sense only, that unreserved and universal obedience would have made the children of Israel "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." It is not here implied that universal obedience would make all actually priests, for the contrary was then going to take place; instead of universalizing the practice, before they left Sinai it was curtailed; the priesthood of the nation being confined solely to the family of Aaron; but taken in the sense above given, if they had all truly served God from the heart, they would have been as Peter says Christians are, "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." Scriptual obedience is the virtual exercise of a priesthood, as only through the substitutionary representative burnt offering, could any one acceptably draw nigh to God. That person alone, whether man, woman, or child, is a true priest who worships God in the spirit, rejoices in the Divine mercy revealed in Holy Scripture, and has no confidence either in whole or in part in the flesh. at the beginning of Judaism—the Jew inwardly, the Israelite indeed-is distinguished from the rest of mankind as alone complying with or carrying out the Divine will.

Here

When Moses had delivered the Divine message to the children of Israel they promised obedience, whereupon arrangements were made for the first interview between Jehovah and his people, and for a national covenant. It was a marvellous and unex

'Phil. iii, 3-9.

ampled scene; the sound of a trumpet announced Jehovah's approach, and when he descended upon the mount, it blazed like a furnace and sent up volumes of smoke; thunder and lightning enhanced the scene, and an earthquake made Sinai tremble from summit to base. After the trumpet had long sounded, and louder and louder, Moses spake, and Jehovah replied with a voice that entered every ear, commanding Moses to come up into the mount; he then descended and made the required arrangements, after which, Jehovah pronounced the Ten Commandments, with a voice that every one present distinctly heard. people, unable to endure what was commanded, were dismayed with the terrors of death, and implored Moses to mediate with God on their behalf. He soothed their fears by the assurance that God's object was to withdraw them from sin. God accepts Moses as a mediator, and again calls him up into the mount, where he receives the civil and ecclesiastical code, which (put in his mouth) replied to their request, "Speak thou to us and we will hear, but let not God again speak to us lest we die."

The

Now what was elicited from the children of Israel is drawn from the conscience of every descendant of Adam; the method may differ, the result will be the same. The moral code, whether spoken at Sinai, read in Holy Scripture, or however awakened in the conscience, brings every one to the conclusion at which

2 Exod. xx.

16: as

and its

lite. The

were kept

neessary resulta sinful and degrade pirituality of God and a spiritual work prominently before then, in the promise of an angel to conduct them to the land of Cangan. They were not only guided by Moses, by the pillar and cloud, but by an angel, and yet not by a mere angel, for God

This was not all, he was Thus enigmatically was a

said, “my name is in him." also to resemble Moses. spiritual world, a higher mode of life instilled into the souls of the children of Israel; the same spiritual truth was represented in the most holy place, whose cherubim were not worshipped, but were themselves in the perpetual attitude of worshipping the invisibly present Jehovah.

A few remarks upon the Jewish economy will not be here out of place. The children of Israel no longer received from tradition, but read for themselves, as the Pentateuch came out, that sacrifices foreshadowed atonement for sin, as they were required to confess it over the head of the victim, and when this was heartily done, not only was pardon implied but was also realized by faith.3 But what sins were confessed? The law pronounced at Sinai condemned idolatry, sabbath breaking, and all immorality, whether secretly cherished or actually committed. Every service was traced to the principle within, and none, however outwardly correct, was approved of unless it emanated from a right spirit. But the Levitical code also pointed out certain ceremonial actions as unclean. Were these confessed over the head of the victim? no, but those only that were condemned by the ten commandments, or by the law of conscience, whilst those of ceremony, introduced as the complement of a sym'Exod. xxiii, 20. Deut. xviii, 15. Apoc. iv, 8. Lev. vi, 7; xvi, 21. + Exod xx. 17.

bolical system, were removed by washing in water and by the evening sacrifice. Though Paul intimates that the Jews could not decipher their symbolical worship, no doubt the Israelite indeed regarded it as full of meaning, and expected the solution of it under the Messiah, who was the centre and pivot, around which the hopes and aspirations of the church revolved. Thus, Judaism was efficacious in its day, and the Israelite indeed derived from it both a sense of pardon and the disposition and argument to turn from sin to holiness and live in communion with God. But redemption from sin and sorrow being partial, he had at best, as Christians now have, but a foretaste of the completeness and perfection of it in the future world.

The children of Israel having now received the Judaical code in its entirety, ought to have taken immediate possession of the land, and put in force their somewhat new covenant with God. But their proposal to spy out the land and its people, and the report of their messengers, brought to light their want of courage and enterprise, and especially their unbelief.3 Accordingly for their correction, they wandered about during forty years in the wilderness, where they reconsidered and lamented their misconduct, and turning their attention to their elaborate covenant, saw to some extent the spirituality which is the nature and essence of true religion, and many of them no doubt obtained 'Deut. i, 22.

12 Cor. iii, 13, 14.

Psalm xvii, 15.