repeated, as often as any difficulty presented itself, are recorded to their disgrace; and these things may serve to show us their want of confidence in the power, wisdom, and mercy of God, which they had so frequently witnessed. On the fiftieth day after their departure from Egypt, it is computed, that the law was given; which circumstance gave rise to the feast of Pentecost, that word signifying fiftieth. We may therefore, see how soon the people discovered a propensity to idolatry; for it was while Moses was on the mount that they called upon Aaron to make them god's to go before them in compliance with which call he made the molten calf. We hardly know how to account for it, that they should be possessed of such gross conceptions, as to wish for such an object of worship; and that they should be so stupid, and infatuated, as to ascribe to that senseless lump of gold, their deliverance from Pharaoh's bondage, and their wonderful escape across the bed of the Red Sea. Was this that grateful return which God had reason to expect from them, for carrying them in safety through, where the Egyptian host perished to a man?

The sedition of Miriam, and Aaron, though the act of two individuals only, ought not to be passed over, because it is circumstantially noticed in the history; and was disapproved of by God, and punished. The cloud departed from the tabernacle; and Miriam became leprous, as white as snow; and was shut out seven days from the camp, in consequence of which the journey of the people was suspended. This affair makes no inconsiderable article in the evidence to prove human depravity; for Moses was the brother of Miriam, and Aaron, who brought their unreasonable complaint against him. Miriam seems to have forgotten how she watched him when an infant in the ark of bulrushes by the side of the Nile; what anxiety she felt for his preservation; and with what speed, in obedience to the order of the Egyptian princess, she provided one, who would, with the utmost care, and tenderness, and delight, nurse the little wretched outcast. She, and Aaron, too, appear to have forgotten all the circumstances which pointed Moses out as the deliverer and leader of Israel.

The rebellion of which Korah, Dathan and Abiram were the leaders, was an extensive one; and to human appearance very threatening; for it embraced many of the princes, and a great proportion of the congregation. The object was to effect an entire revolution; and to set aside Moses, and Aaron, from the places assigned them, under the pretence, that they assumed to themselves an authority not delegated to them in their commission; all the congregation being holy, and of course, each one as fit as they for their particular business.

However much alike by nature, Moses, and Aaron, might be to the rest of the congregation; for all men are alike in this, that by nature, they have no qualification, having no disposition, for the service of God, in public stations, or in private walks; they were manifestly set apart, and distinguished, by their appointment as much as by their countenances from all others in the camp. In this light it was considered, as may be seen in the manner in which it was punished. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and Abiram, and their families; and Korah perished, either with them, as is most probable, or with the two hundred and fifty who had offered incense, and whom the fire of the Lord utterly consumed. The sons of Korah were spared, perhaps, for their disapprobation of the conduct of their father; and their descendants, Heman, Samuel, and others, were sacred musicians in the days of David.

The next day after the destruction of these men, so little do awful instances of death frequently affect the living, there was a murmur of the whole congregation against Moses and Aaron; and they were charged with having killed the people of the Lord. For this a plague was sent, which swept away fourteen thousand and seven hundred; 7 and it is likely, would have proved fatal to the whole, had it not been for the atonement made by Aaron, and accepted in behalf of the people.

Other sins committed in the wilderness, during the forty years that the Israelites were travelling from Egypt to Canaan, will be passed without notice. Let it be acknowledged with gratitude, and pleasure, that, They served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders

that outlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord which he had done for Israel.

For their idolatry and other sins however they were afterwards reduced by various oppressors, and God raised up deliverers for them, under the name of Judges, for about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until the days of Samuel the prophet. They then insisted upon having a king.

A people, in common circumstances, have a right to change their form of government, and place themselves under rulers of whatever name they please. The sin therefore, of which the Israelites were guilty, in choosing a king to rule over them, will not be understood without considering the difference between them and other nations. The words of the Lord to Samuel will explain the matter. Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. God, as their king, had appointed Judges to manage their concerns for them; and when they set Saul upon the throne, and gave themselves up to him as his subjects, they were guilty of an act of rebellion directly against God.

Among the sins with which this people stand charged, may be reckoned their treatment of the prophets, whom God sent to instruct them; to warn them of their danger; and to urge them to repentance, and a life of holiness. Those prophets, in order to be faithful to God in whose service they were employed, were obliged to be plain in their instructions; and pungent in their reproofs; and explicit in threatening sin with punishment: sparing no more the king upon the throne, than the most inconsiderable person among his subjects. Their labor of love, which ought to have been rewarded with gratitude, and richly rewarded, procured for them persecution, and death; so that Jerusalem became notorious for the murder of God's messengers, many of whom were stoned to death within its walls.

In the fulness of time, that greater prophet whom Moses had predicted, and to whom all the prophets had born witness, made his appearance; not so much to teach the people, for before they had abundant means of knowl

edge, as to make expiation for the sins of the world, by the offering of himself. The death of Christ was necessary to his chosen people for their salvation; but the conduct of those who put him to death was voluntary; and it was with wicked and murderous, hands, that they crucified, and slew him. To his own he came in person; and to that people who sustained a covenant relation to him, he confined the first offer of mercy which he directed his apostles to make.

The treatment which Christ received from the people was so much more criminal than any conduct of which they had before been guilty, that he might well say, IfI had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.

The people experienced such consequences as they might have expected from that foolish course of conduct which they chose to pursue; and these consequences it may be of use for us in the next place to contemplate.

We will not go back to enumerate their sufferings in the wilderness. Some of them have been briefly mentioned, and the whole may be seen in the history. The Philistines, Syrians, Egyptians, and various other nations, were employed as instruments, to punish this people; and they punished themselves severely, by repeated wars upon each other, after two kingdoms were formed by the revolt of the ten tribes. About two hundred and fifty years after the kingdom of Israel was established, it was ruined, under Hoshea, by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria; many of the people killed, and others carried away captive. About a hundred and thirty years from that time, Nebuchadnezzar invaded the kingdom of Judah, and wholly destroyed it; and having slain the sons of Zedekiah the king, in his presence, he put out his eyes, and carried him to Babylon, where he shut him up in prison during the rest of his life.

In the fifty second year from the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews returned from their captivity, according to the edict of Cyrus king of Persia. They afterwards came under the yoke of the Romans, and were in subjection to them when Christ appeared in the world.

Those awful judgments the sword, and the famine, predicted, by Christ, overtook them, not many years after his crucifixion, and the remnant of the nation has been scattered from that day to this, in the different parts of the earth, known by their religious peculiarities, though exhibiting almost every shade of complexion.

The disadvantages which they labor under from oppression, in the different countries where they live, are nothing compared with that intellectual blindness, which their unbelief has brought upon them; and which, while it continues will be effectually in the way of their salvation. More than eighteen centuries has darkness, like the thick cloud which covered the top of Sinai at the giving of the law, hung over the great body of this rejected people. That awful imprecation of the murderers of Christ, His blood be on us, and on our children; has been realized in its full extent, through all intervening ages, to the present moment. The time however, will come, and we have reason to hope it is not far distant, when this deluded people will be delivered from the heavy evils which they have procured for themselves; and which have marked them out as objects of divine wrath. The passages of scripture which speak of their restoration are many and clear.

Our text is, certainly, not less applicable to our own condition as a nation, than to that of God's ancient people. We pretend not that any miracles have been wrought for us, but if the advantage belongs to Israel on account of this circumstance, it is, perhaps, more than balanced by other things, which we have, and which Israel never possessed.

All who know any thing of the settlement of this country by its first civilized inhabitants, have the proof before them, that the nation has grown great from very inconsidble beginnings. It is very evident likewise, that as oppression prepared the way for the departure of Israel out of Egypt, so persecution induced the first emigrants to leave their native soil, and cross a wide, and dangerous ocean, that they might enjoy, in this remote part of the earth, though a wilderness at that time, such privileges as they could not have in any other place.