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The passage under considera- | for the forgiveness of his own sins, on this occasion, is hardly consistent with his honesty. He virtually promised to attempt making an atonement for the people."And now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure I shall make an atonement for you. If he did not offer to make an atonement, when he went up and presented his petition, we have no evidence that he was true to his promise.

tion, suggests two enquiries. 1. For what did Moses pray? 2. Can his prayer be reasonably justified? 1. For what did Moses pray No one can doubt, that he besought God to forgive his people: but what did Moses mean by saying, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book? Perhaps his meaning may be ascertained, by attending to the following observations. 1. That idolatrous generation, for which Moses was interceding, was afterwards blotted out of the same book, out of which he prayed, that himself might be blotted. Moses said, Blot me out of thy book. God replied, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Thy and my refer to the same being, and agree with the same word, book All mankind had sinned; but God here alludes to those who were guilty of worshipping the golden idol. Them,

He said, He would blot out of His book. The declaration was fulfilled. Hence,

2. Moses did not, as Mr. Pool supposes, pray that he might be blotted out of God's works, or annihilated. Those idolaters were not blotted out of God's works. If they were not annihilated, God did not threaten to annihilate them. If He did not threaten to annihilate them, Moses did not pray to be annihilated.

The occasion of his prayer, renders it still less credible that he prayed to be forgiven. The occa

sion

ple.

was the idolatry of the peoIn this sin Moses took no part. This was the sin which God had been threatening to punish, and the only sin which would naturally engage the attention of Mo

ses.

The guilt and danger of his people apparently engaged his fixed attention. Having fasted and prayed for them forty days and forty nights, he severely rebuked their wickedness, and again went up to the Lord, and renewed his request. It is unreasonable to suppose, that he forgot his main and professed object, and abruptly turned his attention to himself, even before he had completed his first sentence.

It is difficult to conceive what reason he had to pray for his own forgiveness at that time. He knew that his own sins were forgiven: for God had promised to make of 3. Moses did not, as Mr. Fir-him a great nation, and was even min supposes, pray to be blotted then, showing him a token of peout of the page of history. The culiar favour, by conversing with him face to face. page of history, is written by man. Moses prayed to be blotted out of the book which God had written. Besides: The children of Israel were not blotted, that we know, out of any literal book. Perhaps, 4. Moses did not, as the author of the exposition in the last number supposes, pray that his sins might be blotted out, or forgiven. To suppose that Moses prayed

If Moses prayed to be forgiven, then God promised to forgive the people. The Lord answered Moses and said, "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book." If Moses prayed that his sins might be blotted out, then God here promised to blot out the sins of the people.That the people were eventually

forgiven, is accordingly maintain- | into the land of Canaan: Moses

ed by the author of the exposition in question. If it can be clearly shown, that those idolators were not forgiven, his hypothesis falls to the ground. The principal argument on which the hypothesis rests, is this. If God had not forgiven the people, He would not have directed Moses to lead them into Canaan. "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book: Therefore, now, go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee." God's determination to destroy the people, it is said, could have been no reason, why He should give such a direction to Moses. To obviate this difficulty, I would observe,

might be directed to go before them. The threatening itself was on reason, but the promise implied in the threatening, was a good reason, why such a direction should be given. Hence,

3. God did hear Moses, as it is said by him in Deut. ix. 19: “But the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also." God did not grant all that Moses desired: but God did grant what Moses most desired. He was desirous that the idolaters should be pardoned; but more peculiarly desirous that the nation should not be exterminated. Though he did not obtain the former request, he obtained the latter. If these observations be just, then the author's arguments are unavailing. Admit that it was not their idolatry which shut that generation out of Canaan; that Moses was heard, in behalf of the nation; that this sin,, considered as a national offence, was forgiven; or that the nation was not on this

mination; it by no means follows, that the individual offenders were forgiven. They were not forgiven;

for

1. That God bestows many temporal blessings, on vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction. Through Moses' intercessions, He might bear long with an idolatrous generation, without revoking a determination to blot them, even out of the book of life. Without forgiv-account punished with utter extering their sin, God might have brought them into Canaan. But, 2. God might have directed Moses to lead the people into Canaan. even though he had immediately 4. They were given over to destroyed all the risen generation. moral, judicial blindness. Said The generation rising, were pro- the Martyr Stephen, "They made bably by far the more numerous. a calf, in those days, and offered They were indeed sinners, but sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoicthey were not guilty of worship-ed in the work of their own hands. ping the idol. Moses prayed, that Then God turned and gave them God would not cut off the people up to worship the host of heaven." from being a nation; and that he Accordingly they were uniformly would forgive this sin. By ex-distinguished for their impiety and pressing His determination to blot wickedness. They were bent those who had sinned, out of His to backsliding. "How oft did book, God virtually promised to they provoke Him in the wilderspare the rest. Though He refus-ness, and grieve Him in the desed to forgive this sin, He virtually ert? Yea, they turned back, and promised not to visit, in this in- tempted God; and limited the Hostance, the iniquities of the fathers ly One of Israel." They never upon the children. Israel was reformed. Though, "They renot to be cut off from being a na- turned and enquired early after tion: the people might still be led God-they flattered Him with

blotted out, of either the book of
God's remembrance, or the book
of His decrees.
If in his prayer,
Moses referred to the book of
God's remembrance, then he must
have prayed either that God would
blot his sins out of that book, or
that God would forget that he ev-
er existed. We have seen that
Moses did not ask the former. If
he asked the latter, he asked what
God was both naturally and mor-
ally unable to do, and what was
undesirable both in itself and on
the whole; which Moses cannot
be supposed to have presumed to
ask. If he prayed to be blotted
out of the book of God's decrees,
he must have prayed that God
would become perfectly regardless
of him, and suffer him to drop in-
to annihilation. That Moses did
not pray to be annihilated, has
been already shown.

their mouths, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with God; they continued not in His covenant." They were not forgiven, therefore, for God does not forgive those, whom He gives over to hardness of heart and a reprobate mind. 4. They died unbelievers."With whom was He grieved forty years; but with those who believed not, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? The finally unbelieving are never forgiven, but go away into everlasting punishment. Hence it is said by the Apostle, To whom swear He in His wrath, that they should not enter into His rest; but to them who believed not? It is added, "They could not enter in, because of unbelief." Though they heard the gospel, "The word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." God said to Moses; "In the day that I visit, I will visit their sin." He said, "I will not go up into the midst of thee, lest I consume thee in a moment, for thou art a stiff-necked people." Therefore, "The Lord plagued the people," Moses referred to the book of the and sent great numbers of them living; then God said he would immediately to hell. Others were blot him that had sinned, or every spared, not to be benefitted by the idolater out of the same book of the gospel, but to fill the measure of living: that is, He threatentheir iniquities, and to be made ed to bring that idolatrous genemonuments of Divine justice.-ration to an untimely end. But most They were not forgiven, therefore; for whom God justified, them He also glorified. They failed of glory, and could not have been the subjects of justification, or forgiveness. If they were never to be forgiven, God did not promise to forgive them. If He did not promise to forgive them, when He said He would blot them out of His book; then Moses, in praying to be blotted out of that book, did not pray to be forgiven. Therefore,

5. Moses did not pray to be

6. Moses did not pray to be blotted out of the book of the living, merely. To be blotted out of the book of the living is not merely to die, or meet the common lot of all men. It is to meet an untimely death. If in his prayer

of that generation probably died natural deaths. If they all met an untimely death, it was not intended in this threatening. For had they not afterwards rebelled, on the report of the spies, the sin here threatened had not even shut those who were then living out of the land of Canaan. If God did not threaten their untimely death, then Moses meant something more, than the book of the living.

"If Moses did not pray to be annihilated; nor pray to be blotted out of any literal book; nor pray

Though the great body of professing Christians admit the morality and perpetuity of the holy Sabbath, and regard the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath; yet they entertain different opinions respecting the hour at which the Sabbath begins. Some think it begins with the setting of the sun, on the evening of Saturday; some think it begins at midnight; others, again, think it begins at the rising of the sun on the morning of the first day. It is important that this point should be settled; for, while Christians differ respecting it, they necessarily interfere with one another. Those who keep the evening preceding