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pressly declared to have been by direct Revelation. Of the guidance of the people, every successive step is equally by the direct command of Heaven. And, apparently, for the purpose of sustaining him with that wisdom, by which alone he was to be guided day by day; the mysteries of the Divine communication are declared to be suspended, in his instance, and Moses alone is to be answered, "face to face," "not in dark speeches," but as "friend with friend."

In the thronging perplexities of his civil govern ment, he enters the tabernacle, and supplicates knowledge from Him, "that sitteth between the cherubim." In the rebellions of the tribes, he spreads out his hands to Heaven; and awaits its protecting plagues and fires. In the battle, he kneels within sight of the host, and brings down victory by prayer. Even in so simple an act of authority, as the movement of the Israelite camp from an exhausted pasture, or a failing well, he exerts no choice, he is still dependent on the superior guidance. He waits, for months, or years, the rising of the pillar of cloud and flame; and then instantly strikes the tents of Israel, and follows the "glory of the Lord" through valley, plain, and mountain.

Yet this character, though so totally separated from the qualities which constitute eminence in the common strifes of mankind; and exhibiting no trace of the self-prompted and daring decision

which wings the hero across the height and depth of human things, may be essentially of a much higher elevation. The noble obedience of Moses, born of gratitude, faith, and love, may be immeasurably more dignified than the mortal mixture of earth's mould, that shapes the man, fittest for the general successes of a violent, bitter, crafty, and cruel world. The qualities of the triumpher must too often be like the qualities of his instruments and his victims. But great talents are themselves among the most powerful temptations. The prizes of the world are made for them; and the very intensity of their gaze at the object of their ambition prevents them from discovering the depths between; there is no humiliation in whatever gains the end; the arrogant and rebellious spirit, bound on his voyage to supremacy, as eagerly "shaves with level wing the deep," as "soars up to the burning concave."

Yet what were human honours or abilities to the man who stood before the ETERNAL; who dwelt with Him in his clouds and thunders; and who returned among mankind with the visible glory on his brow, a more illustrious diadem than was ever worn by kings! Of all the sons of Adam, Moses was the most highly honoured by God— and yet his simple merits are within the power of every man that lives.

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THE history of Israel, from the death of Moses to the close of the theocracy, by the anointing of Saul as king; was a continual alternation of popular crimes and popular repentance, of heavy inflictions and signal deliverances. The besetting sin of the Israelite was idolatry; and this crime, as above all others, extinguishing the benefits and the nature of true religion, was visited with unfailing punishment. Yet the Divine mercy was so much superior to the national guilt, that in the long career of almost five centuries, scarcely less than four can be assigned to general prosperity and protection. The separate Tribes were often severely scourged; and the national suffering increased from the time of Abimelech, who first dared to insult the spirit of the theocracy, and who earned an abhorred and a brief throne, and an ignominious death, by the insult. But the theocracy was, in its general aspect, the happiest period ever known by Israel.

And the prophet Samuel was fatally justified in upbraiding the folly and ingratitude which exchanged the lofty long-suffering of their Divine Monarch, for the caprices and severities of an earthly king.

But, culpable as the change was, it was bent to the purposes of Providence. The conquest of Canaan was still incomplete; the national worship was still to derive final strength, purity, and splendour, from the building of a Temple; the several commonwealths of the Tribes, often jarring, and always jealous, were still to be compacted into the form and united energy of a nation. It is not improbable that this consolidation of the state had some reference to the renewed strength of the Babylonian empire, and the shape of vigour which all the nations surrounding Palestine were already tending to assume. It is no contradiction to this idea, that Israel so soon rendered herself unfit to perform her share in the new system of security. Providence often submits to be repelled by the folly of man; but it is at his peril. To establish the powerful, compact, and warlike state, essential to meet the change in the Oriental governments; if not also to meet the growth, remote as it was, of those more memorable governments, which, from Greece and Italy, were yet to flood Asia with war; the gentle influence of the priest, and the intermitted authority of the Judge, were not the natural means.

The three great successive operations, of combining the provinces into a kingdom; of completing the subjugation of those enemies which still usurped a place in the land; and of establishing the national law and religion in magnificent supremacy; seem to have been expressly provided for in the characters of the three successive sovereigns; Saul, ambitious, arbitrary, and jealous of power; David, popular, daring, and indefatigable in war; and Solomon, pacific and splendid, kingly in his nature, at the head of intellectual distinction, and devoting all his better years to the grandeur of his kingdom and his religion.

The period appointed to each of the three ope rations was accurately equal; each monarch reigned forty years'.

But the sleepless vigilance of the Divine government is the perpetual lesson of Scripture. The change of the theocracy had been distinctly announced five hundred years before by the lips of Moses'; and ordinances had even then been given to provide against its prominent evils. Those ordinances were, that the king should be chosen according to the declared election of God; that he should not be a foreigner; that he should not sin by the habitual polygamy of Paganism; nor amass

1 Acts xiii. 21; 2 Sam. v. 4.; 1 Kings xi. 42.

'When thou art come into the land, which the Lord thy God giveth, and shalt possess it, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me. Deut. xvii. 14.

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