the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in his exaltation to the right hand of God, thence to come at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead. So that if we would fully satisfy the highest sense of all prophecy, if we would give it its entire fulfilment, we must seek for it necessarily in Him in whom all the promises of God, as St. Paul says, are found to be true; who being alone perfectly righteous, has alone shown to us, by his resurrection from the dead, that good shall perfectly triumph, and the restoration of the seed of the woman shall be complete.

This of course might furnish us with matter to engage not minutes only, but hours and days. I can but notice now, in conclusion, how it illustrates the great stress always laid by the Apostles upon the fact of Christ's resurrection. That fact was the real fulfilment of all prophecy, the great assurance of all hope; the great proof that evil should not triumph, that the serpent's head should be bruised indeed. Other events, lesser mercies, earthly deliverances, are in part the subject of prophecy, and in part its fulfilment. But its language, the language of hope in God, naturally goes beyond these; it assumes a tone of unmixed confidence, it speaks of such an over measure of good, as far surpasses man's virtue on the one hand, or his earthly prosperity on the other. And therefore, it seeks elsewhere its real fulfilment it tar

ries not on those lower heights which would receive it on its first ascent from the valley, but ascends and aspires continually to the mountain of God, to rest only at his right hand, when it has found Him who is there for ever exalted, Jesus Christ, both God and man.

RUGBY CHAPEL,

February 22nd, 1835.

(Sexagesima Sunday.)

SERMON III.

MOUNT SINAI AND MOUNT SION.

EXODUS, iii. 12.

This shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

In the chapter from which these words are taken, we have the first beginning of what may be called the earthly redemption of God's Israel, as in the accounts of our Lord's birth, in the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke, we have the beginning of the spiritual redemption of Israel. It is very desirable to bear in mind, wherever it is pos sible, in reading the Old Testament, the connexion of what we there read with ourselves and our own condition, lest we should regard it merely as so much past history, and separate it too much from any direct interest of our own. Now, the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt was not merely a great deliverance for a particular people; here, as

in so many other instances, the Israelites were the ministers of good to us. For if we consider how they had lived in Egypt, and for how long a time, that they must have generally lost all remembrance of their fathers, the patriarchs, and have greatly forgotten the God of their fathers, we shall see how hardly the knowledge of God could have been preserved amongst men, had not the Israelites been separated from amongst the Egyptians, and settled by themselves in a land of their own. And had it not been for the knowledge of God possessed by the Israelites, and spread through them, and through their Scriptures, amongst the adjoining nations, it does not appear how there could have been any soil prepared to receive the seed of fuller truth, when the Gospel itself was in its due season revealed to mankind.

This being considered, will give us a much deeper interest in that particular part of the Scripture history which will be read for the next two Sundays, as well as to-day. And in taking the several passages of the lesson for this morning, the words of the text seemed to me to contain much that was deserving of notice. For, first, the words may not be at first clear to every one, and so may require to be explained; and then, when we have explained them, they lead us to consider one of the most striking parts of God's dealings with the Israelites; and thence, as his dealings with the

Israelites, in the old covenant, have almost always some analogy or resemblance to his dealings with us under the new covenant, they lead us also to consider a very striking part of the dispensation of the Gospel.

First then, let us try to explain the words, "This shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." How was the mere fact, that Moses should bring the people to worship God on that mountain, to be a token to him that God had sent him? because, if he led them thither in obedience to God's command, it could not be properly a token to him that that command was from God, but rather a proof to the people that he believed it to be so. But in the words, "ye shall serve God upon this mountain," there is more meant than that the Israelites should come there to offer their sacrifices. The meaning is, that God would, as it were, meet them on that mountain; that when they worshipped Him there, He would be found by them; that His presence would be shown to them so manifestly, that Moses and all the people should know that He whom they worshipped, and He by whom they had been delivered out of Egypt, and who had called Moses from tending sheep to be the leader of his people, was indeed the Lord of heaven and earth, the one Eternal God.