the spoil: my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. 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, amongst the gods! who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders!"* Mark how the slow and reluctant prophecy of Balaam accords with the predictions of former times, and the history of periods yet to come. "Look up now," says God to Abraham, "toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." And lo, the promise is more than fulfilled: it is infinitely exceeded by the accomplishment. "Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel?" Look forward to the days of Solomon, when the glory of Israel was in its zenith, when the descendants of the men in the plains of Moab were multiplied as the sand on the sea shore; and thence rise higher still, to a greater promise, to a better covenant, to the spiritual seed of faithful Abraham increased "to a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;" encamped not in a fertile terrestrial plain, but expatiating through the vast regions of eternal day, and possessing, not a land flowing with milk and honey, but the pure and sublime delights of the paradise of God. How I envy Balaam the prospect from the top of the rock! A rich champaign country, skirted by the silver Jordan, meeting the distant horizon; the tents of Israel spread out like the trees in the forest, and covering an innumerable multitude; a whole nation of men beloved of God, and destined to conquest; the spacious tabernacle, the habitation of the Most High, expanded in the midst, and the cloud of glory, the unequivocal proof of the presence of the great King, resting upon it. How many objects to delight the eye, to swell the imagination, to elevate the soul! No wonder the tongue of envy was charmed from its purpose. But alas! the heart of malice and covetousness remains unchanged; a chest full of gold had been to Balaam a sight more enchanting. Place him in heaven, like Mammon his father, according to the description, of our great poet, his attention had been fixed but on one object. The beautiful view beneath, therefore, was to Balaam what the conjugal bliss of our first parents in paradise was to Satan, according to the same great poet; who, beholding their pure and innocent affection, "turned aside for envy," and exclaimed: "Sight hateful, sight tormenting! Thus these two, The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill It was a spirit and a situation not unlike to this, which suggested to the wicked prophet the words of the text; "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" Unhappy Balaam! he descried § Num. xxiii. 10. *Exod. xv. 9, 11. + Gen. xv. 5. Rev. vii. 9. from the top of the rock goodly tents, in which he had no part nor lot; he discerned the happy estate of the righteous, but chose to be a partaker with the ungodly; he admired and envied the happy end of the people of God, but felt his own end approaching without hope; he saw and approved the beauty and loveliness of virtue; he persisted to the last, pursuing and cleaving to the wages of unrighteousness. But what, I beseech you, could dictate this wish to Balaam? What but a strong and irresistible persuasion of the immortality of the soul, and an approaching unalterable state of rewards and punishments? What but a consciousness of having acted wrong, and the dreadful knowledge of his being accountable to a holy and righteous God? And is it really possible for reasonable creatures to fall into such gross absurdity and contradiction? And can there exist such characters in the world? Let us bring the case home to ourselves. It is too evident to need a proof, that many indulge themselves in very unwarrantable practices, whose religious principles, notwithstanding, are exceedingly sound and just. Try them on the side of soundness in sentiment and opinion, and they talk and reason like angels from heaven: consider how they live, they are mere men of this world. They find a salvo for conscience, by making a sort of composition with their Maker, as some men find a salvo for their integrity, by putting off their good-natured creditors with a certain proportion of their debt, when they are either unwilling or unable to pay the whole. And, with equal insolence and presumption, the one vainly imagines that his Creator and Lord, the other that his credulous friend, may think themselves sufficiently satisfied with such partial payments as they think fit to render. Such of God's commands they will cheerfully obey; but as to others, why, they will make all the atonement in their power-the proud, the ambitious, the covetous, the dissolute, each in a way that shall not clash with his favourite pursuit. One will give his time, another his diligence, a third his money to God, just according as it is the article upon which he himself puts least value, and the conscious deficiency he attempts feebly to eke out, by faint hopes and half resolves, that some time or another he will exhibit a more uniform and thorough obedience to the will of God. When the command is clear and express, to question and reason on the subject is rebellion. By this the allegiance of man in a state of innocence was assailed; and, listening to this, he staggered and fell; "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ?" When temptation of this sort is once listened to, men will gradually come to doubt of every thing and learn to explain away every thing. Deliberation and doubt in the face of "Thus saith the Lord," are dishonesty and impiety: and to attempt to get rid of one uneasy text of scripture, is a direct attack on the validity of the whole. When we see a man so intelligent as Balaam, duped by his passions into a train of folly and wickedness so gross and palpable, let us look well to ourselves. The absurdities into which we fall, escape our own notice: but a discerning by-stander sees them, smiles at them, perhaps makes his advantage of them. If we are conscious of the influence of any very powerful propensity or aversion, it is a just ground of suspicion, that we may be tempted to act unworthily; and it is a powerful admonition to watch our hearts narrowly on the side of that infirmity" which doth more easily beset us." We see in the dying struggles of Balaam's conscience, a deep, a rooted concern about futurity: a concern which no one, let him say what he will, has been able to overcome. His ardent wish, "Let me die the death of the righteous," is the involuntary homage which vice pays to piety. Think what way, live what way men will, they have but one thought, one conviction, one prayer, when they come to die. After the pleasure or the advantage of a wicked action is over, who would not gladly get clear of the guilt of it? But this is the misery; the profit and pleasure quickly pass away, the guilt and pain are immortal. Could a lazy wish or two supply the place of virtue, all would be well: the conscience would go to rest, the " strong man armed would keep the house." But the very wishes of indolence and impiety betray their own flimsiness; and Balaam feels his own prayer falling back with an oppressive weight on his guilty head. Let us be instructed to mend it a little and say with Paul, "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."* "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Lord help us so to live, as to be raised above the fear of death, Let me fall asleep in the bosom of my heavenly Father, and I shall awake in perfect peace. Happy, unspeakably happy, they, who in reviewing life, and in the prospect of death, can with holy joy and confidence adopt these words of the apostle, and say, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only but unto all them also that love his appearing."+ * Rom. xiv. 7, 8. +2 Tim. iv, 6-8. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Baiaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. THE mystery of iniquity, which the human heart is daily bringing to light, is as strange and incomprehensible as any thing in the frame of nature, or in the conduct of Providence. In the first stages of a sinful career, a spectator could not conceive, the man himself cannot believe the desperate wickedness to which he may in time be brought. The latter end is so very unlike the beginning, that it becomes matter of astonishment how the same person could possibly be so much changed, and by what steps the man was gradually transformed into the devil. Scripture represents to us a man shrinking with horror from a prophetic display of his own character, and an anticipated view of his own conduct-" What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?"* He viewed it then, through the calm medium of reason, humanity, and conscience; and justly reprobated, what passion and opportunity afterwards prompted him to act, without pity or remorse. The progress of sin is like that of certain diseases, whose first symptoms give no alarm; to which a vigorous constitution bids a bold defiance, and treats with neglect; but which, through that neglect, silently fix upon some of the nobler parts, prey unseen, unobserved upon the vitals, and the man finds himself dying, before he apprehended any danger. It was but a slight cold, a tickling cough, a small difficulty of breathing; but it imperceptibly becomes an intolerable oppression, an universal weakness, an extenuating hectic, under which nature fails; the nails bend inwards, the hairs fall off, the legs swell, the eyes sink, and the cold hand of death stops the languid current at the fountain. Thus the giddy sallies of youth, the mistakes of inconsideration, the errors of inexperience, through neglect, presumption and indulgence, become, before men are aware, habits of vice, constitutional maladies, by which manhood is dishonoured, old age becomes pitiable, and death is rendered dreadful beyond expression. These considerations clearly justify and enforce the advice of the apostle : "Exhort one another daily while it is called to-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."t If there be a history and a character, which, more powerfully than another press this exhortation upon the conscience, it is the history and character of Balaam, the son of Bosor, "who taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication." We have traced his progress from Aram to Moab, and found him pertinaciously adhering to an impious purpose, with an understanding clearly informed as to his duty, and a conscience perfectly awake to his situation. It is unpleasant, but God grant it may not be unprofitable to attend him through the remainder of his wicked and abominable course. Balak, chagrined and disappointed to hear the eulogy of Israel from those lips, which he had hired to curse them, weakly hopes to change the counsels of Heaven, by changing the place of his own view: and Balaam wickedly humours his fondness and credulity. The Moabitish prince ascribes the rapturous expressions of the prophet to the full and distinct prospect which he had of the camp of Israel, and therefore proposes to view it from a new station, whence its extremity only was visible, in the hope that a partial survey of that glory might encourage him to blast it with a curse. He conducts him accordingly into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and another preparatory sacrifice is offered up of seven bullocks and seven rams, upon as many different altars; and the hardened wretch has the impious boldness of retiring a second time to meet God on this ungracious errand. An answer is now put into his mouth, which levels a mortal blow at the hopes of his wicked employer, and the wrath of man serves but the more illustriously to praise God. Who but must shudder to hear such words as these falling from such a tongue? "Rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor: God is not a man, that he should lie: neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought! Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion; and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain."* "Happy is that people that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord."+ The time would fail to go into a particular detail of the events which justify this noble prediction. But we should do it infinite injustice to restrict its meaning to one particular nation, to transitory purposes, or to temporal events. It is gloriously descriptive of the unchangeable faithfulness, the undeviating truth, the almighty protection, the immoveable love of God to his people. It speaks the blessedness of the man "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. The blessedness of the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." It exposes the impotence of Satan, and of all the enemies of their salvation. It exhibits the signal triumph of the church of God, through the great Captain of their salvation, who unites in his person, among other wonderful extremes, the character of "the Lamb slain, to take away the sins of the world." and of the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," the great Lion who lifteth up himself," and shall not lie down, until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain." And, it prefigures their last joyful encampment in the heavenly plains, where the shout of a king shall be forever heard among them, and the glory of the Lord arise upon them, to set no more. Numb. xxiii. 18-24, + Psal. cxliv. 15. Psal. xxxii. 1, 2. |