203

MORNING SEVENTEENTH.

LESSON.-Deuteronomy, Chapters iv. and v.

MAMA. I know not, my dear Mary, whether in reading over the many admirable precepts by which gratitude to God, and obedience to His laws, are in these chapters enforced on the Israelites you observed the injunction with which the first of them is ushered in, against "adding to or diminishing aught" of the "word" thus recapitulated by Moses; the literal fulfilment of which by the Jews forms so remarkable a contrast with that proneness to disobedience by which every page of their history is, more or less, unhappily marked.

The unadulterated preservation of the Hebrew Scriptures to our own day, amid rebellion, apostacy, and dispersion, is not among the least wonderful of the miracles which stamp the whole Jewish dispensation with the finger of God. And perhaps no means but those adopted in literal

compliance with the injunction above mentioned, could have secured against the bare possibility of alteration in later and more corrupt times, the moral precepts which still govern the conduct, and the precious promises and predictions which yet support and confirm the faith of the Christian world. Do you know what those singular means were?

MARY. No, Mama. How could they prevent words being put in or taken out, if their scribes and learned people chose?

MAMA. I will tell you. With labour and ingenuity we might style misdirected, had the result (as overruled by God), been less eminently beneficial, they early counted not only the verses but the words of which these Scriptures were composed; formed tables containing the initial letters of each paragraph, the number of times each single word occurred in the text, and the precise order of it, taken from both the beginning and end of the book in which it occurred,— so that any interpolation, however slight, was liable to instant detection among a people, whose minute acquaintance with the letter of their Divine law was a perpetual rebuke on their frequent disregard of its spirit.

To this apparently puerile anxiety about words and syllables, (originating in the precept of

Moses,) do we probably owe the descent to our day of those prophecies of a suffering Saviour, and the nature of His spiritual kingdom, which the pride and self-righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees would perhaps otherwise have swept from the records, as their glosses and traditions served to obliterate them from the minds of their countrymen.

But by what yet more important practical exhortation does Moses follow up his command respecting the letter of God's statutes and judgments, as rehearsed by him to the Israelites?

MARY. "Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom, and your understanding in the sight of the nations."-" For what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day ?"

MAMA. Well might Moses, (in the name of the Divine Lawgiver), ask this triumphant question! And before concluding our review of his writings, I hope to furnish you with its ample solution, by pointing out to you a few only of those "righteous judgments" and enactments, distinguished alike for equity and mercy, which raise the law of Moses as high above mere human institutions, as its great Author is exalted above the deities of paganism.

T

What portion of their law is, in the mean time, recalled to their more special remembrance?

MARY. What they heard" standing before God in Horeb." That means the Ten Commandments, does it not?

MAMA. Yes, Mary, that moral law which Christ came not to "take away but fulfil;" and whose immutable obligation, (typified by its inscription with the "finger of God" on tables of stone), has survived the abolition of the whole Jewish temporary economy. How does Moses skilfully draw from the circumstances of its delivery a caution against idolatry?

MARY. "Take therefore good heed to yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day the Lord spake out of Horeb." Mama, how odd and needless it seemed to warn them against making an idol like a creeping thing or a fish! How could it occur to any one that people would think so meanly of God?

MAMA. Such degrading conceptions would indeed appear impossible, did we not know that they abounded in heathen idolatry. But, remember, Mary, that though we no longer worship our Creator under the visible shape of the meanest of His works, the propensity to lower Him to our own corrupt level is as strong and fatal as ever. It is easy to sneer, in the mistaken

pride of our hearts, at the reptile gods of Egypt, but methinks there is something more rational and elevating at least, in the error (also here guarded against) of those heathen nations who worshipped their Creator under the symbol of that sun 66 walking in brightness," whose beneficial activity ages have not sufficed to impair, nor revolutions to incline from its steadfast course,than in that of the nominal Christian, who sets up for himself a God with more than the weaknesses of humanity,-One who can be offended with impunity, and "mocked" without resentment, who (like the idols of old) "hath eyes and seeth not,”—“ who saith and it is not' done," and "threateneth and it shall not' come to pass !"

But if even this primitive and most natural form of idolatry God has, we know, expressly reprobated, as estranging the soul from the great source of light and life, how can it be thought He will tolerate that more insidious modern

will-worship" which exalts the attribute of mercy at the expense of His other perfections, and still makes "God" (as was the pernicious tendency of too many heathen superstitions) the "Author of sin ?"

By what strong expression does Moses sum up his exhortations against idolatry, and corrobo