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Sacred Canon, the book of Job; and was increasingly prepared, by continual and elevated communion with his God, for the high station which he was to occupy, as the deliverer of his suffering brethren, and their leader to the promised land.

SECTION II.

THE COMMISSION OF MOSES.

WAS it requisite that Moses should receive a divine commission to be the deliverer of his brethren?

Ar length the great crisis in the life of Moses arrived, and he was exalted at once to the most important and distinguished office which has ever been sustained by any of the children of men. It was evidently necessary, in the commencement of a dispensation, involving not only the manumission of the Israelites from their slavery, but a new development of the divine will, and a new institution of divine ordinances, that a commission should be given immediately from God, accompanied with those direct and palpable sanctions of his own authority, which would proclaim its intrinsic genuineness, and demand unhesitating and universal obedience. Moses was to appear in a twofold character, as the deliverer of his brethren, and as a teacher sent from God; and it was plainly requisite, that in the assumption of both these offices, he should be borne out by those ample confirmatory.credentials, which would satisfactorily prove to the people who were the more immediate objects of his mission, the truth and the divinity of his pretensions.

Where was this divine commission given to Moses?

In the pursuit of his pastoral avocations, Moses had conducted his flocks to the vicinity of Horeb, a mountain in Arabia Petræa, immediately to the east of Sinai, and, in fact, forming a part of the same ridge with that celebrated hill. His attention was arrested by the extraordinary phenomenon of a bush, inveloped in flames, and yet unconsumed. When he drew near

to investigate the cause of this strange circumstance, he heard his name pronounced by the awful voice of Jehovah, and he was commanded to reverence the place which the presence of the Eternal had rendered Holy. The commission which was then given to him was very remarkable.

What was the commission given to Moses?

The commission given to Moses was to return into Egypt, to collect the elders of the people, to declare to them the purposes of God, to demand liberation from Pharaoh, and to superintend the march of the Israelites to the country which was to be the scene of their victory, prosperity, grandeur, decline, and ruin.

How was this commission warranted and authenticated?

The warrant which was given to Moses was the divine incommunicable name. Calling to mind the treachery of the Hebrews who had betrayed him immediately before his departure from Egypt, Moses expressed his fears of the reception he might meet with from his brethren; 66 Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name ?—what shall I say unto them?" God immediately gave his incommunicable name, "I am that I am: and thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." Without entering upon a theological discussion of this memorable declaration, it is evident that the annunciation intended something extraordinary. The importance which God himself attached to it shortly afterwards renders this palpably ap parent; "God spake unto Moses, and said, I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them." It is not intended by this affirmation, that the patriarchs were ignorant of the self-existence and eternity of God, but that they had not been made acquainted with that name by which these glorious attributes of the divine nature are designated with such simple

and unrivalled sublimity. What then could have been the reason of such an annunciation to Moses at that particular time; no doubt to show that the emancipation of the Jews from their slavery, involved ulterior results of so much consequence to the human race, and so preeminent a manifestation of the divine glory, that the very existence of God guaranteed their full development and final accomplishment. That it was worthy of the Deity to make such an annunciation at such a time, and in such a connexion, will immediately be acknowledged, when the principle so often stated in the preceding pages is again recollected, that all the divine dispensations relative to the Israelites, were preparatory to the incarnation, the sufferings, the atoning sacrifice, and glorious triumphs of the illustrious Messiah.

What have been the sentiments of the Jews relative to the name which God gave of himself to Moses?

Josephus says, that it was never known until God told it to Moses, and that he himself durst not mention it. The Jews to this day believe, that he who pronounces this name causes heaven and earth to tremble, and inspires the very angels with terror. They conceive that, in some mysterious sense, this name is the original fountain of blessings, the medium by which the mercies of God are conveyed to men. It is superior, in their estimation, to all the other names of God, which are ranged round it, like officers and soldiers round their general, from which they receive their orders, and which they are bound to obey. They further believe that one great reason why their addresses to God are at this day unavailing, is their ignorance of the true pronunciation of this name; and they affirm that Moses performed his wonderful miracles by the virtue of it engraven upon his miraculous rod. It is a remarkable circumstance, that the Egyptians had a temple upon which the words were inscribed, "Thou art," and in the golden verses of Pythagoros, reference is made to an oath by "Him who has the four letters."

What was the conduct of Moses immediately after his commission was given to him?

The conduct of Moses after he had received his di

vine commission, deserves the consideration of the reader. He seems to have recoiled from the arduous responsibility it involved. And this reluctance continued even after a double miracle had been wrought, to animate his confidence, and dispel his fears. The rod which he held in his hand was changed into a serpent, and then brought back again to its pristine state. His hand was covered with leprosy, and then in a moment restored. These signs too he was himself empowered to perform before the children of Israel, to convince them that he was the messenger of God; and he was informed, that if these wonders were insufficient to prove to them the divinity of his mission, he should be enabled to take the waters of the Nile and to change them into blood. Still Moses hesitated, and it was not until he had been brought to tremble before the anger of Jehovah, and the assistance of Aaron's fluent eloquence was promised to supply the deficiencies of his utterance, that he bade farewell to the land of Midian, and with his wife and children commenced his journey to Egypt. Aaron by divine direction met him upon his way, and together they arrived upon the scene of their trials and their triumphs. A. C. 1491. They proclaimed to the people the commandment of God, they performed the miraculous signs, and the multitude believed.

What was the character of Aaron?

Aaron, the coadjutor of Moses was his elder brother; and though he is mentioned by the inspired writer as the assistant of Moses, he was in some respects his superior. He was not only endowed with a powerful eloquence, but he was divinely inspired. The very fact of his being able to command the time and to defray the expense of a journey from Egypt to Horeb, proves that he was elevated above the most menial and wretched stage of Hebrew bondage; and although neither Aaron nor his brother could have any hereditary pretensions to preeminent authority, it is certain that they were persons, from some unknown cause, of considerable importance and influence among the Israelites.

SECTION III.

MOSES AND AARON BEFORE PHARAOH.

What circumstances attended the application of Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh?

IN obedience to the command of God, Moses and Aaron soon appeared before the throne of Pharaoh. Undismayed by the pomp, the pride, the power of the haughty despot, they abruptly declared the will of the Lord God of Israel, that his people should go into the wilderness to celebrate a solemn festival. The arrogant monarch, considering, perhaps, the miserable condition of the people, as indicative of the power of their asserted divine patron, instantly cried with insolent contempt, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." And then to punish the people for the boldness of their advocates, he fearfully aggravated their wretchedness, and cast the last ingredient of bitterness into the overflowing cup of their woe. With the courage inspired by despair, they rushed into the presence of the king; they represented their intolerable misery; they petitioned for some alleviation of their burdens; but the ear of tyranny was deaf to the cries of suffering humanity; the brutal sovereign added insult to cruelty, and dismissed them with barbarous irony from his presence. In the rage of their disappointment, in the phrenzy of their anguish, they loaded Moses and Aaron with the bitterest invectives. Moses again desponded, he spread his affliction before his God, he was animated with the gracious reiteration of the divine promise, he was assured that the groaning of his enslaved brethren had been heard, and that their glorious deliverance was at hand. But he found it impossible to rouse the people from the sullen recklessness of their despair; accompanied by Aaron he therefore went again before Pharaoh, to convince him, by miraculous signs, that they acted by no impulse of their own, and that the God whom they served was able to deliver them out of his hand.

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