and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint."*

The rage of these dreadful creatures, which had been during so long a pe riod by a supernatural power suppressed, now freed from that curb, becomes a party too strong for a mighty host, flushed with recent victory. While therefore we adore and admire the goodness which multiplies the necessary and useful part of the vegetable and animal tribes with such astonishing liberality and limits those which are noxious with such consummate wisdom and irresistible power, let us tremble to think how easily he can remove the barrier which restrains the wrath of the creature, and arm a fly with force sufficient for our destruction. But the intention of God in punishing is correction and amendment, not ruin; returning mercy therefore meets the first symptoms of repentance, and a remedy is pointed out the moment that misery is felt; which sweetly discloses to us the meltings of fatherly affection, outrunning and preventing filial wretchedness.

But what strange method of cure have we here? The poison of a serpent counteracted, and its malignity destroyed, not by an external application, not by the virtue of an antidote possessed of certain natural qualities, but by a blessing annexed to the use of an instrument in itself inadequate, and an action of the patient himself, flowing from his own will, and called forth by the appointment and command of God. The author of that excellent book, entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, has a beautiful reference to this story, when he says,

For when the horrible fierceness of wild beasts came upon these, and they perished with the stings of crooked serpents, thy wrath endured not forever. But they were troubled for a small season, that they might be admonished, having a sign of salvation, to put them in remembrance of the commandment of thy law. For he that turned towards it, was not saved by the thing that he saw, but by thee, that art the Saviour of all. And in this thou madest thine enemies confess, that it is thou who deliverest from all evil."+

But the grand commentary on the history of the fiery serpents is furnished by Christ himself, in his conversation with Nicodemus, the Jewish ruler. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."

From this it is evident that many particulars in the Jewish history and political economy, had an interest and importance which extended far beyond the present moment, or the sensible and obvious appearance of things. And in this particular instance our blessed Lord has furnished us with an instructive example, which ought to serve as a rule, for the application and use of figurative, allegorical, and typical subjects. Here he enters into no detail; pursues no parallel or contrast through a multiplicity of particulars; furnishes no wings to the imagination; but fixing on one great, general view of the subject, renders it thereby more powerful and impressive. He was conversing with a ruler of the Jews; was explaining to him the nature and end of his own mission; was deducing the nature and tendency of the gospel dispensation from the established rites of the Mosaic, and the received facts of the Jewish history, with which Nicodemus was perfectly well acquainted. this case he refers to a noted event, and appeals from it to one which was shortly to take place, betwixt which a striking line of resemblance should be apparent-The elevation of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, for the healing of the Israelites who were perishing by the envenomed stings of the fiery serpents—and the elevation of the Son of Man upon the cross, the propitia

* Deut. viii. 14, 15.

+ Wisdom, ch. xvi,

John, iii. 14, 15.

tion for the sins of the world; that when this last display of the divine justice and mercy should be exhibited, Nicodemus, and every intelligent and honest disciple of Moses might be satisfied that "God had at sundry times and in divers manners," presented as in a glass to the fathers, the method of redemption by Jesus Christ.

All the application, then, which the words of the Saviour himself warrant us to make of this passage to him, is reduced to a few obvious and striking particulars. "Fools," such as the Israelites in the desert, and transgressors of the divine law in general, "because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions."

The root of the evil, the cause of the plague, is to be found in human perversity and disobedience. The faithful and obedient sleeps safe and secure in the lion's den; to the proud and rebellious the innoxious worm is converted into a fiery serpent, full of deadly poison. The remedy for this sore evil is to be traced up to the divine compassion, power and goodness.

The means of cure are not such as human wisdom would have devised, or the reason of man approved; they are the sovereign appointment of Heaven. The effect is preternatural, yet real: and reason rejoices in what it could not have discovered. The sight of a lifeless serpent of metal, working as an antidote to the mortal poison of one alive; incredible, absurd! Such was the doctrine of the cross in the eyes of prejudice, and philosophy, "and science, falsely so called." "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, a stumblingblock; and unto the Greeks, foolishness: but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God."+

The virtue flowed from the divine appointment, operating together with the believing act of the patient. To the sufferer who averts his face, or wilfully and contemptuously shuts his eyes, that banner is displayed in vain; no virtue issues from it, he perishes in his unbelief. To the despiser, the impenitent, the careless, Christ has died in vain. In the extension of all God's acts of grace to men, to produce the full effect, there must of necessity be an unity of design and exertion between the giver and the receiver, between him who acts and him who is acted upon. Man's body is "dust of the ground," mere matter, separated from the spirit, incapable of motion or direction. Even that active, penetrating organ, the eye, is but a little lump of pellucid clay, till the vital principle, the breath of God, kindle its fires, and direct its rays. It is this vital principle which, proceeding from God, exists in him, and possesses the power of rising and returning to him. The believing Israelite hears, in dying agonies, the proclamation of deliverance, lifts up his drooping head, looks, and is healed; his will meets the will of God, and the cure is already performed. The perishing sinner hears the voice of the Son of God and lives. Lifted up upon the cross he utters his voice, "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else."

*Psal. cvii. 17-20. Vol. v.

t1 Cor. i. 18-24.

Isa. xlv. 22.

One of his fellow-sufferers hardens his heart and reviles him, turns from the Saviour with disdain, and dies impenitent-the other hears with rapture the joyful sound, clings to the hope of salvation, prays in faith, and passes with him into paradise.

But the circumstance on which Christ chiefly rests, is Moses "lifting up the serpent in the wilderness." Moses probably had not a clear apprehension of the extensive meaning and import of the act he was performing, any more than the dying men who were the subjects of the cure. They looked no farther than the present moment, and for relief from a malady which affected the body. But, like the high priest in later times, they were prophecying, without being conscious of it. He was erecting, and the congregation in the wilderness contemplating an anticipated representation of the great medium of salvation, which God had appointed from the foundation of the world; and had, in a variety of other predictions, circumstantially declared and described at different periods to mankind. These predictions were slumbering unnoticed, neglected, misunderstood, even by the wise and prudent, in the sacred volume a dead letter, till Christ, their quickening spirit, gave them life and motion, and a meaning which they had not before.

In the scene that passed in the wilderness we behold the shadow of good things to come, a prefiguration of the death which Christ should die. He is here" evidently set forth crucified before us," according to his own words, descriptive of the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."*

This same idea, we have just observed, had been suggested by the evangelical prophet Isaiah, and a similar expression is put into the Saviour's mouth by that harbinger of the Prince of Peace. "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else."

And in another place, speaking of gospel times, "At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel."+

Thus was Moses, by what he did, and Isaiah, by what he wrote, pointing out to the world one and the same great object, Christ Jesus, "the end of the law for righteousness;" the substance of the types; the accomplishment of prophecy and promise; the bruiser of the serpent's head; the restorer of defaced, defiled, degraded humanity. And thus we are taught to regard with peculiar respect, an event which Providence has, in so many different ways, rendered illustriously conspicuous; the death of Christ, on the accursed tree. We shall have exhibited to you all that Moses and the prophets, all that the historian and the evangelist have suggested, on the subject of the brazen serpent, when we have led your attention to the impious and idolatrous use made of it in after times. That this illustrious instrument of Israel's deliverance in the wilderness, should be carefully preserved, as a monument of the divine power and goodness, and by length of time acquire venerability and respect among the other valuable memorials of antiquity, is not to be wondered at. But every thing may be perverted; and a corrupt disposition has ever manifested itself in man, to exalt into the place of God, something that is not God. Accordingly we find, about eight centuries from its original fabrication, even in the days of Hezekiah, the brazen serpent exalted to divine honours, and a besotted people rendering that homage to the mean, which was due only to the hand which employed it. The zeal of that pious prince, therefore, is worthy of commendation, who, in reforming the abuses of religion, which prevailed at the time that he mounted the throne of Judah, abolished this among the rest. Regardless of the purpose for which it was at first framed ;

of the venerable hand which formed and reared it, and of the lapse of so many years which had stamped respect upon it, "he brake in pieces the brazen serpent which Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nehushtan," by way of contempt-a piece of brass.

On this part of the history of Moses, pagan antiquity has founded the fabulous history of Esculapius, the pretended god of medicine, whose symbol was a serpent twisted round a rod. The learned have, through a variety of particulars, traced the derivation of the fable from the fact; but to repeat them, would rather minister to curiosity than to instruction and improvement. We dismiss the subject, then, with this general remark, that in more respects than is commonly apprehended, and than it has had the candour to acknowledge, is pagan literature indebted to the sacred volume; that the wisdom of Egypt, of Babylon, of Greece and of Rome is traceable up to this source; that Moses is, of course, to be considered as the father of profane, as of sacred learning, from whom all subsequent historians, legislators, orators and poets have derived the lights which directed them in their several pursuits; that to the pure source of all wisdom, the revelation from heaven, in a word, the world is indebted for the first principles of science, morality and religion; which appear to the attentive and discerning eye through the mist in which credulous ignorance or bold fiction have involved them.

Let us hence be encouraged to revere the scriptures, to search and compare them; to derive our opinions of religious subjects from that sacred source, instead of forcing the truth of God into an awkward supporter of our preconceived opinions. Above all, let it be our concern to regulate our conduct by the laws which scripture has laid down, and to comfort our hearts by the hope it inspires, and the prospects which it has unfolded. Amen.

*2 Kings xviii. 4.

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE III.

NUMBERS XXVII. 12, 13, 14.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered. For ye rebelled against my commandment in the des ert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify me at the water before their eyes. That is the water of Meribah in Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin.

THERE is something peculiarly interesting in hearing a plain, honest, intelligent man, without vanity, or self-sufficiency, or of affected humility, talking of himself; going into the detail of his own history, with the same fidelity and simplicity as if it were the history of a stranger; unfolding his heart without reserve, disclosing his faults and infirmities without palliation, recording his wise and virtuous actions without ostentation; and relating events, with all their little circumstances, according to the feelings which they excited at the moment.

It is pleasant to see an old man, with his faculties unimpaired, his spirits. cheerful, his temper sweet, his conscience clear, his prospects bright; enjoying life without fearing death; blending the modesty and benevolence of youth with the wisdom and dignity of age. There is a double satisfaction in hearing such a one describe persons whom he knew, scenes in which he acted, expeditions which he conducted, schemes which he planned and executed.

And such an one was Moses, who having, by divine inspiration made the ages and generations before the flood to pass in review, and unfolded the history of redemption, in its connexion with the system of nature and the ways of Providence, during a period of two thousand five hundred years; having admitted us to his familiarity and friendly instruction during an eventful life of one hundred and twenty years, is now, with the same calmness and ease, admitting us to contemplate his behaviour in the immediate prospect, and up to the very hour of his death.

The idolatrous defection of Israel in the plains of Moab, had been visited with a plague which swept away twenty-four thousand of them. Immediately on the staying of that terrible calamity, Moses is commanded, with the assistance of Eleazer the high priest, to take the number of the people, from twenty years old and upwards, and to compare the muster-roll of the day, with that taken in the wilderness of Sinai, thirty-eight years before. This being done with all possible accuracy, two most singular facts turn up, each singular, considered separately and by itself, and both most singular, taken in connexion one with another. In a multitude so great, and at the distance