In regard, therefore, to the honour conferred upon Moses of being a mediatorial prophet-that is, a prophet who had access to God, and the power of standing before the glory of his holiness with acceptance, and of revealing God's will to Israel in a gracious manner which they were able to bear there was never any like him in the line of succeeding prophets, until Christ came. Now, as this is a peculiar ground of coincidence, it both distinguishes Christ, and at the same time infinitely commends him to our acceptance. It constitutes an indication at once discriminating and glorifying. It both shews us who he is, and also what he is. It separates him from all else who were ever honoured to bear the prophetic office; and it exalts and commends him as eminently suited to the end for which he is required.

But whilst Moses was a mediatorial prophet, he was so in a manner infinitely inferior to him whom he seemed to typify and prefigure in that respect. In the presence of the awful manifestation of the Divine majesty, power, and holiness, which was exhibited from Mount Sinai, at the dispensation of the law, he betrayed the weakness of man in his best estate, when standing before the holy Lord God, and, as the Apostle states, "did exceedingly fear and quake." It was not, therefore, from any inherent righteousness or strength that he came to be sustained at last, that he could meet with God, and transact with him as he did, without trepidation or dismay. But he must have attained to this through faith in the merits of that Divine Redeemer whom he announced to the Israelites as a Prophet who was to be raised up like unto himself; and thus from Christ was derived that boldness and access to God in which he so eminently resembled him. Just as an image, when reflected, is not only an indication of the object which it shews, but owes its existence to it, the Jewish Prophet was indebted to Christ for those very qualities in which he represented him to the knowledge of men. For, had not Christ obtained grace for Moses, he could not have come unto the presence of God as he did; and therefore he could not have become a type, as he was, of Christ himself, through whom all who believe are justified and have power to draw near to God without wrath and without fear.

That peculiar and pre-eminent excellence which thus distinguishes Christ is the subject, as it deserves to be, of frequent allusion, and of express doctrinal testimony, throughout the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testament. Isaiah evidently refers to it in the 32d chapter at the 2d verse, when describing the security and blessedness of Christ's people, he says of him, "a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." More unendurable than the

most piercing and scorching rays of an eastern sun to an unprotected traveller, is the operation and power of the infinite justice and holiness of God on the mind of an awakened transgressor. He feels consciencestruck and dismayed as he thinks that he has to do with him who is a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity. He looks within him and around him, but he sees nothing that can afford him a just ground of hope and reconciliation. He has neither a righteousness that can shelter him from punishment, nor a power that can avert it from overtaking and overwhelming him. But what no sinner has of himself he is invited to come and receive from Christ. "A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." The same infinitely precious and important truth is also embodied in that passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where it is said, "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and came and preached peace to you who were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."

Thus, then, but for the work of Christ, there could be no means of satisfying Divine justice-no escape from a state of condemnation and death no admission into the kingdom of grace-no access to everlasting glory. His incarnation, sufferings, and death, were all directed to the one great end of opening a way by which we might be reconciled to God and obtain mercy, in consistency with the honour of the Divine law and the perfection of the Divine government. It was not because God was unwilling to extend mercy, that the interposition of Christ became necessary; infinitely the reverse; for it was the very purpose of God which Christ came to establish, and it is the glory of his work that it is a work which the Father gave him to do. But a method had to be provided by which grace might reign through righteousness, and not invade or impair the immutable claims of Divine justice. And here lay the burden of what Christ undertook to do. He had, as it were, to open up a new way by which mercy might reach our guilty race-a way through the foundations of eternal righteousness; and yet, instead of weakening or in any way defacing them, to manifest, by so doing, their impregnable strength, and to confirm their stability. What had never

been conceived to be possible before by any created being, to reconcile things in heaven and things on earth—the attributes and perfections of God as the judge of all, and the pardon and salvation of sinners-was Christ's transcendant and glorious achievement. A new thing had to be done, involving a moral miracle of surpassing mystery and difficulty. There lay on the one side a world of perishing outcasts, while on the other there was a fountain of infinite love; but Divine justice erected its impenetrable barriers between; and the question came to be, How convey the streams of healing grace to relieve the miseries and to supply the wants of a ruined race? The stroke of Moses' rod brought water from the bosom of the flinty rock to satiate and refresh the parched and dying Israelites in the wilderness. But here there was an infinitely deeper emergency to be met, and that connected with difficulties infinitely more insuperable. What is the intractability of adamant compared with the inviolability of the Divine perfections? How, then, bring mercy from the bosom of justice, and by what means unite in a covenant of peace a holy God and sinful creatures?

Can any thing more than another deepen your conviction of the necessity of reconciliation with God, it is to look upon Christ's work in all its arduousness and in all its magnitude, in its relation to the Divine attributes. With men it is often imagined that the mercy of God is such as to encourage them to conceive, that there is nothing which they cannot expect from it. But will God magnify one perfection at the expense of another, or can he divest himself of his truth and righteousness to show himself gracious? Instead of an unconditional forgiveness, iuvolving the necessary evils of moral anarchy, and an utter subversion of the authority of law, which God can never grant, however the impenitent may desire it, the work of Christ provides for the extension of mercy in a manner equally glorifying to God, and sanctifying in its efficacy upon those who receive it. It brings you within the walls of salvation by a way which, while it allows an abundant entrance into the kingdom of grace, impresses you with the highest conceptions of the infinite righteousness of God. For with what an expense of labour, suffering, and blood did the Redeemer provide this way and lay it open for you? And as you meditate upon his work, how should every vain thought perish of the possibility of finding salvation in any other way!

I. From the illustration now given of the text, we proceed to deduce the following practical inferences. In the first place, the Prophetic office of Christ is one of a peculiarly gracious and encouraging nature to sinners. The terrors of Sinai induced the Israelites to desire that God might no more speak to them but through the intervention of Moses;

and how much greater reason has every truly convinced and awakened sinner to desire that God may speak to him always in and through Christ. How tender and soothing are the words of Christ to every afflicted soul to all who feel the evil of sin, and who desire to be freed from its guilt and misery! He never brings forward the justice of God but in connection with his mercy; he never tells of his holiness without proclaiming his loving kindness and compassion; and, whilst he reveals to us that we have all fallen by our transgressions, and are in danger of hell, he connects with it the precious declaration, that "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”

Did the thunders of the law piercing the hearts of the Israelites make them solicitous to have Moses for their covert ever afterwards, and that they might hear the voice of God as a lawgiver no more? and how should not the same impression lead you much more to seek an interest in Christ, who has been ordained to be a Redeemer from the curse of the law? Moses could bear the law in a milder form to the people than that in which they had heard it; but he could not alter its spirit-he could not abate its obligations—he could not change a ministry of condemnation into a ministration of life, nor actually deliver any of them from a state of guilt and of ruin into a state of acceptance and reconciliation. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ. By him, therefore, the thunders of the law are not merely silenced to those who come to him, but are extinguished-permanently extinguished; and instead of having to quail under the dread of a merited condemnation, they can rejoice in God, as the Apostle expresses it, "through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."

II. But, in the second place, the Prophetic office of Christ is one of infinite dignity, inasmuch as he transacted in it with God for our salvation, and was able to sustain that manifestation of the Divine glory and holiness which no mere man can behold and live. Of Moses it is said, at the close of this Book, "that there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." He was advanced, in his mortal state, to some measure of that nearness to God and confidence in him which is enjoyed by saints in general only at death, when, being made perfect in holiness, they pass into glory. So great was his faith and reliance on the merits of the Redeemer, that he possessed that perfect love which casteth out fear; for Moses never could have stood before God had he not obtained a knowledge of the way of salvation, and received an interest in the redemption purchased by Christ. But very different was the trial to which the strength of

ness.

Christ himself was put, and the circumstances in which he sustained, as our Redeemer, the full manifestation and exercise of the Divine holiOn assuming our nature, and becoming our surety, he had to suffer the penalty due to our sins; and yet, although he felt that a violated law required to be magnified in his person—although he saw God with more than the terror displayed on Sinai, rising up against him, and every attribute of his holy nature arrayed in awful majesty, in vindication of his authority, whilst a flame was kindled which only his blood could quench, and he felt that he would be consumed as a sacrifice to make an atonement for our sin, and to satisfy the claims of Deity-yet he shrunk not from the awful position which, as a mediatorial prophet, he stood engaged to occupy. Who can tell what the man Jesus, even though sustained with all the fulness of indwelling Godhead, must have borne, when, during the whole of his personal ministry, he perceived the storm and the tempest and the flaming fire gathering against him, which were to collect in fearful force and pour themselves on his devoted head, as the representative of sinners? How deeper than Sinai's terrors was the mystery of Calvary's sufferings! There Justice raised its sword, whilst it veiled in darkness a Father's face; and in the gloom of an hour, from which the Sun withdrew its light, while Nature shook, was an expiation made, which caused, not.man indeed, but angels to fear and quake, and spread dismay to the farthest limits of creation. Though in some respects like, yet how higher than Moses was the Son of Man, when he thus placed himself between a holy God and guilty man, and bore all the thunders of that power, and all the effects of that justice, which not the pillars of the universe could withstand, nor the terrors of hell equal.

III. In the third place, the text presents us with an interesting view of the security and blessedness of all who enjoy an interest in the benefits of Christ's mediation. Whatever of wrath was due to them, it has been exhausted; and they shall never require to have to do with God, simply as a lawgiver, a judge, or an avenger, for all. their intercourse with him is ordained to be carried on in and through Christ Jesus. They shall not hear his voice nor see his face as the holy, and righteous, but deeply offended arbiter of the destinies of the moral universe, taking vengeance upon his enemies-they shall not have to encounter a conflict with his outraged holiness, and violated justice, and insulted power-but as God shall look upon them through the medium of a Saviour's imputed righteousness and merits, so shall they, on the other hand, see God in the attractive and winning light of a Saviour's compassion, benignity, and love. And hence the prayer of the Church, when it employs the words of the 84th Psalm-"Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of