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And he said, I

fear not to go

Jacob. And he said, Here am I. am God; the God of thy father; down into Egypt; for I will make of thee a great nation. I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again."

If in the last vision, as was said, the subject opened beautifully in regard to the person; in the present it confirms again the great extent of his power. We refer to the declaration made to Abraham* of the captivity of his descendants in Egypt, and claim an identity both of person and authority in Him, who spake then to the Patriarch; now to Israel; and who brought up their posterity from their bondage in the land, whither, by His permission, their progenitor was now proceeding. If Christ be the Being who authorized the descent, he must also be the Redeemer who led them forth; and the connexion is thus preserved entire, not only during the four centuries of the captivity; but during many succeeding ages at least, after their re-establishment as a nation, in the promised land. Allow him once to intervene, and at what point shall the separation commence, between his acts of authority, and those of God the Father. At what point could the series of promises be broken off, all of which have the same character; the same language; the same substance; and the same end? Again we conclude all of Christ; and as if to fix the impression unalterably on our minds up to this period, the last words of the Patriarch declare that his Redeemer, and his Comforter, -the God of his fathers,--was the angel,-the Messiah. In his last blessing on his grandsons, Ephraim *Gen. xv. 13.

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and Manasseh, he thus confesses his faith: "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk; the God which fed me all my life long unto this day; the Angel which redeeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac."

Div. II.

We have at length reached the period, when the promises of Christ, which in their most extended sense had only received a partial accomplishment in the lives of the Patriarchs, shone out in their fulness under the legislation of Moses. The seventy persons who went down into Egypt with Jacob, have grown into a great nation. The land was filled with them; and so powerful had they become, that the king of Egypt confessed with great alarm, that the children of Israel were "more and mightier" than his own subjects. But although they had multiplied to this extraordinary degree, the monarch had no difficulty in bringing them into subjection, and keeping them in the most abject state of bondage. Their minds were peaceful; they lived separate from the Egyptians in their allotted land of Goshen; they mixed not in their wars and tumults; and followed still, like their forefathers, the tranquil life and occupation of shepherds. They were hence, proba

*Gen. xlviii. 15.

bly, unfitted to resist the encroachments of their oppressors, until they became the victims of so complete a tyranny, that it was wholly impossible to shake it off, unless supernaturally assisted. They cried therefore unceasingly to the Lord; "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant which he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."* He looked down upon the oppressed

nation, and had respect unto them.

Moses at this time kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He had pastured them in the plains at the foot of Mount Horeb. Forty years had passed, since he had fled from the court of Pharaoh in which he had been educated. The tranquillity of those years had calmed his passions, and matured his reason. He had from the first been destined by God as the deliverer of his people, and the time had arrived, when he had become equal to the embassy. The visible power of God, which had been so long withheld from the faithful was again manifested. to whom it was revealed. (JEHOVAH) appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

Moses was the person "The Angel of the Lord

Struck with the sight, Moses left his flock, and turned aside to see why the bush was not burned. "And when the Lord (JEHOVAH) saw that he turned aside to see, God (ELOHEEM) called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the * Exod. ii. 24.

place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The "God" who spoke is manifestly the "Angel" who appeared; the terms are synonymous. "Moreover he said, (the Angel said,) I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord (JEHOVAH) said; I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good land, and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey."

This is simply a Scriptural statement; and is of a character so plain in itself, and so much in unison with the reasoning that we have previously gone into, that we feel disinclined to add a single word, under the idea of strengthening it. We pass on; for it is immediately subsequent to this passage that we find, in answer to a question of Moses in regard to the name by which he should be addressed, that memorable confession,-by the same angel-"I AM THAT I AM. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."

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The angel was self-existent and eternal; he possessed in himself the incommunicable name of God. He had possessed it from everlasting; and it was his memorial to all future generations. We have in this avowal, as we conceive, a direct and simple intimation, that the representative of Jehovah (in

whom dwelt the fulness of the Godhead) to the Jews, is Christ, the Redeemer to the Christians. With this declaration of his Divine Nature in our minds, we turn to Christ's own language in answer to the captious questions of the Jews, as recorded by St. John. It is given in precisely the same form of words as that used to Moses: "Verily I say unto you, before Abraham was I AM."

In obedience to the command, Moses appears at the Court of Pharaoh. He demands the release of the captive and oppressed nation on the authority of "The Lord God of Israel." The proud and haughty monarch denies the authority, and casts forth the supplicant with menaces from his presence. The burthens under which Israel groaned are increased; and Moses, almost in despair, remonstrates with the Lord, who had sent him on the hopeless embassy.

The Lord comforts him in his distress of soul; renews his promises of succour and future triumph : and that he may remove every lingering doubt and hesitation from his mind, reveals to him His real unchangeable character and attributes (which is meant in his solemn designation of himself, as JEHOVAH) in a manner, which he had not heretofore done to any of the Patriarchs, to whom he had been made known. "And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord (JEHOVAH). And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name. JEHOVAH was I not known unto them. And And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, that land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. Wherefore say

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