments! The preacher was God himself, who

had come down in fire, on the top of the mount. The pulpit was the high and majestic summit of Mount Sinai, which was quaking greatly and covered with smoke, as the smoke of a furnace. The audience was the great nation, who listened tremblingly to what God said to them; men, women, and children assembled for this purpose by the command of the Almighty. The assistants and messengers were the angels; for we learn from the speech of Stephen that God had given them important offices to perform in the scene that took place at Sinai: "Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." The church was the great wilderness under the vault of heaven. The sacred accompaniments were the thunder, the fire, the storm, and tempest, of which St. Paul speaks; and above all was the terrible prolonged swelling sound of the trumpet of God, the same trumpet sound that we shall all hear at the judgment day for the Scripture teaches us, that it is with the sound of the trumpet that the Son of man will gather his elect from the four winds of heaven, and that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven to summon them from their tombs.3 When the apostle is describing the judgment day, he tells us that "the trumpet shall sound."

Who can form a correct idea of the scene when Moses brought forth all the people of Israel out of the camp to meet with God? Who can adequately picture this solemn procession of a whole nation? There is nothing like it in the past history of the human race; there will be nothing like it in the future, until that day comes when the angels shall summon all nations, 1 Acts vii. 53. 2 Heb. xii. 18. 3 1 Thess. iv. 16. 1 Cor. xv. 52.