der, and that it confifts of more than one: it prevents our confounding the idea of God with that of angel; feeing there is but one God who created the cherubim, and created more than one,"

In this facred repofitory were laid up, for perpetual prefervation, the awful monuments of the Sinai covenant, of the church established in the wildernefs; the memorials of mercies paft, the pledges of good things to come-" the tables of the covenant,' the incorruptible manna, and Aaron's rod that budded fignifying to all future generations, the permanency and immutability of the divine law, the unremitting care and attention of the divine providence, the dignity and stability of the Levitical priesthood, But the whole economy, and every inftrument of it, in process of time paffed away. All was at length carried to Babylon. But the diffolution of the empire which dared to violate their facredness, was involved in their violation and diffolution. Read the history of it, Dan, v.* “ Belshazzar the king made a great feaft to a thoufand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belfhazzar whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and filver veffels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerufalem, that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein. Then they brought the golden veffels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerufalem; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines drank in them. They drunk wine, and praised the gods of gold, and filver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of ftone. In the fame hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace; and the king faw part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, fo that the joints of his loins were loof

*Verfe 1-6.

ed,

ed, and his knees fmote one against another." Read the writing, with the interpretation of it. "This is the writing that was written, MENE MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing; MENE, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES, thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Perfians."* Read the iffue. "In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans flain. And Darius the Median

took the kingdom."+

Such was the wonderful ftructure erected to the honour of God, and by his fpecial direction, in the wilderness of Sinai. It was begun and perfected within the compafs of little more than fix months. Every thing was executed according to the pattern fhewed to Mofes in the mount. At length it was set up in all its fplendour, with a mixture of holy joy and godly fear and the divine Inhabitant took folemn poffeffion in the eyes of all Ifrael. "A cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

"Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the fum: we have fuch an High Priest, who is fet on the right hand of the throne of the Majefty in the heavens; a minister of the fanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not ́man. Who hath obtained a more excellent miniftry, by how much also he is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promifes. In that he faith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away."‡

* Verse 25-28.

+ Verse 30, 31.

Heb. viii. 1, 2, 6, 13.

Hiftory

History of Aaron.

LECTURE IX.

NUMBERS XX. 23—29.

And the Lord fpake unto Mofes and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron fhall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Ifrael, be caufe ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his fon, and bring them up unto Mount Hor: and ftrip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his fon : and Aaron fhall be gathered unto his people, and fhall die there. And Mofes did as the Lord commanded: and they went up into Mount Hor, in the fight of all the congregation. And Mofes ftripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his fon and Aaron died there in the top of the mount. And Mofes and Eleazar came down from the mount. And when all the congregation faw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Ifrael.

THE lives of most men, from the womb to the grave, pafs away unobferved, unregarded, unknown. When their courfe is finished, the whole hiftory of it fhrinks into two little articles; on fuch a day they were born, and after fo many days they died. Of those who emerge out of the general obfcurity, fome begin their public career at an advanced period of life,

and

and of course it confifts of a few fhining, interesting, important events, and is confined within the compass of a very few fleeting years. While the progrefs of a little felected band, whom an indulgent Providence has vouchsafed signally to nobilitate, and whom the historic pencil is fond to delineate, is diftinguished 'from the cradle to the tomb, by an uninterrupted fe ries of fplendid incidents, exemplary virtues, and brilliant actions.

The characters of men are mixed like their fortunes. The moft perfect inítruction, for the generality of mankind, which history furnishes, is perhaps fupplied from the exhibition of mixed, that is, of imperfect characters. Unvarying fcenes of fraud, viofence and blood; the reprefentation of undeviating, unrelenting, unblufhing profligacy, muft, of neceffity, create difguft, or diminish the horror of vice. The real annals of mankind prefent no model of pure and perfect virtue, but one; and from its fingularity, it cannot, in all refpects, ferve as a pattern for imitation. We contemplate it at an awful distance; we feel ourfelves every moment condemned by it: we turn from the divine excellency, which covers our faces with fhame, and cafts us down to the ground, toward the mercy which has fealed our pardon, and the grace which raises us up again.

The fanciful reprefentations of perfect virtue, which are fupplied from the ftores of fiction, can but amuse at moft; edify they cannot. They want truth, they want nature, they come not home to the bofoms of ordinary men. I might more eafily ape the state of a king, than imitate the affectedly fublime virtue of the heroes of romance. Many of the perfons whofe profeffion it is to retail thofe ideal virtues, are notoriously among the most abandoned and profligate of our race. Thofe examples, therefore, are to be confidered as the most useful, as I flatter myself they are more frequent, which exhibit a mixture in which goodnefs predomi nates, and finally prevails; in which virtue is feen VOL. IV.

I

wading

wading through difficulties, ftruggling with temptation, recovering from error, gathering ftrength from weaknefs, learning wifdom from experience, fuftaining itself by dependence upon God; feeking refuge from its own frailty and imperfection in divine compaflion, and crowned, at length, with victory over all oppofition, and the fmiles of approving Heaven.

Of this fort, is the hiftory and character which the pen of infpiration, which the pencil of a brother has drawn, for the inftruction of this evening.

Aaron, the first high priest of the Hebrew nation, and the only brother of Mofes, their celebrated legiflator, was born in the year of the world two thoufand three hundred and feventy: before Chrift one thousand fix hundred and thirty-four: and before the birth of his brother three years. It is probable he came into the world before the edict of the king of Egypt was published, which commanded all the Ifraelitish male children to be put to death. For that edict feems to have been directed by a fpecial interpofition of Providence, precifely to mark, and eminently to fignalize, the first appearance of the great prophet of the Jews. Exposed to no special danger in infancy, the fubject of no interesting memoir in early life, diftinguished by no memorable talents or exploits in manhood, we see him far declined into the vale of years before we fee him at all; and, for all our knowledge of him, earlier or later, we are indebted to the labours of his younger brother. Another, among a cloud of witneffes, to prove that the birthright of nature, and the deftination of Providence, are intended to confer distinctions of a very different kind. Mofes has fhone forty years in the court of Pharaoh, has formed an alliance by marriage with a foreign prince, and cultivated the virtues, and prosecuted the employments of private life for forty years more, before his elder brother is heard of. And when he is at length brought upon the fcene, at the advanced age of eighty-three, it is to occupy an infe