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have deserved it, "and consider that this nation is thy people." Then God gave him the promise of his presence: "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." And Moses felt the need of that presence so deeply, that he said that nothing could be a substitute for it. "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." Then the Lord said, "I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken; for thou hast found grace in my sight;" that is, What thou hast now asked of me, I will do.

Then Moses makes a very grand prayer, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." What, had he not seen it in the burning mount, when the earth shook, and Israel trembled, and the mount was crowned with a coronal of the intensest glory? Had he not seen God's glory when they marched through the channels of the deep dry-shod? Had he not seen it in the rock in the wilderness? Had he not seen it in the pillar of fire by night? What else could he want to see? My dear friends, it is the law of our being, that the more we know, not only the more we discover remains to be known, but the more we pray that we may know. I believe that heaven will consist in endless approximation to God; not only in character, not only in happiness, but also in knowledge. I believe that all we know at present, compared with what remains to be known, of mystery, and beauty, and greatness, in the world of creation, in the world of providence, is a mere drop in the bucket. Even the great Newton could say, when he was congratulated on his attainments, in some such words as these, "I am but like a child that has picked up a few beautiful shells upon the seashore, where the great unsounded ocean, that I know nothing of, stretches far away before me." And we shall find in heaven that it will be rising constantly to a new horizon; the verge of the horizon to-day becoming the centre of another to-morrow; and every day bringing new stores of light, as well as new accessions of joy. If there be prayer

in heaven, where all is praise, that prayer will be, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory;" and every apocalypse of his glory will only make you long to see more; and the more you know, the more you desire still to know.

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God instantly answered him; and how very beautifully does he answer him! "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." "And God said," I will do what? "I will make all my goodness pass before thee." What a beautiful connection is that that God's glory is seen in comparison as God's goodness is felt! I think that is one of the most striking thoughts in the whole Bible that God's name is covered with its richest lustre, when God's goodness is felt most deeply by the greatest number of believing hearts. God was covered with glory, when he said, upon the circumference, if I might so call it, of the heavens, "Let there be light and there was light;" but he appeared in yet richer glory when he stooped from the cross, amid his agony and bloody sweat, and said to the malefactor, "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise:" because creation glory was the manifestation of omnipotent power; but redemption glory was the exhibition of his greatest goodness; and where his goodness is felt most, there his glory is best seen. You will understand what is meant by giving glory to God. You remember the question I have often quoted-I think the grandest question that can possibly be asked · the first that we learn in the North in infancy, and the highest that a philosopher can study, "What is the chief end of man?" "To glorify God." That is the first thing; not to make money, not to get rich, to become great, but to glorify God. How do we do so? We cannot add any thing to God's being; God, as an Infinite Being, is glorified just in proportion as he is seen. A man is glorified by something added to his rank, or to his wealth, or to his power. A creature must be added to in order to be glorified; but the Infinite is glorified just in proportion as he is seen as he is.

The more you see of God, the more you glorify God; and the more in your life you prove that you know what God is, the more God is glorified in you.

God said to Moses, You cannot bear the intense light. Now, it is evident that the glory of God is not only moral, but it seems, judging from the Shechinah, or the pillar of fire by night, and also from the description in the close of the Book of Revelation, that there is a visible glory about Deity. It is said at the close of the Book of Revelation, "There is no need of the sun or of the moon," implying that a greater lustre than either has superseded them. And what is that greater lustre? The "glory of God and of the Lamb;" so that it seems in the age that is to come, there will be a glory beside which the sun and the moon will grow pale; a glory so intense that the eye cannot now bear it; and Moses even, who spoke with God face to face, had to go into a cleft of the rock and be covered with God's hand; and the apostle says that rock was Christ; and he could only catch there a glimpse of the intolerable splendor as it swept by.

May we be found standing on that Rock; may we be found in Christ, and so taste God's goodness, and see God's glory, and be thus happy!

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MOSES PREPARES NEW STONES.

GOD'S APOCALYPSE ON THE MOUNT. MOSES PRAYS. THE EXTERMINATION OF THE CANAANITES. THE EXPULSION OF ROMANISM. SABBATH IN HARVEST. FASTING.

PROTESTANTISM AND POPERY.

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IN a former chapter, you will recollect that it is written that God himself prepared the stones on which the Ten Commandments were to be inscribed; and with his own Divine finger that is, by his own special power — imprinted on those tables of stone the words of the Law that abideth for ever. Moses, you will recollect, broke the stones in his great indignation at the terrible apostasy which began to manifest itself among the children of Israel, aided, most criminally aided, by Aaron the priest, who ought to have taught them to be steadfast and immovable, and to keep to the truth, as that truth had been revealed. On this occasion you will see that God does not either make, or hew, or prepare the stones, but tells Moses to get ready the stones, and to prepare them, and to shape them after a model which he had seen on the mount, and which came originally from the plastic hand of Deity. Moses did so; but it is said, the Lord wrote the law upon these tables of stone, though they differed in this respect in the second instance, that Moses, not God, hewed or shaped the stone. What was the reason of this it is difficult to say; perhaps it was a less visible memorial and residence of the glory of God with the children of Israel in consequence of their apostasy, and to

remind them, throughout their nation's history, of that great and grievous sin, their idolatry at the bottom of the mount.

Moses, in obedience to the command of God, went up to Mount Sinai, and presented himself before God. He only could do so; he was a typical mediator, a representative, a figurative symbol of Jesus Christ, the only mediator, who has passed into the true holy place, and appears in the presence of God for us. But it is very beautiful to see that on that very mount which burned with fire, was shrouded with blackness, and from which the deep bass of the thunder rolled continually into the ears of quaking Israel that on that very mount, whose antecedents had been so dark and so terrific, God revealed the most beautiful and comforting description of himself recorded, perhaps, in the whole Bible; to show that Israel was not to be under mere law; but while they saw and learned what the law was, they were also to have a foretaste of what the Gospel was also. We associate with Sinai every thing that is terrific; the contact and the presence of a sovereign, a legislator, a judge. But we should not forget that on Sinai also was revealed that beautiful portrait of Deity: "The Lord God, merciful, and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin." This, again, corroborates what I have frequently remarked, that God never says a word of terror that is not followed by two of comfort; that he never shows the dark cloud without seams in it letting forth a portion of his love, mercy, and beneficence; in short, that behind the cloud he hides a Father's face.

When he had made this revelation of himself to Moses, Moses bowed himself and worshipped, and said, “If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance." Now, what gave Moses confidence to utter such a

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