relationship and office, endeavour to render ourselves conformable to his likeness. For as he is the image of the invisible God, if we resemble him in purity, and holiness, and charity, that image will be in some sense communicated to us, and we shall be changed from glory to glory. A moral change like this is what the Apostle aims at, when he bids us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Such a change must take place if we look forward to that supernatural one, when the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.

SERMON VII.

MOSES' PROPHECY OF CHRIST.

DEUTERONOMY Xviii. 15.

THE LORD THY GOD WILL RAISE UP UNTO THEE A PROPHET FROM THE MIDST OF THEE, OF THY BRETHREN, LIKE UNTO ME; UNTO HIM YE SHALL HEARKEN."

IT is a remarkable circumstance, taken in connection with this prophecy of Moses, that when our blessed Lord was transfigured on Mount Tabor, Moses himself appeared there, and a voice from heaven was heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son: hear him." This was an open and audible testimony to the truth of what Moses had declared, pointing out, in the presence of the Jewish Lawgiver, the person of whom he spake, and repeating, as a solemn confirmation of their importance, the words of his prophecy which enjoined obedience to him. Our Saviour himself says, "Moses wrote of me;" indirectly referring to this very passage, for there is no other in the works of that distinguished Prophet, which bears so evident an allusion to the Messiah.

The Jews were accustomed to look upon Moses with peculiar veneration both as the founder of their national glory, and the greatest Prophet which their

nation had ever produced; and hence it could not but be a favourable mode of raising their expectations of the Messiah, and procuring for him a gracious reception among them, (had they not been blinded by sin and vanity,) to announce that he should resemble him in whom they trusted and believed. And though they saw not this resemblance, being judicially blinded, as is frequently mentioned in Scripture, yet it must have been very accurate and striking, for our blessed Lord says, "Had they believed Moses they would have believed me." Let us see, then, in what this obvious similitude consisted, that our faith may not stagger as theirs did, nor our refusal to hearken unto him be as terribly required at our hands.

There are three very interesting and important particulars in which Christ resembled Moses,-as a Saviour and Deliverer;—as a Lawgiver and Governor; -as a Mediator and Intercessor; but the likeness, though strong, was of a superior kind, and bespoke in all these respects a transcendent excellence of character.

I. First, then, they resembled each other in that they were both of them Saviours and Deliverers.

Moses was expressly appointed by God to undertake the rescue of his countrymen from the hands of Pharaoh, who had enslaved them by a cruel bondage. It is to be observed, that they had no means whatever of delivering themselves, and that

they were so bowed down by the oppressor's yoke, as to have lost all desire of attempting their own rescue, or even of availing themselves of the assistance of others towards it. For when, on some slight reverses after the first interview of Moses with the Egyptian monarch, they experienced only an increase of their toil, they ungratefully reproached the very man who had endeavoured to procure their freedom, with being the author of this additional suffering. And the same spirit manifested itself on frequent occasions afterwards, prompting them to prefer the slavery they endured to any struggle or inconvenience which attended their emancipation from it. At length their redemption was accomplished in a most surprising manner by Moses, who performed divers miracles and wonders in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, led them out with a high hand and stretched out arm, conducted them through the Red Sea, where, in the figurative language of the apostle, they were all baptized unto him, and after various vicissitudes and uncommon fortunes, brought them to the very borders of that place of refuge which he had promised them in the beginning.

Now, the typical character of all this wonderful proceeding had a literal accomplishment in the history of Jesus Christ. He received a commission from God at his baptism, by an audible voice from heaven, proclaiming him "The Beloved Son," and consequently the promised Seed of the woman who was to bruise the Serpent's head, and effect the redemption of mankind from sin and death. They

were in bondage to corruption, "sold under sin,” slaves of Satan, being fast bound in the fetters of that oppressor's yoke. And such was their incapacity to help themselves, and such their habits of servitude, that they wanted, not only the power, but the inclination likewise, to make any efforts towards their own recovery. "Being past feeling they gave themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." Christ, at length, effected their redemption by means the most awakening and impressive possible; by buying them back from perdition at the price of his own blood, offering up and laying down his precious life as a ransom and satisfaction to God for theirs, and so obtaining power to rescue them from the jaws of the devouring lion whose prey they were, and to carry them, through the waters of baptism, to a place of safety.

One cannot but admire the accuracy of the coincidence between the redemption of Israel by Moses, and the redemption of the world by Christ. The two events are evident parts of one grand scheme of Providence for the welfare of his creatures, and form together a striking and connected history. And if any thing can teach us the unity of God's counsels and the vastness of his designs; if any thing can prove to us the immense scale on which his operations are conducted, or the merciful kindness which lies at the root of every dispensation; if any thing can make us thankful and submissive, full of reverence and full of love, it must be the dwelling on such deliverances as these, and enjoying the full conscious