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the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation.” "If God be for us, who can be against us?" "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us," Rom. viii. 32, 33, 34.

How many things in the scriptures; in Moses, in the prophets, in the law, in the gospel, are dark and hard to be understood? But the hour cometh when the veil shall be removed from our eyes; when the truth as it is in Jesus shall stand confessed without a mystery; and shall be seen and read of all men. "What" he doth, "ye know not now, but ye shall know hereafter." "We know in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known," 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

HISTORY OF MOSES.

LECTURE IX.

And it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you. And they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them, by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.-EXODUS xiii. 17-22.

ALL that weak, ignorant, erring man can know, is a few of the smaller objects which are immediately around him; and of these but a few of the more obvious qualities which they possess, and the relations in which they stand to one another. Remove them but a little as to space or time, and they gradually disappear, till they are at length involved in total darkness. The distance of a few leagues terminates our vision; the lapse of a few years erases all traces from our memory. The cloud of night conceals or changes the

appearance of things the nearest to us, and the most perfectly known. Here, we are dazzled and confounded by an excess of light; there, we are checked and repulsed by dimness and obscurity. The sun forbids us to behold his face by reason of his splendor; the earth and the ocean present to us but their surface; and the heavens oppose to their eager eye a vault of crystal, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther." We feel ourselves hedged in, fettered, confined on every side. And our condition in this respect is that of every created, limited being. Open prospect after prospect; expand system upon system; add faculty to faculty: yet the prospect is bounded at length. Suns and worlds are capable of being numbered, and there is a height and depth still beyond, which the understanding of an angel cannot fathom.

There is only ONE Being whose duration is immeasurable-whose space is unconfined-whose power is uncontrolled-whose understanding is infinite. With JEHOVAH "a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years." He alone can "declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure," Isa. xlvi. 10. HE is "above all, and through all, and in all!" An impenetrable veil hides futurity from every created eye; but the spirit of prophecy is pleased sometimes to remove it. Abraham saw the Redeemer's day afar off, and rejoiced. He saw in prophetic vision the servitude, the affliction, and the deliverance of his posterity, at the distance of four hundred years. To mortal man, whose longest span of existence is diminished to much under a century, four hundred years have something like the appearance of an eternity; but before God time and space are contracted to a point, to a moment. With him, that which is to be done is already done. Men shape events according to their fancy, their fears, their wishes or their hopes. But

"the counsel of the Lord it shall stand, and he fulfilleth all his pleasure.”

What was the word of the Lord to Abraham? "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance," Gen. xv. 13, 14. What was the doing of the Lord in conformity to that word? "And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle." "And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses: and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment. And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required: and they spoiled the Egyptians." Israel came into Egypt few in number, weak and indigent; but they go out from the land of their oppression greatly increased, mighty and formidable; laden with the spoils of their cruel oppressors, the well-earned reward of the labours of many years, and of much sor

row.

It is repeatedly remarked, that the prediction relating to the deliverance of God's people was fulfilled to a single day. Of this we have a confirmation in the preceding chapter, and the 41st verse; "And it came to pass, at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day, it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out of the land of Egypt." Again, at the 51st verse; "And it came to pass, the self-same day, that the LORD did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies." And yet on comparing numbers in the prediction and the history of its accomplishment, we find a difference of

thirty years." The seventy interpreters were aware of this difficulty, and have obviated it by thus paraphrasing the passage in Exodus, "The sojourning of the children of Israel in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.' To justify which computation we need but to observe, that Moses in the four hundred and thirty years, includes all the time that Abraham had passed in Canaan, previous to the birth of Isaac. And a learned prelate of our own country, Archbishop Usher, in his valuable chronology, has proved this calculation to be just. For Abraham was exactly twenty-five years in Canaan before Isaac was born.* From the birth of Isaac to the exodus from Egypt was four hundred and five, which completes the four hundred and thirtieth year mentioned in this passage, and by Paul in the third of the Gallatians, 17th verse. Thus perfect are all the

ways and works of GOD; thus absolute his power over all persons and all events! No skill, no ardor, no violent efforts on the part of Israel, could accelerate their enlargement. Nor could the combined strength of Egypt, of mankind, of created nature, retard it one single hour!

In order to preserve to all generations the memory of a period so singular and so important in their history, the ordinance of the passover was to be honoured with an annual celebration; and, as positive and arbi

Jacob was born to Isaac when he was sixty years old; and at the time he went down to Egypt, according to HIS OWN DECLARATION to Pharaoh, he was one hundred and thirty; which added to the twenty-five years of Abraham's pilgrimage, from his leaving Ur of the Chaldees to the birth of Isaac, make two hundred and fifteen. He and his posterity continued in Egypt a like period of two hundred and fifteen years. So that it is plain Moses reckoned in the whole sum of four hundred and thirty years, all the pilgrimages of Abraham, and his posterity, from his first leaving his kindred and father's house in Mesopotamia down to their triumphant exit from Egypt, and their setting out on the Conquest of Canaan, whose iniquity though not before was now full.

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