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be recorded by His servant Moses, and to be called to mind by the Prophet Hosea. But what am I saying? —as long as the world stands? To all eternity will Jacob himself be a memorial of this event; and even as he was so here by his lameness, so he will be there by his glory.

Peniel. This world possesses many uncommonly glorious places. The natural man finds those the most remarkable, where Nature manifests herself in peculiar splendor and majesty; where lofty mountains yield delightful prospects, and smiling plains exhibit the blessings of heaven; where majestic rivers roll along, or the wide ocean expands itself like an eternity before the eye, which seeks in vain its limit. The scientific man lingers with pleasure on the monuments of ancient and modern art; he gazes with admiration at the enormous dome which ancient times reared heavenwards, or is ravished with the productions of the painter or the statuary, which animate, as it were, the lifeless canvass and the solid marble. He admires the magnificence and beauty of princely palaces, and linastonished at the works of art. The historian loses himself in reflection, when visiting the scene of former important events; when coming in sight of ancient Rome, with all its reminiscences; or when upon a field, where memorable battles have been fought. Who, at this present period, does not think with admiration of Wittenberg, and its royal chapel; of the Wartburg, of Zurich and Geneva, and of the names of Luther, Zuinglius, and Calvin, because they remind us of a multiplicity of events connected with them?

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The Christian has also his memorable spots and places in the world; Bethlehem, Capernaum, Jerusalem, Calvary, and the Mount of Olives, are these remarkable spots. Formerly they were personally visited by the piously superstitious pilgrim, whilst his heart, perhaps, was far from God. His bodily eye saw the remarkable places, whilst the eye of his Spirit remained closed against the wonders which there took place for the salvation of sinners. His feet wandered in what is called the Holy Land, where Abraham once sojourned; which the Son of God touched with his sacred feet, and even with his face; which he bedewed with his tears, his bloody sweat, and his atoning blood; in which his lifeless body slumbered three days, and where he again rose to heaven from whence he had come down. There the foot of many a pilgrim wanders, whilst it is not given him to walk in the steps of faithful Abraham, and to know the way of peacenay, whilst rejecting the Son of God, by thinking to render his own works effectual as an atonement for his sins. These places are Peniels to believers, revelations of the glory of God, since his faith and love find the pastures of eternal life in that which there took place. And has not every Christian his particular Peniels, in which God revealed himself to him in an especial manner?—his closet, a sermon, a book, a company, a solitary hour, and the like, which continue ever memorable to him.

Jacob called this remarkable place Peniel-not as a memorial of himself, nor of that which he had there performed and accomplished: but of that which he had

apprehended and experienced of God, and of the gracious benefit bestowed upon him. You see here the character of all God's children. The world is proud, and boasts that she has done this or accomplished that; she desires to be regarded and commended for it, and to be honored for zeal, prudence, and ability. Her own glory is her aim, and the being denied it her most sensible mortification. Like the Pharisee in the Gospel, she ascribes it to herself, that she is not this and that, and that she is and does the other; she will not give her glory to another, and feels much offended if any one seeks to possess it in her stead. Even when the Son of God says, 'Without me ye can do nothing,' he has only contradiction to expect from her; and when Paul says, Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,' the proud world is insulted by it. The Lord knows how to produce a different effect in his children, even though he be obliged to deprive them of their strength. He does so, in order that if any one will glory, he may glory in his weakness, and in the Lord; and that all glorying in himself, may cease and perish.

Jacob gives the reason for the appellation of this place in the words, 'For I have seen God, face to face." Here we find a complete explanation who it was who wrestled with Jacob, dislocated his thigh, gave him a new name, and blessed him. It was not a mere angel. With these Jacob was well acquainted. During his flight with his brother, when sleeping solitarily in a wilderness upon the earth, with a stone under his head for a pillow, he saw in a dream the angels of God ascending and descending upon a ladder, on the top of

which stood the Lord himself; on his return, he was again met by two hosts of angels, and he called the place where this occurred, Mahanaim. Here, however, it was no created angel, but God himself—that person in the Divine Being, who is called the Messiah, ́ ́the sent of God,' Jesus Christ, who in the fulness of time was really manifested in flesh and blood. If we ask, by what it was that Jacob perceived with such certainty that it was a Divine person with whom he had to do, we answer, He was assured of it in the same mysterious manner as the weeping Magdalen at the sepulchre was assured by the single word, 'Mary' that it was not the gardener, but Jesus himself, who was conversing with her; and as the disciples on the sea of Tiberias were so perfectly convinced it was the Lord, that none of them needed to ask him, Who art thou?' 'The Spirit beareth witness that the Spirit is truth' (1 John v. 6.) The Christian's conviction is something peculiar. It is a consciousness that it is really so, a certain confidence which does not and cannot doubt ; whilst, on the contrary, a mere human belief thinks, it may be so, or may be otherwise.

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Jacob now said, 'I have seen God face to face.' Paul calls God, The Invisible' (1 Tim. i. 17;) and in ch. vi. 16, he says, 'God dwelleth in a light, which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, or can • see.' Still, we read in Exod. xxiv. 9, 10, that Aaron and his sons, and the seventy elders of Israel, were ordered to ascend Mount Sinai, and worship afar off. But Moses alone drew near to the Lord. And when they.. went up (ver. 10) They saw the God of Israel; and

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there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire stone (which is azure, with golden spots,) and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness." Isaiah also saw the Lord 'sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple' (chap. vi.); and he whom he saw was Jesus Christ, as we see from John xii. 41.

The people of Israel sinned by idolatry, soon after the giving of the law. When Moses came down from the Mount, and saw and heard with what tumultuous joy the people worshiped the golden calf, he dashed in pieces, in his anger, the two tables of the law, which he had brought with him from Mount Sinai, and on which God himself had written the commandments; he was par⚫ticularly irritated against his brother Aaron, who made the calf; but to the people he said, Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin, he ascended the Mount, and said, O Lord, this people

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have sinned a great sin; yet now, forgive their sin; but if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, which thou has written.' What?" answered the Lord, whoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Lead the people unto the place, of which I have spoken unto thee; behold mine angel shall go before thee. I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people, lest I consume thee in the way.' This did not please Moses, and he humbly interceded once more; and as God for some time had only called the children of Israel 'the people,' Moses said, 'consider that this nation is thy people;' and the Lord then de

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