the Mount; nor the voice of the trumpet; nor the palpable manifestations of present Deity which sway my judgment. I feel that these, great as they were to those to whom they were revealed, were but the emblems of which, in Christianity, we have the substance; the outward symbols and figures of which, by Christ's Spirit, we possess the reality. I look upon the roll of Christianity, laid open to the mind and the capabilities of the world. I see the increase of faith replied to surely, though invisibly, by an increase of God's favor. I believe the Holy Spirit an indweller of every Christian bosom. I behold Christ present Himself, not only where two or three are gathered together, but in the solitude of every chamber where supplication is made in humility and faith; and the Mount and the cloud and the visible glory fall from my view; and in Moses in Christ's presence, I see but the soul of the faithful in Christ Jesus.

But while Moses is in the Mount-his soul imbibing truth from Christ, and his nature becoming more and more purified by the communion ;-while he is receiving laws by which his people may be sanctified, and their natures raised to an equality with his own, what is the act of Israel? Alas! too true emblem of the world!-while the believer is with Christ, and strengthens himself through his influence, the world lives in sin, the slave of its own vanities! The golden calf had been raised, and Israel bent low in worship. "Up, make us Gods" -had been the cry-" which shall go before us;— for as for this Moses, which brought us up from the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him."*

* Exod. xxxii. 1.

D D

No truly; the remnant of Egyptian bondage yet remained in the heart of Israel; the soul had not wholly shaken off her sin, although she had been delivered. God had placed man in a state of acceptance with him; but He had not yet rendered him perfect; he was still subject to trials and liable to error. "Up, make us gods !"—and yet not forty days had elapsed since the Mount quaked, and all the people lay prostrate before the revealed glory of the Almighty. Their hearts had been overpowered with the sense of God's graciousness towards them, and one voice alone had been heard throughout the camp. "All that the Lord hath spoken will we do."

We must however carefully guard ourselves against an error in regard to the nature and object of their worship; and the opinion which is given in this specific instance may, I believe, be generally adopted in the subsequent instances of a similar idolatry which occur in the early parts of the Jewish history. It would be a false impression if we were to imagine the idolatry of Israel in the first seven centuries of their possession of Canaan-(to which we restrict ourselves, seeing, that when they became intermixed latterly with the Canaanitish nations, their minds became so debased, that they imbibed their grossest notions of idolatry)-it would be a false impression if we were to imagine them to have any idea of separating themselves from the worship of the God of Israel, when they reared an idol; it was intended as an outward figure of the Deity,-expressing to their senses a symbolical representation of his attributes; and as such, giving to their mind's eye something

tangible by which they might image his perfections more clearly, as they were exhibited more manifestly. We must recollect, that the genius of Israel was always opposed to spiritual worship. They required outward symbols, probably from their long residence in Egypt, through which they might express their inward feelings; and felt a void in their worship, when these were not presented to them. Their Law, in deference probably to these impressions, was crowded with external rites and ceremonies; and hence, though they doubtless incurred the sin of idolatry, it was not the senseless idolatry of Pagan nations. Now this view is confirmed in regard to the act of idolatry now in question by Aaron himself. He had, in obedience to their orders, formed the calf. He had raised it on its pedestal; and the first words which he spoke, clearly showed the feeling of his own mind. He made proclamation and said to the people: "To-morrow is a feast unto the Lord"—to Jehovah, that is;-to the God of Israel." And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings"-worshipped the Lord, through the outward symbol of the idol.

Still the act, however cloked and disguised by the speciousness of the intention, was of that enormity in the sight of God, that it at once nullified the Covenant that he had entered into with the nation. It separated man again from the promises and pro-tection of the Deity; and violated the compact. It is this annulment that is signified by Moses breaking to pieces the two tables of the Covenant. Sin had been committed; the Majesty of God had been outraged; and the tables were cast at once on the

ground, by the act, and broken. Nor only this: but the Covenant violated, man is exposed to the full penalty of his guilt. He becomes obnoxious to wrath; the fiat of death goes forth from the judgment seat; and the camp, which God would have still protected, and in which he still would have been present, is covered with the bodies of sinners slain,the victims of the broken Covenant. Emblem again of human nature in the wilderness! Emblem of those who, averse from God, give their hearts to an idolatry of the world, concealed studiously from others and perchance even from themselves-by specious terms and carefully framed devices;-but devices still in the eyes of God;-their end destruction! They reach not the promised land of their inheritance; they fall by death in the wilderness!

Most willingly would we pursue the Covenant of Moses into a closer scrutiny, and subject to a similar trial those parts of its enactments which seem either most unimportant to us as Christians, or most incapable of such a trial. Cheerfully would we display at length, did the nature and object of our work admit so minute an analysis, the same correspondencies in the rites, forms, laws and ceremonies of Judaism, which we have striven to establish in the living persons of the nation. The burnt sacrifices of Israel which were to be consumed with wine, and flour mixed with oil;-the entire sacrifice of Christ, and the sacramental bread and wine which he ordained with that sacrifice.* The Lamb without blemish ;Christ wholly sinless and without taint of corruption. The ransom of the half shekel for every soul * Exod. xxix. 38.

+ Levit. passim.

of the nation;-showing that all were equal in the sight of God, and that, whether opulent or poor, powerful or infirm, all were ransomed of Christ by an equal atonement.* We would enter the tabernacle, raised in the wilderness and carried into the holy land; its courts and divisions each more holy as you advance ;-its coverings, each finer and more beautiful as it went inwards;-apt representations of the faith of Christ, and the means which should be adopted by the believer to ensure it. The Ephod of the High Priest wound around him, in the form of the Cross; the distinctive badge of the High Priest of Christianity. The shew bread-the loaf for each tribe-which was laid up in the temple ;-declarative, by an easy metaphor, of the sufficiency of food which Christ should give to every nation. The fire on the altar-which like the influence of the Holy Spirit, was never to be quenched. "The brazen laver" in the outer court;-figure of the soul's spiritual purification from sin. The vail which divided the holy from " the most holy place" -typical of the Law which separated the counsels of God from his most holy revelations in Christianity; that vail which was rent asunder, laid open and destroyed when the sacrifice of Jesus was completed on the cross. Fain too would we contemplate the conflict of Israel with Midian†, in which not a single warrior was slain ;-a lively image of the certainty of the Christian's warfare. Edom coming out with a strong hand against God's chosen,‡ and compelling them to leave the border;-figure * Exod. xxx. 12.

+ Numb. xxxi. 49.

‡ Numb. xx. 14.