have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation; "These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel."

It will be observed, that in these verses, there is not only a direct continuation of authority, but that it is exhibited in the very strongest and most satisfactory manner. The authority which is now shown, is made, by an appeal to the past, to depend on an influence which has already been acknowledged. The Lord appeals to the nation of Israel; and as an inducement for their obedience to the statutes and ordinances he is about to impose on them, urges on their recollection the benefits and services they had already received from him. It is impossible to read these expressions; "Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians," &c., and not feel that He who recalled those events to their minds was the Being who had actually wrought them. The angel-Christ-who had wrought, was the Lord-Christ-who now spake. And thus the very principle which is required is again delivered in terms the most forcible and consistent.

Nor indeed is this the only result which is gained from this reception of the passage; but another principle, of which we stated our belief in the outset, acquires a remarkable confirmation, in regard to the universal authority over the earth, which we sup

posed to have been confided to Christ. If the Son is the giver of the Law to Israel; he gives it under the sanction of an unlimited dominion. He gives it as one who has the power to enforce it. He gives it as one, who having had the direction of the means, through which his chosen were incorporated into a nation, extends his dominion into time to give free scope to his enactments. He is one, in short, who acts in the full strength of his own power. What is his language? "All the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me an holy nation, &c." We may require additional and reiterated proof, in order that our minds may be brought into full subjection to this view of Christ's supremacy :-but we can scarcely require any, which shall be of a more close and decisive character. "If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine."

In the examination however of the Revelations on Mount Sinai, a third principle is brought out in singular strength, which according to the axioms already laid down, will still further restrict their operation to Jesus. We allude to the saying of Christ, which affirms no man to have seen the shape or heard the voice of God the Father.

When Moses had descended from the conference we have just detailed into the camp, he called together the elders of the people, and laid solemnly before them the commands and promises which he had himself received from the Lord. The elders spread them abroad, and made them known to the whole nation. One single feeling actuated them. They bent in faith. They acknowledged the God of

Abraham; they avowed openly to a man "all that the Lord hath spoken, we will do." The required concession made, and made so universally-the design of God was more unreservedly disclosed. Moses again ascended the mount; and "the Lord said; Lo I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe for ever.”—That the people may hear when I speak with thee!-and yet Christ has asserted plainly, distinctly, and unanswerably, that no man hath heard the voice of God the Father at any time! But did they hear? Is it to be interpreted in the broad and lax mode of speech, which is usual with Oriental nations, and which is to be borne in mind in many parts even of the Bible itself?-Let the corresponding passage-the completion of the promise--give the answer. It is perhaps the very finest, taking all the circumstances into the mind, which is to be found in any part of Scripture. "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. of the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice."*

* Exod. xix. 16.

Now give any latitude whatever to this passage; -receive it in any mode that we will, and the fact will still remain, "Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." Let it be supposed that it was not a human voice (which I do not conceive that the passage, joined as it is with the sixth verse "that the people may hear when I speak" will admit)— but let it be supposed that it was under any sound or modification of sound which may occur to the mind; and still I do not see how that sound which was returned in answer to the speaking of Moses, and was intended to be received and heard as the voice of God by the assembled nation of Israel, could without a miserable trifling with ideas and language,-not to say, evasion-be understood otherwise than as the voice of the Deity. It makes no difference to this reception of the passage, how the voice was conveyed; what the sound, or what the accent; it was promised that the people should hear when God spake; and when in answer to that promise, they did hear, I receive it necessarily as the voice of God. And indeed, what does Moses himself in his recapitulation to Israel of the glories of their Lord, and on a severe exhortation to refrain from idolatry, announce to them;-the passage has before been referred to-we repeat it, as singularly applicable to the present question : "Ye came near, and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven; and the Lord spake to

you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice." In what manner are words to be received, if these can be frittered and explained away into an

assertion, that all this might have happened and been heard; and yet that no voice of Deity met the ears of the assembled Israelites at Sinai? We reject at once, the forced and unnatural comment, and recur boldly to our statements, and add this scene as a corroboration of our opinion that it was Christ who descended; Christ who gave the Law; Christ who spake, and whose voice was heard both by Moses and the people.

It is in the strength of this conviction, drawn fairly from these declarations, that we take into our thought a portion of the laws and statutes, which were entrusted at that time to Moses. Called up into the mount, as we have seen, he held conference with God, in the phrase of Scripture "face to face." He proclaims to Israel, on his descent, the judgments, promises and ordinances which he there received.I would ask, in passing, in what state will the objector place him during next forty days, in an apparently open revelation of God, so that he can neither be said to have seen nor have heard in the presence of Deity?-But to proceed :-in the conclusion of these laws which he received, we find an intimation, heard from God himself, that He would not lead them in person through the wilderness into the promised land; but would do it through the ministration of an angel. This, in itself, would give rise to the single remark, that Christ having clearly revealed his power in the preparatory annunciation to the patriarchs, and firmly established it in the delivery of the Law, thought fit to entrust the execution of the details to a ministering attendant;one of the created angels.