malignantly nor more effectually. As the prophet of God, who so warm a friend? As the counsellor of Balak, who so dreadful an adversary? In the prospect of death, who more devout? In life, who so profligate? In judgment and opinion, who so clear and sound? In practice, who so prostitute and abandoned?

In the face of a prohibition, the clearest and fullest that words could convey, through the difficulties and dangers of a journey the most eventful upon record, Balaam is now arrived at Balak's metropolis, Kirjathhuzoth, the city of streets. Greetings, such as may be supposed to pass between wicked and selfish men, being over, the sacrifice is offered up, and the banquet is prepared, according to the state of a king, and the sacredness and importance of his guest. The evening being passed in festivity, they retire to rest; and, early on the morrow, Balaam permits himself to be conducted by the Moabitish prince into the "high places of Baal, that thence he might see the utmost parts of the people.' Here the cloven foot appears at once. Balaam was too

intelligent to believe that Baal was any thing; that his sacrifices or high places were any thing: but Balak's gold being, indeed, the god whom he himself worshipped, it is to him a matter of the last indifference before what idol the superstitious monarch bowed. Reason and religion say, "What concord can there be between God and Belial; between him that believeth, and an infidel? Ye cannot serve God and mammon." But avarice will attempt any thing, submit to any thing, commit any thing; will adore the God of Israel, or bend at the altar of Baal, just as it serves the occasion. Balaam even volunteers in the service of the idol; feeds the superstition of Balak, which it was his duty to have corrected; and, as if there had been something potent and mysterious in the number, directs seven altars to be erected, and a bullock and a ram to be prepared for a sacrifice upon each of the seven.

Behold how soon the reproof of a speaking, reasoning brute, the terrors of the opposing angel, and the

admonitions of the heavenly vision, are disregarded and forgotten! Balak is deliberately suffered to remain the dupe of his own credulity: he is fed with the vain hope of triumph, in a way by which it could not be achieved; and an attempt is impiously made to aid him in an enterprise which Heaven had repeatedly condemned; and, dreadful to think, this is done under all the awful forms of a religious service; and a purpose too vile to be avowed, even to men, is presumptuously obtruded upon the great Jehovah, as if his determinations were to fluctuate with the vile interests and caprices of mortals. "The sacrifice of the wicked," saith the wise man, "is an abomination; how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind." The religion of God is, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." But the leading article of Balaam's creed is, "Gain is godliness:" hence he attempts to sanction cursing and cruelty, under the solemn ordinances of the blessed God.

We have observed formerly, without pretending to assign a reason for it, that the number seven is, through the whole of divine revelation, connected with many important ideas, institutions and events, in cases depending on the sovereign authority of the great God. This leads us to conclude, that it has a meaning and design, the knowledge of which is either lost to the world, or never has yet been revealed to man. It cannot be for nothing that it presents itself so often, and in so many forms, upon the sacred page. That God rested the seventh day from all his work, and sanctified it-that on the solemn day of the atonement, under the law, the blood of the sin-offering was sprinkled before and upon the mercy-seat seven times

that the altar of burnt-offering was consecrated by being anointed seven times with the holy oil-that the consecration of Aaron to the priesthood consisted of a service of seven days-that the leper was to be sprinkled, in order to purification, seven times; and after a separation of seven days, be admitted to his rank as a citizen-that every seventh year was ordain

ed a year of rest, to the land of promise; and that a revolution of seven times seven years brought on the jubilee, or universal release-that seven priests, bearing so many trumpets, were commanded to begin the conquest of Canaan, by seven days encompassing Jericho; and that, upon the seventh circuit, and at the seventh blowing of the trumpet, the walls of that city should fall to the ground-that the like number of priests should be employed to precede and announce the removal of the ark, when David brought it home; and, not to multiply instances without end-that the Lamb, which John saw in vision in the midst of the throne, should be represented as having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth-that the book in the right hand of Him who sat upon the throne, should be sealed with seven seals-that in these, and so many more cases, which the careful reader of the scriptures need not have pointed out to him, the Spirit of God should see meet to press upon our minds, with such peculiar emphasis, this number of perfection, as it has been called both by Jews and Heathens, though we cannot account for it, leads to this pleasing conclusion-That there are in the word of God, many precious mines of knowledge, yet undiscovered; endless mysteries of wisdom, goodness and love, yet to be unveiled; depths of mercy, which the capacity of angels has not yet fathomed; heights of grace, to which the seraphim's wing hath not soared. It is imagination, merely, to suppose that the felicity of saints in bliss may consist in diving deeper and deeper into the plan of redemption; in tracing its progress, its history, to its consummation; in reading this wonderful book, with the veil removed from our eyes; to find in it all the stores of natural, moral and divine truth; in for ever learning, ever beginning to learn "the love of Christ which passeth knowledge?" I will indulge the dear, the delightful hope, that the period will come, when, taught of that Spirit, who is promised to "take of the

things of Christ and show them unto us," I shall discover, in this blest volume, ten thousand excellences to which I am now blind; ten thousand truths, of which I have at present no perception; ten thousand beauties I am now incapable of relishing. But to return.

It is no great wonder to find a man of so mixed a character as Balaam, employing altars and victims, according to a number and quality long before sanctified by the appointment of the true God. For all the

rites of idolatry may easily be traced up to divine institutions. But what signifies the form, when the spirit and meaning is lost? Chemosh was the peculiar idol of the Moabites, as we learn from chap. xxi. 29, for Baal, that is, lord, was a general term, descriptive of the whole tribe of deities, and applied by every particular nation to its respective patron; yet we find Balak easily persuaded by Balaam to offer sacrifice to Jehovah. For they that have false notions of Deity, cannot be very difficult in their choice of a god; and Balak probably was so weak as to imagine, that by this piece of flattery and respect, the God of the Israelites might be decoyed from them, withdraw his protection, and give them up to the sword of their enemies.

Balaam, now the sacrifice was set on fire, directs the king to stand by it, in solemn expectation of its success; he himself withdraws to an "high place," or, he went solitary; probably to some adjoining clift of the rock, favourable either to meditation, or the practice of his enchantments; for observation of any preternatural signs that might be given, or for a clearer prospect of the camp to be devoted. Nothing astonishes me more than the boldness of this retreat. A diseased conscience seeks concealment from the eye of God in noise and a crowd. To what a pitch of insensibility has this man attained, who has the dreadful courage to go forth to meet an offended God in solitude!" And God met Balaam." In what manner we are not told, neither is it of any importance to know; but it is of importance to observe that "God's ways are not our

ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts." Insulted in the same manner, what man but would have felt resentment, and have returned insult for insult! In nothing, Father of Mercies! is thy glorious superiority more conspicuous than in thy gentleness and patience. God is not a man, that he should be ruffled and discomposed, nor the son of man, that he should oppose vehemence to vehemence. The wrath of man provokes him not, the haste of man urges him not, the tardiness of man delays him not, the flattery of man sways him not.

Balaam has the confidence to advance a plea of me. rit for the service which he had performed, in erecting so many altars, and offering so many victims; but he has not the assurance to avow the motive, nor directly to prefer the request to which it plainly led. Without paying the least regard to the one or to the other, God, the great God, puts the word he would have spoken into Balaam's mouth, and sends him back to pronounce it aloud in the ear of Balak, and his attendants. I see, with an honest satisfaction, the disappointed mortified enchanter, returning with downcast eyes, sullen and slow from the solemn meeting: his schemes of malignity checked and prohibited, all his prospects of ambition and avarice for ever blasted; cursing in his heart that inflexibility of purpose which he durst neither attempt to alter or oppose. I see the expecting monarch in the midst of his seven altars, all eye to watch the moment of the prophet's return; eagerly anticipating his message from his looks, and all ear to hear it delivered in articulate sounds.

The emotions which filled the hearts of both, are to be conceived, not described, when the reluctant tongue of Balaam thus pronounced the immutable decree of the Holy Oracle, while the assembled princes of Moab listened with sorrow and disappointment. "Balak, the king of Moab, hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the Lord