the image converted into the reality; and Christ, the Mediator and Redeemer of Man on earth- in life in the wilderness; will stand then in the single relation of Christ ascended to the right hand of God-the stern and just Judge of his reception of his Covenant.

The direct typical character of Moses, as might be expected, seems to close at this point of his exaltation. He has prefigured the life of Jesus, in various particulars, from his birth to his Ascension; and that event, the completion of the visible ministry of Jesus,

has been the termination of that, in which Moses stood forth his shadow. We view him henceforward chiefly as the Leader and Head of the Jewish people; his acts, those of a man exhibiting for the most part that admixture of good and evil which is the law of human nature even to the most upright of our race; and only shewing some faint traces in particular transactions, and these chiefly in quality of Intercessor with the Almighty-of his former emblematic character. It seems expedient however, before resuming the prescribed line of our enquiry, to draw the attention once more to these acts of Moses, both to obviate a possible objection, and to render them profitable to the circumstances of our own lives. The remark will equally apply to every exemplar in righteousness which may occur in the study of Holy Writ. Unquestionably the most sublime aspect in which the men of Scripture can be beheld, and the most glorious dress in which their acts can be arrayed, is that in which they shadow forth the attributes of Christ, and the truths of Christianity; but together with these things, they

appear to us in a lesser presence;-they descend from this high estate and pass before us in the character of men sinful and fallen;-men of like passions with ourselves; and whose principles and deeds, from an assimilation in spirit to our own, were expressly transmitted for our instruction and admonition. Receiving them in their higher properties, we must also bring them down to that standard-however humble it may be by which we may identify and combine them with the action of our own minds and feeling. Now in reviewing the position of Moses - I allude chiefly to that, in which we have last considered him-this principle of adaptation may very easily be lost sight of. It is an idea, living as we do without the outward testimony of divine intervention, even to the agency of the slightest miracle-almost too overpowering for the mind to entertain in this spirit. We either raise the nature of Moses above that of man as he now exists; — imagine him of a purer and holier frame, than can pertain to man as we now see him in association with ourselves;-and thus give a reason, which seems at first plausible to the judgment, of the exceeding favor which was manifested by God towards him; or if we do not this; we at least place so wide an interval between him and human nature now, that while looking up to him with a degree of reverence, we feel it incompatible with our state, that any real approximation to his glory should be attained by the present world. Now in regard to the faith and depth of religion in the soul of Moses, as compared with the religion of other men, we should undoubtedly be right in the first opinion we have supposed. It was the exis

tence of these qualities in a super-eminent degree, which caused him to be selected by God as his instrument of deliverance to the children of Israel. But in attributing so much to the excellency of his mind, we must not forget, at the same time, that he was one of a fallen nature like the rest of mankind; and that his soul was as subject to sin, and no more raised preternaturally into holiness, by any express decree of the Almighty, than the soul of other men, who equally with himself are subject to the curse of original sin. We must be most careful of this distinction, in every instance to which it may be applied. The mind of Moses was not a mind of sin, purified by an unusual gift of extraordinary graces; but a mind of that religious fervor, that the Spirit of God in pouring upon it the abundance of its influences, found a soil, both fitted to receive them, and prepared to expand them in an exceeding fruitfulness. It is not therefore so much the peculiar mode in which Christ thought fit to manifest Himself to Moses, that should engage our first attention (that was in accordance with the mode which men, in the divine counsels, required, and which was thought expedient in those days)-but it is the grandeur and abundance of revelation, which the mind of Moses was fitted to receive. Christ spake in visions and in open manifestations to Abraham and the succeeding Patriarchs; (their minds like the soul of Moses were holy in the sight of God ;)-and the revelations given to Moses, though a wondrous enlargement of those afforded to men before him, were still not greatly different in their form and spirit. But let the thought rest, through these great and glorious

attributes, on the holiness of the mind of Moses a man like ourselves - subject to the same desires; the same temptations; and the same infirmities; and we gain an object of contemplation which, while it teaches us our own worthlessness, may yet be conducive to our good; and be a faithful means, under God, of our improvement in righteousness.

And in truth, we magnify not one iota the privileges and the office of a Christian; we raise not by a single hair's-breadth the real and efficient power of his condition, in asserting, that there lives not a sincere believer in the Gospel-one who believes not blindly on the assertions of other men, but on his own deep-read investigation of its truths-who may not rival Moses in knowledge, and equal him in divine favor. Nor do we say this,-at least as we imagine without strong and sufficient grounds. Moses lived in an age, when the real knowledge of the Deity was confined to the thousands of Israel; and even among them, as is painfully manifest by their frequent lapses into error and idolatry, it was not retained in its purity and truth. The knowledge of Redemption was far from understood in its full strength. The knowledge of the future life, with the utmost latitude that we can concede, was only known on the broad principle of its reality, without any recognition of its details. The resurrection of the body was wholly unimagined.

Now when Moses was in the Mount, what were the truths which were revealed to him? We may imagine the real scheme of the Atonement, of Redemption, and of the future life. In other words, the scheme which was at that time in course of accom

plishment, and was subsequently fulfilled by Christ. We will allow him to have had the most abundant manifestations of divine truth in regard to God's counsels towards men ;-and to what greater extent or amount could they, I would almost say, by possibility have reached (if they related only to the destinies of mankind) than is taught and known to every Christian believer? Nay, we will go a step beyond this assertion. The palpable and decided influence of the Holy Ghost, was not known until Christ's actual Incarnation; and we will ask, if the Christian believer has not a power which Moses did not know; which was only in secret and unacknowledged operation, not only in his days but for more than a thousand years after his death; and which raises the true believer in Christ to an eminence, and a glory in revelation (which is the real question), greater in point of fact than Moses ever did, or ever could attain? I conceive it to be little less than a degradation of our real and existent privileges to issue the comparison. We may know them not;we may feel them not ;-we may almost be said, in our present state of worldliness and moral servitude to evil customs, to be incapable of them ;-but we cannot allow a comparison to be made between the actual revelations to the Christian, and the Revelations given even to Moses, without expressing a firm conviction, not only that the former are greater-but that no greater can be made, consistent with our fallen nature and our state of probation before God. It is not the visible glory which dazzles me;-it is not the lightning flashing to the sight; nor the thunder terrifying to the ear;-it is not the cloud enveloping