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By
S. S.
No. IV.
From the Exodus to the Delivery of the Law at Sinai.
The pen of the sage and the poet have essayed to
depict, in language befitting the sublimity of the
subject, those great cli<<453>>macterics in Bible
history, when the Most High made his power and
glory visible to the sons of men, for the purpose of
instructing them in such great truths as should be
sealed in their hearts, and indelibly impressed
within their inmost souls, and when minor means
would have failed to effect this object. But what
sage, what poet has at all approached the simple and
majestic narrative of our great prophet, or his
detail of those events preceding and succeeding the
redemption of Israel from Egyptian bondage?
How can a finite pen describe those wondrous
miracles? How picture forth in proper colours the
mercy, the forbearance, and the love of that
Omnipotent Being, who carried Israel as on eagles’
wings forth from the house of their captivity; who
with more than a mother’s love for her first-born
soothed them in their waywardness, with an immortal
patience bore their ungrateful murmurings, and with
unceasing kindness supplied their every want?
When we reflect upon this epoch in the annals of our
race—when we call up before us the vision of that
time when our ancestors daily beheld an actual
manifestation of the Supreme; for the pillar cloud
departed not though the sun shed his rays around
them, neither did the pillar of fire cease to give
light when day had withdrawn her beams: how humbled
and yet how elevated does this contemplation leave
us? Humbled, for the little spirituality displayed
by our ancestors in their conduct; and our faith
elevated, because had not our Redeemer found even
then something good in the descendants of Abraham,
those mercies showered around them with a hand so
unsparing, would have been withheld; and was not
every murmur a means through which was displayed in
greater glory the power of the Omnipotent? Israel
might have drunk from the wells of the field, had
they not tempted the Lord to cause water to flow
from the flinty rock. They might have eaten of the
products of nature, had not their cry ascended to
God, who, to prove them, and show to us that
Providence was quite equal, when faith was not
wanting, for the supplying of our daily
wants—miraculously fed them by a daily supply. The
pillar of cloud and of fire are no
<<454>> longer
beheld visibly by the eye; yet the purified
imagination, more powerful than the magicians of
Pharaoh, can summon its presence; and though the
Voice that spoke to Israel in the wilderness is now
silent to our corporeal organs, by the ear of faith
its low, penetrating sound is still heard. At the
dawn of the morning it whispers, “Hear, O Israel!
all the goodness that the Lord has done for thee;”
in the silence of midnight it utters, “The Lord
still is thy Saviour and Shield.” It penetrates the
mists of ages with a calm and holy light, steadfast
and clear as that of the polar star. It dispels the
gloom of superstition, and says, “To sanctify you to
me, to teach you how to be pure and holy, did I
descend in the olden time, and showed you the
greatness of my mercies, my long-suffering,
kindness, goodness, and truth; and as then I
pardoned Israel when they turned from their
backslidings, though grievous and many, my hand is
not shortened, nor is my forgiveness withheld from
the repentant and sorrowful heart.” Oh, that Israel
had but full faith in the Lord, and would lay their
sins and sorrows at the footstool of His throne!
Before discussing the moral and civil laws
proclaimed at Sinai, it will be necessary to take
into consideration the state of the human mind as
then developed, what were its inclinations, and the
vices and faults to which it was addicted, ere
revelation pointed out in detail the rules of its
future government. Except in one race polytheism
reigned rampant—not a worship as elevating in its
tendency as that of the Sabeans, who bowed down
before the hosts of heaven as visible
representations of omnific power; but a debasing
adoration of beasts, of reptiles, and of images. It
was, therefore, necessary not only to proclaim the
unity of God; but His incorporeality
and eternal self-existence, His unity in
antagonism to the polytheistic belief, His
incorporeality as opposed to the likeness of
anything in the heavens above, or the earth beneath;
and His eternity as antagonistic to anything formed
or created. Nor was the worship then existing
confined in its effects to the spiritual tendencies
of man; it debased alike his whole conduct and
nature as a social being. Their gods were to be
found in their temples, and there only; and,
consequently, could not take cognizance of the evils
com<<455>>mitted elsewhere. There was, therefore, a
strong necessity of giving a correct impression of
the omnipresence of the true God, In order that the
conduct of his creatures should be at all times both
just and pure, so as to give no offence to that Holy
Being who saw their every act, who read their every
thought. The ideas of right and wrong were still
undefined. The strong made the laws, the weak obeyed
them, and the king was the only omnipotent power
known to their misguided understandings. The
miracles which took place in the presence of Pharaoh
annihilated this belief—the wealth bestowed upon the
disenthralled showed that the rights of persons must
be respected; and the instantaneous exhibition of a
superhuman power proved that man, that nature
itself, existed only by the will of its Creator.
The law then was to teach these fundamental
truths:—that the Omnipotent and Eternal God was the
sole Creator and Preserver of all things; that man
could only acknowledge his gratitude towards his
Creator by an implicit obedience to his commands;
that he could only render himself fit for his
presence by the utmost purity in his thoughts and
person; that to render himself thus pure, it was not
only necessary to do but to abstain; to do those
things commanded by God, and to abstain, from doing
those things which he had prohibited; and that we
could not render ourselves acceptable to God without endeavouring to promote to the extent of our
capabilities the happiness of our fellow-beings in
their individual and social capacity. |
