الكتاب المقدس

Expositor's Bible Commentary Deuteronomy 10:1 At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. ISRAEL’S ELECTION, AND MOTIVES FOR FAITHFULNESS Deuteronomy 9:1-29 ; Deuteronomy 10:1-22 ; Deuteronomy 11:1-32 THE remaining chapters of this special introduction to the statement of the actual laws beginning with chapter 12 contain also an earnest insistence upon other motives why Israel should remain true to the covenant of Yahweh. They are urged to this, not only because life both spiritual and physical depended upon it, as was shown in the trials of the wilderness, but they are also to lay it to heart that in the conquests which assuredly await them, it will be Yahweh alone to whom they will owe them. The spies had declared, and the people had accepted their report, that these peoples were far mightier than they, and that no one could stand before the children of Anak. But the victory over them would show that Yahweh had been among them like a consuming fire, before which the Canaanite power would wither as brushwood in the flame. Under these circumstances the thought would obviously lie near that, as they had been defeated and driven back in their first attempt upon Canaan because of their unrighteousness and unbelief, so they would conquer now because of their righteousness and obedience. But this thought is sternly repressed. The fundamental doctrine which is here insisted on is that Israel’s consciousness of being the people of God must at the same time be a consciousness of complete dependence upon Him. If His gifts were ultimately to be the reward of human righteousness, then obviously that feeling of complete dependence could not be established. They are to move so completely in the shadow of God that they are to see in their successes only the carrying out of the Divine purposes. Instead of feeling fiercely contemptuous of the Canaanites they destroy, because they stand on a moral and spiritual height which gives them a right to triumph, the Israelites are to feel that, while it is for wickedness that the Canaanite people are to be punished, they themselves had not been free from wickedness of an aggravated kind. Their different treatment, therefore, rests upon the fact that they are to be Yahweh’s chosen instruments. In the patriarchs he chose them to become the means, the vehicle, by which salvation and blessing were to be brought to all nations. While, therefore, the evil that comes upon the peoples they are to conquer is deserved, the good they themselves are to receive is equally undeserved. That which alone accounts for the difference is the faithfulness of God to the promises He made for the sake of His purposes. He needs an instrument through which to bless mankind. He has chosen Israel for this purpose, partly doubtless because of some qualities, not necessarily spiritual or moral, which they have come to have, and partly because of their historical position in the world. These taken together make them at this precise moment in the history of the world’s development the fittest instruments to carry out the Divine purpose of love to mankind. And they are elected, made to enter into more constant and intimate communion with God than other nations, on that account. In the words of Rothe, "God chooses or elects at each historical moment from the totality of the sinful race of mankind that nation by whose enrollment among the positive forces which are to develop the kingdom of God the greatest possible advance towards the complete realization of it may be attained, under the historical circumstances of that moment." Whether that completely covers the individual election of St. Paul, as Rothe thinks, or not, it certainly precisely expresses the national election of the Old Testament, and exhausts the meaning of our passage. Israelite particularism had universality of the highest kind as its background, and here the latter comes most insistently to its rights. It was not only the election of Israel to be a peculiar people which depended upon the wise and loving purpose of God; the providences which befell them also had that as their source. To fit them for their mission, and to give them a place wherein they could develop the germs of higher faith and nobler morality which they had received, Yahweh gave them victory over those greater nations, and planted them in their place. This, and this only, was the reason of their success; and with scathing irony the author of Deuteronomy stamps under his feet {Deu 9:7 ff.} any claim to superior righteousness on their part. He points back to their continuous rebellions during the forty years in the wilderness. From the beginning to the end of their journey towards the Promised Land, they are told, they have been rebellious and stiff-necked and unprofitable. They have broken their covenant with their God. They have caused Moses to break the tables of stone containing the fundamental conditions of the covenant, because their conduct had made it plain that they had not seriously bound themselves to it. But the mercy of God had been with them. Notwithstanding their sin, Yahweh had been turned to mercy by the prayer of Moses ( Deuteronomy 9:25 ff.), and had repented of His design to destroy them. A new covenant was entered into, with them (chapter 10) by means of the second tables, which contained the same commands as were engraven on the first. The renewal, moreover, was ratified by the separation of the tribe of Levi {Deu 10:8 ff.} to be the specially priestly tribe, "to bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto Him and to bless in His name." From beginning to end it was always Yahweh, and again Yahweh, who had chosen and loved and cared for them. It was He who had forgiven and strengthened them; but always for reasons which reached far beyond, or even excluded, any merit on their part. The grounds of Moses’ successful, intercession for them {Deu 9:25 ff.} are notable in this connection. They have no reference at all to the needs, or hopes, or expectations of the people. These are all brushed aside, as being of no moment after such unfaithfulness as theirs had been. The great object before his mind is represented to be Yahweh’s glory. If this stiff-necked people perish, then the greatness of God will be obscured and His purposes will be misunderstood. Men will certainly think, either that Yahweh, Israel’s God, attempted to do what He was not able to do, or that He was wroth with His people, and drew them out into the wilderness to slay them there. It is God’s purpose with them, God’s purpose for the world through them, which alone gives them importance. Were it not for that, they would be as little worth saving as they have deserved to be saved. For his people, and, we may be sure, for himself, Moses recognizes no true worth save in so far as he or they were useful in carrying out Divine purposes of good to the world. Nor is the absence of any plea on Israel’s behalf, that it is miserable or unhappy, due merely to a desire to keep the rebellious people in the background for the moment, and to appeal only to the Divine self-love for a pardon which would, on the merits of the case, be refused. It is the God of the whole earth, before whom "the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers," who is appealed to; a God removed far above the petty motives of self-interested men, and set upon the one great purpose of establishing a kingdom of God upon the earth into which all nations might come. If His glory is appealed to, that is only because it is the glory of the highest good both for the individual and for the world. If fear lest doubt should be cast upon His power is put forward as a reason for His having mercy, that is because to doubt His power is to doubt the supremacy of goodness. If the Divine promise to the patriarchs is set forth here, it is because that promise was the assurance of the Divine interest in and Divine love of the world. Under such circumstances it would need a very narrow-hearted literalism, such as only very "liberal" theologians and critics could favor, to reduce this appeal to a mere attempt to flatter Yahweh into good-humor. It really embodies all that can be said in justification of our looking for answers to prayer at all; and rightly understood it limits the field of the answer as strictly as the expressed or implied limitations of the New Testament, viz. that effectual prayer can only be for things according to the will of God. Moreover it expresses an entirely natural attitude towards God. Before Him, the sum of all perfections, the loving and omniscient and omnipresent God, what is man that he should assert himself in any wise? When the height and the depth, the sublimity and the comprehensiveness of the Divine purpose is considered, how can a man do aught save fall upon his face in utter self-forgetfulness, immeasurably better even than self-contempt? The best and holiest of mankind have always felt this most; and the habit of measuring their attainments by the faithfulness and knowledge, the virtue and power which is in God, has impressed some of the greatest minds and purest souls with such humility, that to men without insight it has seemed mere affectation. But the pity, the condescension, the love of Christ has so brought God down into our human life, that we are apt at times to lose our awe of God as seen in Him. Were we children of the spirit we should not fall into that sin. We cannot, consequently, be too frequently or too sharply recalled to the more austere and remote standpoint of the Old Testament. For many even of the most pious it would be well if they could receive and keep a more just impression of their own worthlessness and nullity before God. In the section from the twelfth verse of chapter 10 {Deu 10:12} to the end of chapter 11 the hortatory introduction is summed up in a final review of all the motives to and the results of obedience and love to God. The fundamental exhortation as to love to God is once more repeated; only here fear is joined with love and precedes it; but the necessity of love to God is expanded and dwelt upon, as at the beginning, with a zeal that never wearies. The Deuteronomist illustrates and enforces it with old reasons and new, always speaking with the same pleading and heartfelt earnestness. He does not fear the tedium of repetition, nor the accusation of moving in a narrow round of ideas. Evidently in the evil time when he wrote this love towards God had come to be his own support and his consolation; and it had been revealed to him as the source of a power, a sweetness, and a righteousness which could alone bring the nation into communion with God. In affecting words resembling very closely the noble exhortation in Micah 6:1-16 , "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" he teaches much the same doctrine as his contemporary: "And now, Israel, what doth Yahweh thy God require of thee, but to fear Yahweh thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve Yahweh thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of Yahweh and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?" {Deu 10:12} In spirit these passages seem identical; but it is held by many writers on the Old Testament that they are not so that they represent, in fact, opposite poles of the faith and life of Israel. Micah is supposed by Duhm, for instance, to mean by his threefold demand that justice between man and man, love and kindliness and mercy towards others, and humble intercourse with God are, in distinction from sacrifice, true religion, and undefiled. Robertson Smith also considers that these verses in Micah contain a repudiation of sacrifice. In Deuteronomy, on the contrary, fear and love of God and walking in His ways are placed first, but they are joined with a demand for the heartfelt service of God and the keeping of His statutes as about to be set forth. Now these certainly include ritual and sacrifice. The one passage, written by a prophet, excludes sacrifice as binding and acceptable service of God; the other, written perhaps by a priest, certainly by a man upon whom no prophetic lessons of the past had been lost, includes it. To use the words of Robertson Smith in discussing the requisites of forgiveness in the Old Testament, "According to the prophets Yahweh asks only a penitent heart and desires no sacrifice; according to the ritual law, He desires a penitent heart approaching Him in certain sacrificial sacraments." The author of Deuteronomy teaches the second view; the author of Micah, chapter 6, who is probably his contemporary, teaches the former. How is such divergence accounted for? The answer generally made is that Deuteronomy was the product of a close alliance between priests and prophets. A common hatred of Manasseh’s idolatry and a common oppression had brought them together as never perhaps before. With one heart and mind they wrought in secret for the better day which they saw approaching, and Deuteronomy was a reissue of the ancient Mosaic law adapted to the prophetic teaching. It represented a compromise between, or an amalgamation of, two entirely distinct positions. But even on this view it would follow that from the time of Josiah, when Deuteronomy was accepted as the completest expression of the will of God, the doctrine that ritual and sacrifice as well as penitence were essential things in true religion was known, and not only known but accepted as the orthodox opinion. Putting aside, then, the question whether sacrifice was acknowledged by the prophets before this or not, they must have accepted it from this point onward, unless they denied to Deuteronomy the authority which it claimed and which the nation conceded to it. Jeremiah clearly must have assented to it, for his style and his thought have been so closely molded on this book that some have thought he may have been its author. In any case he did not repudiate its authority; and all the prophets who followed him must have known of this view, and also that it had been sanctioned by that book which was made the first Jewish Bible. We have here, at all events, the keynote of the supremacy of moral duty over Divine commands concerning ritual which distinguishes the prophetic teaching in Micah and elsewhere, joined with the enforcement of ritual observances. But there are few purely prophetic passages which raise the higher demand so high as it is raised here. To love and fear God are anew declared to be man’s supreme duties, and the author presses these home by arguments of various kinds. Again he returns to the election of Israel by Yahweh, without merit of theirs; and to bring home to them how much this means, the Deuteronomist exhibits the greatness of their God, His might, His justice, and His mercy, which, great as it is to His chosen people, is not confined to them, but extends to the stranger also. This most gracious One they are to serve by deeds, to Him they are to cleave, and they are to swear by Him only, that is, they are solemnly to acknowledge Him to be their God in return for His undeserved favor. For their very existence as a nation is a wonder of His power, since they were only a handful when they went down to Egypt, and now were "as the stars of heaven for multitude." Then once more, in chapter 11, he repeats his one haunting thought that love is to be the source of all worthy fulfillment of the law; and he endeavors to shed abroad this love to God in their hearts by reminding them once more of all the marvels of their deliverance from Egypt, and of their wilderness journey. Their God had delivered them first, then chastised them for their sins, and had trained them for the new life that awaited them in the land promised to their fathers. Even in the security of the land they were to find themselves not less dependent upon God than before. Rather their dependence would be more striking and more impressive than in Egypt. As we have seen repeatedly, this inspired writer belonged in many respects to the childhood of the world, and the people he addressed were primitive in their ideas. Yet his thoughts of God in their highest flight were so essentially true and deep, that even today we can go back upon them for edification and inspiration. But here we have an appeal based upon a distinction which today should have almost entirely lost its meaning. The Deuteronomist yields quite simply and unreservedly to the feeling that the regular, unvarying processes of nature are less Divine, or at least are less immediately significant of the Divine presence, than those which cannot be foreseen, which vary, and which defy human analysis. For he here contrasts Egypt and Canaan, in both of which he represents Israel as having been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and speaks as if in the former all depended upon human industry and ingenuity, and might be counted upon irrespective of moral conduct, while in the latter all would depend upon Divine favor and a right attitude towards God. It is quite true that in preceding chapters he has been teaching that, even for worldly material success, the higher life is necessary, that man nowhere lives by bread alone; and that we may assuredly assume is his deepest, his ultimate thought. But he has a practical end in view at this moment. He wishes to persuade his people, and he appeals to what both he and they felt, though in the last resort it might hardly perhaps be justified. In Egypt, he says, your agricultural success was certain if only you were industrious. The great river, of which the land itself is the gift, came down in flood year after year, and you had only to store and to guide its waters to ensure you a certain return for your labor. You had not to look to uncertain rains, but could by diligence always secure a sufficiency of the life-giving element, In Canaan it will not be so. It "drinketh water only of the rain of heaven." God’s eye has to be upon it continually to keep it fertile, and the sense of dependence upon Him will force itself upon you more constantly and powerfully in consequence. They could hope to prosper only if they never forgot, never put away His exhortations out of their sight. Otherwise, he says, the life-giving showers will not fall in their due season. Your land will not yield its fruits, and "ye shall perish quickly off the good land which Yahweh giveth you." Now what are we to say of this appeal? There can be no doubt that the Divine omnipotence was really, in the Deuteronomist’s view as well as in ours, as irresistible in Egypt as in Canaan. Fundamentally, no doubt, life or death, prosperity or adversity, were as much in the hand of God in the one case as in the other; and the Deuteronomist, at least, had no doubt that rebellion against God could and would destroy Egypt’s prosperity as much as Canaan’s. But he felt that somehow there was a tenderer and more intimate communion of love between Yahweh and His people under the one set of circumstances than under the other. We are not entitled to impute to him a questionable distinction which modern minds are apt to make, viz. that where long experience has taught men to regard the course of providence as fixed, there the sphere of prayer for material benefit ends, and that only in the region where the Divine action in nature seems to us more spontaneous and less capable of being foreseen, can prayer be heartily, because hopefully, made. But the feeling that suggests that was certainly in his mind. He felt the difference between the fixed conditions of life in Egypt and the more variable conditions in Canaan, to be much the same as the difference between the circumstances of a son receiving a fixed yearly allowance from his father, in an independent and perhaps distant home, and those of a son in his father’s house, who receives his portion day by day as the result and evidence of an ever-present affection. Both are equally dependent upon the father’s love, and both should theoretically be equally filled with loving gratitude. But as a fact, the latter would be more likely to be so, and would be held more guilty if he were not so. Upon’ that actual fact the Deuteronomist takes his stand. As they were now to enter into Yahweh’s land, His chosen dwelling-place, he sees in the different material conditions of the new country that which should make the union between Yahweh and His people more intimate and more secure, and He presses home upon them the greater shame of ingratitude, if under such circumstances they should forget God and His laws. Finally {Deu 11:22-25} he promises them the victorious extension of their dominion if they will love Yahweh and keep His laws. From Lebanon to the southern wilderness, from the Euphrates to the western sea, they should rule, if they would cleave unto their God. At no time was this promise fulfilled save in the days of David and Solomon. For only then had Lebanon and the wilderness, the Euphrates and the sea, been the boundaries of Israel. This must, then, be regarded as the time of Israel’s greatest faithfulness. But it is striking that it is in Josiah’s day, after the adoption of Deuteronomy as the national law, that we meet with a conscious effort to realize this condition of things once more. There would seem to be little doubt that the good king took an equally literal view of what the book commanded and of what it promised. He inaugurated a period of complete external compliance with the law, and like the young and inexperienced man he was, he regarded that as the fulfillment of its requirements, and looked for a similar instantaneous fulfillment of the promises, Bit by bit he had absorbed the ancient territory of the Northern Kingdom; and in the decay of the Assyrian power he saw the opportunity for the enlargement of his dominion to the limit here defined. He consequently went out against Pharaoh Necho in the full confidence that he would be victorious. But if the Divine promise and its conditions were taken up too superficially by him, Divine providence soon and terribly corrected the error. The defeat and death of Josiah revealed that the reformation had not been real and deep enough, and that the nation was not faithful enough to make such triumph possible. Indeed, so far as we can see, the time for any true fulfillment of Israel’s calling in that fashion had then passed by. The harvest was past, and Israel was not saved, and could not now be saved, for it was in its deepest heart unfaithful. It may be questioned by some, of course, whether an Israel faithful even in the highest degree could at any time have kept possession of so wide a dominion in the face of the great empires of Assyria and Egypt. These were rich, and had a far larger command both of territory and men: how then could the Israelites ever have maintained themselves in face of them? But the question is how to measure the power of the higher ideas they held. It is not force but truth that rules the world; and absolutely no limit can be set to the possibilities which open out to a free, morally robust, and faithful people, who have become possessed of higher, spiritual ideas than the peoples that surround them. Even in this skeptical modern day the transformation as regards physical strength which takes place when certain classes of Hindus become either Mohammedans or Christians is so startling and so rapid that it appears almost a miracle. As regards courage, too, it is even more rapid and equally remarkable. The great majority of the struggles of nations are fought out on the level of mere physical force and for material ends, and the strongest and richest wins: but whenever a people possessed of higher ideas and absolutely faithful to them does appear, the opposing power, however great it may be in wealth and numbers, is whirled away in fragments as by a tornado, or it dissolves like ice before the sun. What Israel might have been, therefore, had it been penetrated by the principles of the higher religion, and been passionately true to it, can in no way be judged by that which it actually was. Among the untried possibilities which it was too unfaithful to realize, the possession of such an empire as Deuteronomy promises would seem to be one of the least. Our chapter sums up what precedes with the declaration on the part of Yahweh, "See, I am setting before you this day a blessing and a curse," according as they might obey or disobey the Divine command. It is stated, in short, that the whole future of the people is to be determined by their attitude to Yahweh and the commands He has given them. In these two words "blessing" and "curse," as Dillmann observes, He sets before them the greatness of the decision they are called upon to make. Just as at the end of chapter 3 the vision of Yahweh’s stretched-out hand, which has strewn the world with the wrecks and fragments of destroyed nations, is relied on to prepare the people for contemplating their own calling, so here the: gain or loss which would follow their decision is solemnly set before them. By Dillmann and others it is supposed that Deuteronomy 11:29 and Deuteronomy 11:31 , which instruct the people to "lay the blessing upon, Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount Ebal," have been transferred by the later editor from chapter 27, where they would come in very fittingly after Deuteronomy 27:3 . But whether that be so or not, they are evidently so far in place here that they add to the solemnity with which the fate of the nation in the future is insisted upon. Their "choice is brief and yet endless"; it can be made in a moment, but in its consequence it will endure. But here a difficulty arises. Dr. Driver in his "Introduction" says of this hortatory section of our book that its teaching is that "duties are not to be performed from secondary motives, such as fear or dread of consequences; they are to be the spontaneous outcome of a heart from which every taint of worldliness has been removed, and which is penetrated by an all-absorbing sense of personal devotion to God." Yet in these later chapters we have had little else but appeals to the gratitude and hopes and fears of Israel. Chapters 8 to 11 are wholly taken up with incitements to love and obey God, because He has been immeasurably good to them, never letting their ingratitude overcome His loving-kindness; because they are wholly dependent upon Him for prosperity and the fertility of their land; and because evil will come upon them if they do not. That would seem to be the opposite of what Driver has declared to be the informing spirit and the fundamental teaching of Deuteronomy. Yet his view is the true one. Even if the Deuteronomist had added these lower motives to attract and gain over those who were not so open to the higher, that would not deprive him of the glory of having set forth disinterested love as the really impelling power in true religion. We are not required to lower our esteem of that achievement, even if, like the reasonable and wise teacher he is, he boldly uses every motive that actually influences men, whether it should do so or not, to win them to the higher life. But it is not necessary to suppose that he does so. His demand is that men shall love Yahweh their God with all their heart and strength, and to win them to that he sets forth what their God has revealed Himself to be. Men cannot love one whom they do not know: they cannot love one who has not proved himself lovable to them. As his whole effort is to get men to love God, and show their love by obedience to His expressed will, the Deuteronomist brings to mind all His loving thoughts and acts towards them, and so continually keeps his appeal at the highest level. He does not ask men to serve God because it will be profitable to them, but because they love God: and he endeavors to make them love God by reciting all His love and friendliness and patience to His people, and by pointing out the evil which His love is seeking to ward off. The plea is not the ignoble one that they must serve Yahweh for what they can gain by it, but that they should love Yahweh for His love and graciousness, and that out of this love continual obedience should flow as a necessary result. That is his central position; and if he points out the necessary results of a refusal to turn to God in this way he does not thereby set forth slavish fear or calculating prudence as in themselves religious motives. They are only natural and reasonable means of turning men to view the other side. He uses them to bring the people to a pause, during which he may win them by the love of God. That is always the true appeal; and Christianity when it is at its finest can do nothing but follow in this path. Having before his mind the results of evil conduct, he does urge men to escape from the wrath that may rest upon them. But the only means so to escape is to yield to the love of God. No self-restraint dictated by fear of consequences, no turning from evil because of the lions that are seen in the path, satisfies the demand of either Old Testament or New Testament religion. Both raise the truly religious life above that into the region of self-devoting love; and they both deny spiritual validity to all acts, however good they may be in themselves, which do not follow love as its free and uncalculating expression. Yet they both deal with men as rational beings who can estimate the results of their acts, and warn them of the death which must be the end of every other way of supposed salvation. In this manner they keep the path between extremes, ignoring neither the inner heart of religion nor winding themselves too high for sinful men. How hard it is to keep to this reasonable but spiritual view is seen by popular aberrations both within and without the Church. At times in the history of the Church Christian teachers have allowed their minds to be so dominated by the terror of judgment that judgment has seemed to the world to be the sole burden of their message. As a reaction from that again, other teachers have arisen who put forward the love of God in such a one-sided way as to empty it of all its severe but glorious sublimity; as if, like Mohammed, they believed God was minded mainly "to make religion easy" unto men. Outside the Church the same discord prevails. Some secular writers praise those religions which declare that a man’s fate is decided at the judgment by the balance of merit over demerit in his acts; while others mock at any judgment, and commit themselves with a light heart to the half-amused tolerance of the Divine good nature. But the teaching which combines both elements can alone sustain and bear up a worthy spiritual life. To rely upon terror only, is to ignore the very essence of true religion and the better elements in the nature of man; for that will not be dominated by fear alone. To think of the Divine love as a lazy, self-indulgent laxity, is to degrade the Divine nature, and to forget that the possibility of wrath is bound up in all love that is worthy of the name. One other point is worthy of remark. In these chapters, which deal with the history of God’s chosen people in their relations with Him, there come out the very elements which distinguish the personal religion of St. Paul. The beginning and end of it all is the free grace of God. God elected His people that they might be His instrument for blessing the world, not because of any goodness in them, for they were perverse and rebellious, but because He had so determined and had promised to the fathers. He had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt by His mighty power, and dwelt among them thenceforth as among no other people. He gave them a land to dwell in, and there as in His own house He watched and tended them, and strove to lead them upwards to the height of their calling as the people of God by demanding of them faith and love. It is a very enlightening remark of Robertson Smith’s that the deliverance out of Egypt was to Israel in the Old Testament what conversion is to the individual Christian according to the New Testament. Taking that as our starting-point, we see that the thought of Deuteronomy is precisely the thought of Romans. It is said, and truly enough, that the Pauline theology was a direct transcript of Paul’s own experience; but we see from this that he did not need to form the moulds for his own fundamental thoughts. Long before him the author of Deuteronomy had formed these, and t

Two tables of stone. Deuteronomy 10:1 The tables of stone -- What do they symbolise George Juntem, D. D. ? — These were made before any part of the tabernacle furniture. Their history heralds forth their transcendant importance. No compend of moral truth may pretend to compare with them, for glory and grandeur of origin; for simplicity and completeness of adaptation to man's necessities, or for sublime exhibitions of the Divine perfections. Such an illustrious transcript of the moral attributes of God and His claims upon the supreme adoration of men, and of their obligations to one another, is sought for in vain among the records of human wisdom. Who but Jehovah Himself can reveal the perfections of His own being? Whose right is it to dictate law to the moral universe, if not its Author? But Jehovah exists as the Elohim — the plurality of persons in the essential unity. Has the issuance of these ten words any special reference to this personality? Certainly; the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. All that man knows truly of the Divine perfections, he knows through the teachings of the second person in the Elohim — the Divine Loges, by whom the world was made and without whom was not anything made that was made. It was the voice of the Word, afterwards made flesh — the same Word which said Let there be light, and there was light, that thundered from the summit of the burning mountain these ten words, and afterwards delivered them to Moses along the ranks of angels. This will be evident upon a comparison of a few Scriptures ( Psalm 68:17, 18, 20 ; Ephesians 4:1 ; Deuteronomy 33:2 ). The entire system of ceremonial observances is evangelical — all relate to the Gospel scheme of salvation. "For unto us," says Paul ( Hebrews 4:2 ) "was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them." As to the kind of stone used, we are left even more in the dark than as to the wood, and therefore infer it to be a matter of no consequence. Only this is plain, that they were fragile, being shattered to pieces when thrown from Moses' hands. Nor have we anything specific as to their size, unless it be that Moses seems to have carried them down the mount ( Exodus 32:19 ), in his own hands, whence we may infer they were not very thick, and they could not have been more than forty-two or three inches long, and twenty-six wide. The first suggestion of a symbolical meaning is durability. Engraving on stone intimates permanency. Job, in his sorrows, exclaims ( Job 19:23 ), "Oh, that my words were now written! oh, that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and laid in the rock forever." Then he proceeds to express his faith in the living Redeemer, and his hope in a glorious resurrection: truths these, which he wished to perpetuate forever. The first tables represented the law of God as written in the heart of man at his creation: or, we may say, human race — Adam, with the law created in him. The breaking of the tables sets forth the fall of man and the utter defacement of God's law and image. The replacement of the tables by Moses, and the rewriting of the law upon them, by the power of the great Redeemer, forcibly illustrates His entire work of restoring man to the full dominion of the holy law, or, in other words, the restoration of the law to its ruling power over him; or may we not say the second Adam, the pattern of all the redeemed. The bringing of man under the power of law, the protection of the law from violence and profanation, and the security of its rightful dominion, is the grand idea herein set forth. All around it is encased within its golden enclosure. The casket indeed is precious, costly, and beautiful, but the jewels it contains are the priceless treasure. In connection, however, with the remarks above, that the ceremonial ordinances are Gospel ordinances, it is important to distinguish them from the legal matter of the old covenant. The ten words and the various applications of their principles throughout the Pentateuch, are quite different from the sacrifices, the lustrations, the incense burnings, the cities of refuge, etc. The former are legal, and whenever separated from the latter become a law of works — the very covenant made with Adam. But the latter, coalescing with and qualifying and pointing out the way of fulfilling the former, transmute the whole into the new covenant, or true Gospel, which was revealed to Adam before his expulsion from Paradise. ( George Juntem, D. D. ) The new tables J. Stratten. I. THE BREAKING OF THE TABLES. The tables themselves were in every respect most remarkable. Mark, first, that they were "the tables of the covenant." God said: "These are My commands, keep them, and I am your God, I will be a glory in the midst of you, and a wall of fire round about you; break My commands, disobey My will, there is an infraction of the covenant, and the safety is departed, the glory gone." Sin was the violation of the covenant; sin was the overturning and the breaking to pieces of the covenant. The sin being committed, the transgression having taken place, the covenant was at an end. This is indicated by God in the fact that Moses breaks the tables of the law, because Moses in this matter acts as mediator for God; he is invested with the Divine authority, and ordered to do what he did in that capacity and in God's name. It is said that he was in great anger, his anger waxed hot; but it was a holy and a justifiable anger, caused by great and elevated zeal for truth and for God, and so no censure is pronounced upon it. This act of breaking the tables resembled figurative actions performed by Hebrew prophets in later times. It is like Jeremiah breaking the bottle, and saying to the elders of the Jews, "Even so shall this people and this city be broken." Or when he is commanded to take a girdle, and to go with it to the river Euphrates, and to put it in a damp place until it becomes rotten and worthless: then it is — "After that manner you shall be carried captive into Babylon." Ezekiel, in like manner, is ordered to take the goods of his house, his "stuff," and to remove it upon his shoulders from one dwelling to another afar off — a figurative action, indicative of the same truth, that there was to be a removal of the people far away. And we have one instance in the New Testament where Paul's girdle is taken: "Thus shall the man be bound," it was said by Agabus, "that owneth this girdle." It was a customary mode of instruction, ordained on the part of God to be used by His prophets and the teachers of the Hebrew people; and I suppose this act of Moses breaking the tables is the most striking and exemplary instance, as it stands at the head and is apparently the first. The breaking of the tables by God's mediator signifies to the people on God's part the abrogation of the covenant, and that, so far as He is concerned, He is not their God any longer, and will hide His face from them. Precisely the same in essence, I think, it is with another memorable instance recorded in the New Testament. When Christ died, when He said upon the Cross, "It is finished," "the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," and God said, "Let us go hence; this is no longer My house; this people is no longer My people." As there had been violation of the covenant by sin, there is repudiation of the covenant on the part of God. Finally, I think it intimates that the covenant upon the same principle should never be renewed, for the tables were broken in pieces. It was not simply in two pieces; they were probably smashed together in Moses' hand before they were dashed upon the ground; they were broken into shivers, so that the parts could not be brought together again. It was one offence which occasioned the expulsion from the garden — it is one offence which occasions the breaking of the tables of the covenant; and if there be one transgression in any moral agent, innocence is gone, guilt is come, and justification by the law is henceforth and forever an utter and profound impossibility. II. THE RENEWING OF THE TABLES. I suppose there is a mystery in it — that there is more intended than first meets the eye. Moses, you observe, is commanded to prepare fresh tables, and to come up to the mount with them in his hand. He is represented as doing this according to the Divine commandment; and, that you may understand the mystery and see the point distinctly which I am attempting to open to you, will you mark first the things that preceded the writing of the Ten Commandments again upon the tables which Moses brought. They were these. The sin of the people was forgiven; Moses interceded on their behalf, and God said, "I have pardoned them at thy word." Before the law is rewritten God takes the tables out of Moses' hand to do that work; He forgives the iniquity of His people; and I suppose that act of indemnity, that forgiveness on the part of God, was in connection with the ulterior and remoter sacrifice to be made for sin by the Son of God, when He should come in the flesh; and when He did come in the flesh He is said to have declared the justice of Deity, in the remission of sin. The Hebrew believers are especially said to have received the redemption of the antecedent ages, the forgiveness of their transgressions which they had committed under the old covenant, when Christ died, and they became established in the everlasting inheritance in consequence of that great truth and principle: and so sin, I think, has ever been remitted of God. God affirms His sovereign right — His right to condemn the guilty, His right to reprieve them according to His own infinite and glorious will. Here is forgiveness of sin and the affirmation of grace. Here is the promise of His presence. Moses said, "If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence"; God says, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." You will find this in the chapter which precedes the account of the rewriting of the law by the Divine finger upon the tables of stone. Then there is the showing of Godhead. Moses said, "I beseech Thee, show me Thy face"; and that remarkable vision in the cleft of the rock, Moses being put into it by God, and God passing by, him, I think the same may be said of it as was said in after ages respecting Isaiah's vision in, the sixth chapter of his prophecy — "These things said Moses, when he saw Christ's glory and spake of Him." Then there is the proclamation of the Divine name — "The Lord, the Lord God, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin"; and when that announcement is made it is said, "Moses bowed down and worshipped." Then, will you mark, here is the forgiveness of sin, affirmation of the Divine grace, promise of the Divine presence, showing of Christ's glory, proclamation of that amazing name, antecedently to the rewriting of the tables? — which proves, I think, that the rewriting of the law was not the going back to the old covenant, or making a second trial of that principle in relation to the Israelites, but that it was upon altogether different principles — the principles which are enumerated — free forgiveness, revelation of Christ, His presence in the midst of His people, His name full of mercy and love. And see the effect of this: He writes the law a second time; and upon these principles it is said, "Well, go and be obedient." For it strikes me that that is the great truth which comes out in the Gospel revelation and economy — not that we are to obey the law, and then make our appeal to God's grace and mercy, but that God, manifesting His grace and mercy in a free and overflowing salvation, then says, "Let My law be rewritten; go and obey it." Secondly, what was done with the second tables? The commands were unaltered; what was written on the tables was exactly the same; but what was done with the second tables? They were not exalted, like the brazen serpent, upon a pole: they were not used as a banner, floating before the eyes of the people as they advanced to their respective encampments — they were not, as Job desired his words might be, "written with an iron pen, and graven upon a rock forever"; none of these things was done, and nothing resembling them: they were put into the ark, the chest of which we read so much, and which was, I suppose, the very first article prepared by Moses under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. That chest represented, I think, Christ. The law, never kept by angels, never kept by man in his innocence, nor by man in his restoration, nor by any moral beings in the universe, as the law was kept by God's own Son; the law, then, was put into the ark. Christ obeyed not only for Himself in person, but as the Surety and Representative of His people; "He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." As I put the finger of faith on His person and on His life, I feel that He obeyed the law and kept the law for me. The law is in Christ fulfilled, and fulfilled for them whose cause He espoused and whose interests He had undertaken. Mark another thing. The lid upon that sacred chest was a plate of pure gold, upon which the blood of the sacrifice was to be sprinkled according to the Divine command. In order to the fulfilment of law, the rendering to law and justice everything that can be required, there are but two things. The first is, perfect obedience. If there be perfect obedience, the law is satisfied; but if the law be broken, the next thing is the penalty; and if the penalty is fulfilled, the law is satisfied and asks no more. Penalty and obedience, the only two things with which the law is conversant. We say that in Christ the penalty was paid: we say that the iniquities of man were transferred to Christ, and that He suffered for him — that "we have redemption through His blood." So I come to the blood of Christ for the expiation of my sins, put the finger of faith on His sacrifice, and feel that I am secure. Mark once more: upon this lid was the mercy seat — or, it constituted the mercy seat; and God said to Moses, "Come to the Mercy seat," and to all the people, "Come to the Mercy seat." Through that every communication was made from them to God, and from God to them; and from that hour to this — or to the clays of Daniel and the captivity — they turned their faces when they prayed towards God's presence, exalted and enthroned in grace and in mercy there. It betokened the great principle — "faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"; answering prayer in the exercise of consummate rectitude and justice, as well as of clemency, condescension, mercy, and grace. One thing more I notice; and that is, that upon either end of this plate of pure gold was the cherubic figure, in reference to which the Apostle Peter says, "which things the angels desire to look into, to the intent that to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places may be made manifest by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." I infer, from all I have said, that the renewal of the writing of the tables is not the renewal of the old covenant, but a representation of God's mercy and grace in Christ Jesus, as antecedent to the law being rewritten, and written upon the hearts and upon the consciences of men. I only note, further, what followed. After the rewriting by God's own finger Moses came down. How did he come down? With the glory upon his face, so that they could not steadfastly look upon him; and the apostle says it intimated that there were things intended which the Jews had not the capacity at that time to understand. It was not proper that they should know them. The veiling of Moses' face intimated the veiling of certain profound principles which were to have a future and after manifestation. Thus in the same way, I think, the breaking of the tables and the renewing of them intimates that the law never would be fulfilled but in Christ, and that it could not be safely enforced upon man — at least, it could produce nothing but condemnation — irrespectively of Christ and the obedience which He has already rendered. But what followed besides? The completion of the tabernacle in all its parts and proportions, the ordination of priests, the crossing the Jordan, the entering into the promised land — of which things we cannot now speak; but it comes out, I think, in most beautiful conclusion, that if these matters preceded the rewriting of the tables, and the tables then written were placed in the peculiar circumstances which the passage represents, and if such things transpired when this was done, then it is not the old covenant of works, but the new covenant of grace, mercy, and salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ; and so "the law is a schoolmaster, bringing unto Christ." ( J. Stratten. ) The tables of the law Canon Hutchings, M. A. 1. In the next verse it is said that Moses "made an ark of shittim wood" before going up into the mount with the two tables in his hand; whereas, according to the Book of Exodus ( Exodus 37:1 ), Bezaleel is said to have made the ark. Those who seek to trace contradictions in the Scriptures, or variety of authorship, of course, point out this "discrepancy." The obvious remark that one may be said to do what he directs another to do is probably a sufficient reply to this difficulty. 2. It is not, however, with the ark, but with the tables of the law, we are now concerned. 3. The delivery of the law, on the fiftieth day, according to the Jews, after the Exodus — an event celebrated by the Feast of Pentecost — reminds us of the contrast between the circumstances under which the old and the new law were promulgated. The thick cloud, the darkness, the thunder, the lightning, filled the Israelites with alarm. How very different are the approaches to God in the New Testament! ( Hebrews 12:18-24 .) But the same moral law is binding in both; and it is to this fact, God's condescension in writing a second time the words of the Decalogue, our thoughts are invited in the lesson. Let us consider some reasons for keeping the Ten Commandments; and then, how we are to obey them. I. REASONS FOR KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS. 1. They come from God. This may be said of the whole law, ceremonial and judiciary, as well as moral. But surely there is a difference. Not only were the Ten Commandments promulgated, as a French writer says, "avec eclat," and the people warned to prepare for the solemn event ( Exodus 19:10, 15 ), but they were given directly by God. The first tables were "the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven on the tables." The second tables were the work of man, but the writing was still the writing of God ( Exodus 34:1 ). They stand above the ceremonial law, as an abridgment of the duties of man, and are of lasting obligation. 2. They agree with the law written in man's heart. They are in full accord with our moral intuitions. The Divine Law was not a brand new code of ethics, but it was necessary, if man was to attain to a supernatural end. Moreover, man's moral sense was liable to be tampered with and impaired, so as at last to give an uncertain judgment: neither was it able to discern clearly always between good and evil; nor did it reach into the sphere of thought and motive. If man had been entirely dependent upon a written law, its promulgation would not have been delayed till the time of Moses. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that the Decalogue made murder, theft, adultery, and the like sinful. It forbade them because they were sinful. It fixed man's moral intuitions so that they could not be dragged down by human passion and selfishness. It made them clearer and more distinct. It clothed them with a new sanction and authority. 3. We find, when we examine the period before the law was given, a sense of the evil of the actions which it forbids. "Jacob said, Put away the strange gods that are among you." This is an anticipation of the First Commandment. Perhaps the previous observance of the Sabbath may be gathered from Exodus 16:23 . So the Sixth Commandment was already in force ( Genesis 9:6 ). Sins against purity were abhorred ( Genesis 34:31 ; Genesis 38:24 ), showing that the Seventh Commandment was no novelty. Joseph's brethren were shocked at being charged with stealing the cup ( Genesis 44:7 ). The sin of coveting "thy neighbour's wife" was evidently recognised by Abimelech as "a great sin" with regard to Sarah ( Genesis 20:9 ). All these statements — and there are others before the giving of the law — are witnesses to the moral light which God has given to man, irrespective of external guidance or enactment. 4. The moral law did not make sin to be sin, though it added to its malice; but it clearly revealed the amount of human transgression, which was veiled in a mist before. It was like a clinical thermometer which measures the height of the fever, which might have been unknown before. It reveals the temperature of the patient, and so the seriousness or lightness of the case. "By the law," says the apostle, "is the knowledge of sin" ( Romans 3:20 ). 5. Further, obedience to the moral law of God is necessary for salvation. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" ( Matthew 19:16, 17 ). St. Paul declares the same ( Romans 13:8, 9 ). Again, "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God" ( 1 Corinthians 7:19 ) St John the same ( 1 John 3:22, 24 ). II. HOW ARE WE TO KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS? 1. With the help of Divine grace. The law cast light upon the sinful principle in man, and by his inability to overcome it, aroused the sense of need and longing for a Saviour. Moses gave the law without the Spirit, says a commentator, but Christ gave both. Whilst on the one hand we realise that we can do nothing without grace; on the other, we must remember that we can do everything with it. 2. We have to keep all the commandments. Not nine out of ten. The commandments are not isolated precepts, so that the violation of one does not touch another. They form, if I may say so, an organic body of moral truth, as the Creed an organic body of dogmatic truth. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" ( James 2:10 ). 3. Christians have to read the commandments in the light of "the Sermon on the Mount," and so to see how deeply they cut. They not only touch the outward action, but thought and motive. III. LESSONS: 1. To seek by meditation upon the law of God to know how much that law demands of us as Christians. 2. To examine the conscience by the Ten Commandments, so as to discover, by the help of the Holy Spirit, wherein we have broken them — in thought, word, deed, or omission. 3. They are the way of life. ( Canon Hutchings, M. A. ) The Lord is his inheritance. Deuteronomy 10:9 The Lord the Christian's inheritance H. Hughes, M. A. The obvious meaning of having the Lord for our inheritance is, that we have dedicated ourselves to His service, that we have surrendered ourselves altogether to Him, the energies of the body and the faculties of the mind, to do His will and advance His kingdom and glory; again, that we have secured Him as our own forever, that we are attached to Him as a man to a possession which he cannot alienate; further, that we have, as it were, the use of the Lord God Almighty, that His perfections and His grace are guaranteed to us to be employed for our personal advantage; and, lastly, that we are in the actual enjoyment of those blessings which belong to living in a state of favour with the righteous Governor of the universe. I. IN LIFE the true believer realises the promise, and has the Lord for his inheritance. 1. Because he deliberately chooses Him in preference to the charms and allurements of the world. In proportion as he is separated from the world, does the Lord become his inheritance; he is more closely united to Him, and more exclusively employed in His service; he perceives the wisdom of his choice, tastes of the blessings that are at God's right hand, and finds a supply of all his wants from the fulness that is in Christ Jesus; that the Lord is his portion and his sole inheritance, he has taken Him for his own, and every other less perfect and substantial he has absolutely and utterly renounced. 2. The Christian has the Lord for his inheritance, in that all things are working together for his final salvation. 3. The true believer has the Lord for his inheritance, because he has the peace of God shed abroad in his heart. The voice of Christian experience is unanimous. God does not hide Himself from those whom He has given to His beloved Son. 4. The true believer has surrendered to him the Lord Christ Himself as his inheritance; he has Him for his own. It is the assurance of St. John that "he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life." II. But not only in this life, but also AFTER DEATH — not only in time, but also IN ETERNITY, has the Christian the Lord for his inheritance. He is not deprived of his portion by the separation of soul and body, by the change of scene, nor the commencement of a spiritual existence. Not only is it his own now, but also in the world to come. 1. For, first, He is eternally with him. Wherever is the heaven where Christ lives and reigns, there is the habitation of His chosen people. They are with Him where He is, they see Him as He is, they walk in the light of His countenance. 2. But the great truth stands out in all its excellency when we find it is the presence of the Lord that constitutes the believer's happiness and joy. Every joy and blessing of those blessed places originates in the fact, that we are to dwell in the presence of the Lord. His presence is the fountain and spring of happiness to every individual of His glorified Church.Conclusion: Let us bear in mind — 1. That whether we have made the Lord our inheritance must be the criterion of our hopes. To have no part in Him is to be an outcast from the promises, to live with the Divine wrath upon our heads. 2. Let us also seriously inquire, what will be the state of those in the next world who have not made the Lord their inheritance? Can their souls be conceived in any way capable of participating in heavenly joy? Is there anything in the circumstances or employments of redeemed spirits which can fill up the measure of their cup, and make them perfectly and forever blessed? ( H. Hughes, M. A. ) What doth the Lord thy God require of thee. Deuteronomy 10:12, 18 The true life of man Homilist. The true life of man is the life of practical conformity to Divine claims. All is summed up and expressed here. I. LOVING REVERENCE. 1. Fear of not acting worthily of the object of love. 2. Fear of offending the object of love. II. PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE. 1. God has "ways," that is methods of action — (1) In material nature. Acquaintance with these is what is called "science." (2) In moral mind. Acquaintance with these is the highest knowledge. Embodied in the life of Christ. 2. To walk in God's ways is — (1) The only righteous walk. (2) The only secure walk. (3) The only elevating walk. III. HEARTY SERVICE. 1. Perfect freedom. 2. Sunny cheerfulness. 3. Thorough completeness. All the powers fully employed. ( Homilist. ) Educated towards spirituality J. Parker, D. D. That was the Divine intention from the very beginning. God does not disclose His purpose all at once, but out of consideration for our capacities and our opportunities and our necessities He leads us one step at a time, as the wise teacher leads the young scholar. What wise teacher thrusts a whole library upon the dawning mind of childhood? A picture, a toy, a tempting prize, a handful to be going on with, and all the rest covered by a genial smile: so the young scholar passes from page to page until the genius of the revelation seizes him, and life becomes a sacred Pentecost. This thought supplies a standard by which to measure progress. What are we? To what have we attained? Are we still among the beggarly elements? Do we still cry out for a kind of teaching that is infantile and that ought to be from our age altogether profitless? Or do we sigh to see the finer lines and hear the lower tones and enter into the mystery of silent worship — so highly strung in all holy sensibilities that even a word jars upon us and is out of place under circumstances so charged with the Divine presence? Still keeping by this same line of thought, notice how the promises were adapted to the mental condition of Israel. What promises could Israel understand? Only promises of the most substantial kind. Moses addresses himself to this necessity with infinite skill ( Deuteronomy 10:22 ; Deuteronomy 11:11, 12 ). Still preserving the marvellous consistency of the whole economy, we cannot fail to notice how beautifully the sacrifices were adapted to the religious condition of the people. This explains the sacrifices indeed. What was the religious condition of the people? Hardly religious at all. It was an infantile condition; it was a condition in which appeal could only lie with effect along the line of vision. So God will institute a worship accordingly; He will say to Israel, Bring beasts in great numbers, and kill them upon the altar; take censers, put fire thereon; spare nothing of your herds and flocks and corn and wine; have a continual burnt offering, and add to the continual burnt offering other offerings great in number and in value. Israel must be kept busy; leisure will be destruction. There must be seven Sabbaths in the week, and seven of those seven must be specialised by fast or festival or sacred observance. Give Israel no time to rest. When he has brought one bullock, send him for another; when he has killed a ram, call for a thousand more; this will be instructive to him. We must weary him to a higher aspiration; to begin this aspiration would be to beat the air, or to speak an unknown language, or to propound a series of spiritual impossibilities. Men must be trained according to their capacity and their quality. The whole ceremonial system of Moses constitutes in itself — in its wisdom so rich, its marvellous adaptation to the character and temper of the times, — an unanswerable argument for the inspiration of the Bible. So far the line has been consistent from its beginning, what wonder, then, if it culminate in one splendid word? That word is introduced here and there. For example, in Deuteronomy 10:12 , the word occurs; in Deuteronomy 11:1 , it is repeated. What is that culminating word? How long it has been kept back! Now that it is set down we see it and acknowledge it; it comes at the right time, and is put in the right place: — "To love Him." ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Exhortation to serve the Lord E. Griffin, D. D. Who obeys this command? A part of my hearers obey it in some degree. They esteem God above every other object. They consider His glory as their highest interest, and communion with Him as their supreme happiness. It is their greatest grief that their treacherous hearts are so prone to wander from Him. Their most fervent desires pant after Him. And when in a favoured hour they find Him whom their "soul loveth," they hold Him fast and will not let Him go. I have no reproaches for these. But are all such? Would to God all were. But there is no service without love. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Supreme love to God will certainly produce self-denial for His sake. It will habitually avoid everything which He has forbidden, and obey, not a part, but all He commands. Supreme love will seek communion with its object more than any worldly pleasure. It will pant after Him and after greater conformity to Him; it will seek His glory as the highest interest; it will renounce the world and idols and cultivate a heavenly mind. Unless we have that which will produce all these effects, we have no supreme love to God; and if we have no supreme love, we have no love at all; and if we have no love, as there is no neutral state, we are His enemies. It was God that made you what you are, and put you into a world which He had richly furnished for your use. Have you nothing to do with Him, or He with you? Do you imagine that He created you and raised you so much above the brutes, and put you into a world on which He had expended so much labour, that you might wander from Him in the regions of darkness? that you might seek your happiness out of Him, and live in rebellion against Him? that you might spend your life only in preparing to live in this transitory state? or that you might live only to eat and drink? As God is true, He sent you into His world for the same end that a master sends a servan

10:1-11 Moses reminded the Israelites of God's great mercy to them, notwithstanding their provocations. There were four things in and by which the Lord showed himself reconciled to Israel. God gave them his law. Thus God has intrusted us with Bibles, sabbaths, and sacraments, as tokens of his presence and favour. God led them forward toward Canaan. He appointed a standing ministry among them for holy things. And now, under the gospel, when the pouring forth of the Spirit is more plentiful and powerful, the succession is kept up by the Spirit's work on men's hearts, qualifying and making some willing for that work in every age. God accepted Moses as an advocate or intercessor for them, and therefore appointed him to be their prince and leader. Moses was a type of Christ, who ever lives, pleading for us, and has all power in heaven and in earth. 10:12-22 We are here taught our duty to God in our principles and our practices. We must fear the Lord our God. We must love him, and delight in communion with him. We must walk in the ways in which he has appointed us to walk. We must serve him with all our heart and soul. What we do in his service we must do cheerfully, and with good will. We must keep his commandments. There is true honour and pleasure in obedience. We must give honour to God; and to him we must cleave, as one we love and delight in, trust in, and from whom we have great expectations. We are here taught our duty to our neighbour. God's common gifts to mankind oblige us to honour all men. And those who have themselves been in distress, and have found mercy with God, should be ready to show kindness to those who are in the like distress. We are here taught our duty to ourselves. Circumcise your hearts. Cast away all corrupt affections and inclinations, which hinder you from fearing and loving God. By nature we do not love God. This is original sin, the source whence our wickedness proceeds; and the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, Ro 8:5-9. Let us, without delay or reserve, come and cleave to our reconciled God in Jesus Christ, that we may love, serve, and obey him acceptably, and be daily changed into his image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. Consider the greatness and glory of God; and his goodness and grace; these persuade us to our duty. Blessed Spirit! Oh for thy purifying, persevering, and renewing influences, that being called out of the state of strangers, such as our fathers were, we may be found among the number of the children of God, and that our lot may be among the saints.