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Moses, A Biblical Study

By J. J. Van Oosterzee

Chapter 12

The Decease.

'So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died.'¹ — Deut. xxxiv. $a,

'Mark the perfect, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.'² Could David, in his later years, have ever given an advice which, if but faithfully regarded, will produce as much good fruit? Tell me of any sight possessed of more impressiveness, solemnity, or greater comfort, than the deathbed of a servant of the Lord. The life, indeed, of one who fears the Lord may well be called a school of wisdom, a mirror of God's faithfulness, a revelation of His glory. Nevertheless, it is his death especially that shows to us the riches of God's grace towards His people, with a lustre never elsewhere seen. If the Christian's life has been a battle, death is the hour of victory; and if the path of God's own children often runs through cloud and gloom, a kindly light dawns at the end. Just as, in the realm of nature, when a cloudy, sultry day draws to its close, the evening sun not seldom scatters forth its friendly rays, so also, in the spiritual life, it often is the closing days that turn out best. Then faith displays her power to conquer everything; then love casts tender glances everywhere; then hope spreads out her wings in all their wide extent; and there appears to be realization of the words, 'Surely the bitterness of death is past! Nor is It wonderful that what is stated in the Scriptures, in connection with the death of the most eminent among the men of God, has at all times obtained particular attention, unmistakeable regard. The contemplation of the death of one who fears the Lord bears with it such a blessing as we can but roughly estimate; and Abel, who first fell on sleep, assuredly was not the only one to whom is due the praise, that after he himself is dead he still speaks by his faith. What one of you has never listened to the language of the pious dead, the oldest of all languages with which we are acquainted in the world? And — not to mention any other names — who can behold a Jacob, and an Aaron, or a David, or a Simeon, depart in peace, without thus praying from the bottom of his heart, 'Let my latter end be like his '? A hundred arguments regarding the reality and worth of faith avail far less for our conviction than one testimony, borne by almost fainting lips, of peace, and joy, and hope. Even the most prosperous of worldly men must feel some envy of the dying Christian, who knows whom he believes. And though we were devoid of every other proof, there still would echo, from the habitations of the dead, the loud 'Amen 'in answer to the words of praise, 'He that is our God is the God of salvation, and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.'³

Must we, then, still crave your attention, when we are about to point you now to Moses' death? We feel quite sure there is no need for that; we only fear that it will scarce be possible fully to satisfy the expectation with which you open the last page of his earthly history. Throughout the course of these our contemplations, you have looked on many scenes of the most elevating character; but assuredly, that moment when there was pronounced on Moses the inexorable sentence which he has himself recorded for all time, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,' — this far transcends all else in calm sublimity. Moses in death: — the picture can, perhaps, be fully painted, as it should, only by one of those ambassadors of Heaven, who, on the lonely top of Nebo, though themselves unseen, yet were the witnesses of his decease. What more shall we add to that remarkable account, appended by a later hand to the Fifth Book of Moses, and containing the most unequivocal marks of its full reliability, and of its having come from God? It would be easier, with Israel, to look upon this death with reverential silence, than to answer all the questions that present themselves for our consideration here. Further, we cannot here decline to cast a glance upon the closing incidents in Moses' life. And least of all would you desire that we should silently omit all reference to the memorial in his honour, for which the closing verses of this chapter have expressly been composed. With such abundance of material, it would be difficult to gather everything into a single sermon, if the text did not exactly show us from what point of view the whole could be regarded as a unity. Suppose that Moses' grave could still be pointed out, and that he had to choose the words of the inscription to be placed on it: do you not think that he would most desire the honourable appellation given here, 'Moses, the servant of the Lord '? Then let us here employ this honourable name, and view the death of Moses, with all the incidents therewith connected, as the death of the servant of the Lord. Here we are shown, in the most striking way, and by a multitude of proofs, how blessed and sublime may be the death of him who serves the Lord in uprightness of heart. Come with us while we now — more fortunate than Israel, who were obliged to stay behind — in thought ascend to Nebo's top. If any ask, 'What profit can be found in serving God? 'the sight of such an one as Moses at his death can soon dispel his doubt. Or if another, upright but most timid, trembles at the near approach of death, Moses can teach him how faith overcomes the fear of death. And if there be a third — but why should we anticipate the full enunciation of the lessons which this very hour shall bring before our minds? Come, see for yourselves how the servant of the Lord (a) awaits his death; (b) submits to death; (c) survives his death.

With all the strange and the peculiar features that distinguish Moses' latter years and death from those of every other man, it will be evident both how and why the righteous servant of the Lord can, from the nature of the case, still die like him. The contemplation will itself cause us to feel the need of looking earnestly to our own end, now drawing near. And Thou, God of all grace, teach all of us to live before Thee, that we may hereafter die with Thee, the Lord. Let Christ become our life, then death shall certainly become our gain. Amen.

'It shall come to pass that, at evening-time, it shall be light.'⁴ May we not confidently say that these words of a later seer were abundantly fulfilled to Israel's greatest prophet? Mark, first, the way in which this servant of the Lord awaits the stroke of death. What persevering industry precedes that death! And what grand promises of blessing give announcement of that death!

It is sad to see a person who has long outlived himself. When the senses have begun to cease performance of their necessary offices, and the head, once vigorously raised aloft, bends daily nearer to the ground; when the hand no longer can be used to hold the plough, and the feet but totter at each step which they attempt to take: then, frequently, a feeling of deep pity seizes us, and we begin to say, that an extreme old age cannot be absolutely called a blessing after all. The sight affects us still more deeply when we know that this old man, now in his dotage, was a faithful servant of the Lord, and willingly would be so still, but now is quite incapable of working in His vineyard any more. The Lord has spared His servant Moses so severe a trial as this. He is cut off, indeed, full seventeen years before the age at which his father Amram died; but he already has far passed the term of years for which most men were then allowed to live, and yet he still remains in all his strength and love of work. 'Moses,' as we read in the 7th verse, 'was an hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim,' — a fact the more remarkable when we reflect how much that organ must have suffered in a desert life of forty years at least, through constant blazing of the sun upon the crystal sand, — 'nor was his natural force abated.' To none in Israel has he become the object of commiseration, but to all he still remains the subject of regard. If he is now less nimble in his gait, he still remains as firm as when he left vexed Egypt at the head of myriads; if his heart does not now beat more quickly than before, it still beats warm towards the Lord and Israel. Some weeks have now gone by since Aaron has been gathered to his forefathers; but even the want of one who seemed to have been indispensable could not cause Moses' energy, in his last days, to slacken in the least degree. The stately cedar-tree, inexorably marked for cutting down, presents to every passer-by the fatal cipher; still, his course is not yet run, his roots are firmly fastened in the earth. Moses is fully conscious that his life is bounded on the one side by the Nile, and on the other by the Jordan; nevertheless, so very far is even this certain prospect of his death from bringing gloom and heaviness upon his soul, that he now plainly sets himself to make the most of those last hours of life that are appointed him. It is well-nigh incredible what we still see him — as if with one foot in the grave — accomplishing within the weeks immediately before his death. An expedition is begun against the Midianites, and crowned with the desired success.⁵ Solemn assemblies of the elders of the people are convened; the law is read anew to them; the history of recent years, too, is rehearsed; and there is pleading for God's right to Israel's highest gratitude and love. Even as an aged father scarcely can allow his darling boy to leave his arms, afraid lest, after his decease, the child will tread the sinner's path, so Moses here exhorts and warns his Israel in tones of deep solicitude. In all this we can easily perceive that, from his sad experience of Israel in the past, fear, infinitely more than hope, as to their future, fills his heart; yet this does not, even for an instant, keep him from presenting to their minds, in God's name, life and death, the blessing and the curse. Further, he gives command that, after Israel shall have reached the Promised Land, they shall erect large stones upon Mount Ebal, plaster them with lime, and write thereon the words of the law. Moreover, he himself puts all these latest prophecies and lessons in a book, and gives command that this, his legacy, committed to the keeping of the Levites, shall be publicly and solemnly read every seven years. Again, he introduces Joshua to the assembled Israelites as his successor, and encourages his heart by promising God's help and presence in his work.⁶ And finally, when, after this, God in His majesty had made a revelation with regard to the unfaithfulness that soon would show itself among the Israelites, and which demanded yet another warning, as a final and, if possible, a more impressive one, — then he gives utterance, before the people, to the grand and noble Song, preserved in chapter thirty-second, which, in the boldness of its flight, perhaps by far transcends all else we know of even Moses' poetry. Only when this song also has been uttered, heard, and written down, that it may be a witness unto all posterity, does he consider that his earthly task has been fulfilled. Nay, even after this last, dying song, there is heard once more the solemn, earnest exhortation (vers. 46, 47) to lay all these things to heart, and to impress them also on their children's minds. Ye friends of Moses, do you think his vital powers are here diminished, or, on the other hand, that they have now developed to their highest point? Well done, thou good and faithful servant, who dost thus, with girded loins and burning lamp, await the Master's coming, — not content with simple watching, but engaged in working, ay, and winning too, so long as even a single breath remains upon these sacred, blessed lips! Thus to be found (but not surprised) by death, while even our latest efforts are employed in serving Him to whom the whole of life was dedicated — may not this indeed be called a death of which you almost envy Moses? Yes, that is the true power, which perseveres in doing good; that is the true nobility of mind, which lets itself be stirred up by the thought, 'The night cometh, when no man can work,' to do what the hand findeth to do with all its might. I ask of every one who truly has become the Lord's, if there is anything which he more earnestly desires than to expire like Moses, faithful to his calling, like the soldier at his post? What might perhaps be wanting, in his later years, of youthful vigour, he may possibly make up for by redoubled zeal. Surely, whoever thus regards God's pious servant, ever stedfast and immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, sees for himself a fine realization of the figurative language used by Eliphaz the Temanite, who likens such a hoary-headed man unto a sheaf of corn, brought safely to the garner in its full maturity.⁷

But probably your thoughts may be anticipating me in the consideration of the blessings which presaged Moses' decease. And well you might have such strong predilection for the subject; for, in truth, a more affecting and impressive farewell-utterance can scarcely be conceived, than that which is recorded in the chapter that immediately precedes. Imagine how it must have been with Moses, when, as is expressly told us (xxxii. 48), 'on that selfsame day,' after he had delivered his inimitable parting-song, he heard the Lord's command, 'Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, and die in the mount! 'Thus, then, not merely his days, but even his hours are numbered; and when once, at eventide, the sun sinks down behind yon hills, his farewell ray shall shine upon the prophet's lonely resting-place. Courageously the man of God takes up the burden, yet no single murmur of complaint arises in his heart against the grievous load. But still his eyes are once more turned to Israel, who lie encamped below, all over the vast plain, and who are well aware that he, their greatest prophet, shall thus speedily be lost for ever to their gaze. Shall such an one as Moses quietly depart, leaving no blessing after him? will he not even at least give some expression to the love and faithfulness that dwell in him, and bind him closely to the Lord's inheritance? Impossible: his second last address has been an earnest warning, — then his last is one rich promise; and if, in days but recently gone by, his very love to them constrained him to inexorable severity, he now unhesitatingly opens all the treasuries within his loving heart, as spacious and as rich as his still vigorous and all-embracing mind. See how, like Jacob on his dying bed, he lifts his hands to heaven, with all solemnity, to bless first one and then another tribe; the Spirit of true prophecy, whose it is to make known hidden things to come, is once more busy over the affairs of God's own chosen ones. I scarcely can refrain from giving you at least a short selection from those blessings, uttered in the form of aspirations or of songs. How powerful and splendid an exordium, whose leading thought is taken from the rising of the sun! 'The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them: He shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand went a fiery law for them.' That law, as we are shown even here, is the most splendid crown of Israel; and Moses, who delivered it, is called a king (ver. 5). He speaks about himself as if it were another person he describes; he is no longer in the world, and even now he takes a retrospect of his past work as a completed whole. Once more he places a memorial crown upon the grave of Aaron, — 'the man who was God's favourite, and who, impartial in reward and punishment, knew not his brethren nor regarded his own sons.' The weal and woe of the remaining tribes, excepting Simeon, on through the latest times, he here predicts. And when he closes with the words, 'May the eternal God be thy refuge, and may He give support to thee with everlasting arms,'⁸ I almost think I see him press all Israel with both hands to his loving heart, that rather will consent to break than cease to pray for Abraham's posterity! I can but give mere hints; but read this blessing for yourselves, even for the purpose of comparing it with Jacob's dying blessing, which this very Moses has set forth: the points of likeness and of difference between the two furnish abundance of material for meditation, that excites our deepest, interest. But specially, endeavour to make out, as if it were inscribed between the lines, what there is in the prophet's heart; and then say what it is that most surprises you, — his strong, unbending faith in the fulfilment of God's ancient promises, in spite of all the deep unworthiness and the unfaithfulness shown by the nation; his indomitable love shown to the race, a love which neither hate nor opposition, nor (what probably says more for him) the ice of six-score winters cooled; or his lively hope of such a glorious future for the Israelites, that (and be sure you do not fail to mark the point) repressed, at least from utterance, the thought of his own prospect now. For himself, Moses has nothing further to desire; and of himself he has as little to declare, or to complain; not even is there anything besides for which he may express his thanks: that great mind is entirely occupied by one main thought, which quite prevents the utterance of anything besides; and his last breath is spent in loving prayer for his people's good. Behold him now, the prophet who is showering his blessings on the people's heads, as if he also were high priest, — Moses and Aaron, — just as if the two were here combined into a living unity! See how the stream of blessing — for we well may here repeat the opening of Moses' song — descends 'like a refreshing rain upon the dry and thirsty plants!' Surely, none but the faithful servant of the Lord can thus meet death! O Israel, so hard in soul against all change for good, see that ye duly estimate this blessing uttered by your mediator as he now departs; and if this Moses, while he lived, so often preached unto deaf ears, at least let not the almost dying one address you now in vain! But write ye also, on the tables of your hearts, the final words of pious age, — relations, friends, who in the last hour of their departure earnestly besought you, in less grand but quite as faithful language, to 'know the God of your fathers, and to serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind.' There lies a hidden power in the blessing given, as it were, upon the threshold of the heavenly kingdom by departing faith and love; and no prayer more certainly receives response than that in which a dying one commends those who shall soon bewail his loss unto the everlasting Comforter. Ye who are entering on life, see that ye forfeit not the dying blessing of a parent's heart, that all through life has beat with deep desires for your prosperity; and Christians, pray that, if it be permitted you to see your friends assembled round your dying bed, there may be as much love and quite as little selfreproach within your heart, as when this Moses bade farewell to Israel!

Why should the man, who has thus waited the approach of death, not calmly fall asleep? This second point we now consider: here, once more, the sacred narrative shows us the way. What sacred peace illuminates that death! What loving care, bestowed by Heaven, gives sweetness to that death

Death' — that brief word we utter easily. Suppose however, for an instant, that you could foresee your death, — I shall not say, as many hours and days, but just as many weeks and months as Moses could, — how many, from the time when they have made the terrible discovery, could know an instant's perfect peace? Moses knows it, — he who lived, not under grace, but under law, while life and immortality had not as yet been brought to light. The sun of life in him descends with stately splendour into night; but so long as we can look and see, there is no single cloud that covers it. 'But Moses, — you have never seen your dearest wish on earth fulfilled; you leave so very much behind to which your heart is bound by sacred ties; you still could find so much enjoyment and so much to do on earth; you are a sinner, and you go to meet a God the fierceness of whose wrath your own mouth has made known; and finally, you surely do not know at all how it shall be upon the other side of death? 'Ye who speak thus, how little do ye know the power of faith, that still can easily remove even higher mountains than this Nebo, or can make ascent of them! Moses expires, with an unsatisfied desire remaining in his heart, but wholly satisfied with God; and nothing comes more easily to him than to be still, on the last day of earthly life, obeying the loud call in his last song, 'Ascribe ye greatness to our God! 'He has not only trusted Heavenly Wisdom, but has tasted Love even in the bitter cup prepared for him at Kadesh; and his heart is now almost as disengaged from an attachment to the land on that side Jordan, as the wilderness on this. So long as God was pleased to place him in the midst of Israel, he knew no greater joy than to be honoured as the leader of their tribes; but now he knows the web of his allotted task is finished to its latest thread: he murmurs neither openly nor secretly because that task is now, without delay, committed into other hands. 'Enjoyment? '— ah! what joy could he now see behind, for which he might present the prayer, 'Return once more, — only once more '? Or, 'Work?' — surely he now has borne the heat and burden of the day quite long enough, to have a right to claim the rest which waits the weary one in his last resting-place? But 'right?' — nay, Moses does not think of that; for we have just been listening to him while he prayed touchingly, and surely not in vain, to God for grace. That grace shall be the only anchor of his hope when death's storm shall arise; but though he feels the deepest need of that too, he is quite as sure of gaining it. We stay not to determine what he may himself have read in those dark shadows cast by the atoning altar he erected in the midst of Israel; or in the Passover, which he ordained for his own folk; or in the brazen serpent, unto which he pointed such vast multitudes of sufferers from deadly serpent bites. But certainly there is no shadow of a doubt now in his heart, when he remembers how God spake to him out of the cloud, nigh forty years before; and if he once trod Sinai's sides with fear and trembling indescribable, he now approaches Nebo with full confidence. He knows that, for himself, God's wrath is but the utmost point of the protecting, fostering flame of His great love; assured of this, he readily prepares himself, not as one who must needs, but as one who quite willingly lays down his life. Eternity, indeed, is in a sense as little known to him as is the earthly Land of Promise; but 'he waits for Thy salvation, Lord,' no less than Jacob when he died. And now, why dost thou tarry longer here, king in Jeshurun? The hour is come when thou shalt from the Lord receive a better, yea, the highest crown! The last word has been uttered, the most blessed prospect shown: Moses at last arises in the presence of the whole twelve tribes. How utterly devoid of spirit and true taste is the tradition given in a profane historian,⁹ that all the camp went after him, till Moses himself made signs that they should stay behind; that the elders followed him still farther; that, finally, Eleazar and Joshua conducted and supported him up to the very last! He who can die like Moses needs no earthly escort on his final journey through this life. Back, children of the earth! — he has another Guide, unseen by any eye of sense! Already he is marching on, while every step removes him farther from the scene of his career on earth, past the last tents, and up the crooked path that leads to heaven, over the roughest clumps of stones. These have not been the sharpest stones of stumbling on the path now almost at its end! Calm peace, the peace of God that passeth understanding, now descends upon his snowy head, as if borne on the evening breeze; such is the latest service rendered to the prophet by the staff of God. In silence, yet courageously, he moves along; and the eagle eye soon marks the limit where the words appear to be addressed to him, 'No farther! 'Did the aged man once more think of that memorable walk he had, no further back than a few months, so touching in its reminiscences, when he, perhaps, led Aaron to his lonely deathbed on Mount Hor? Once, when he was returning out of exile, from the land of Midian, he thought the help of Aaron indispensable; but now, when he bids farewell to the pilgrimage of life, he has no need for even Aaron, since that place is now supplied by One far better. What scenes hast thou, O world, to set before our eyes, so charming, so affecting, so impressive as the sight of such a death? . . .

Here are we standing, then, with Moses upon Nebo; and yet we must raise our thoughts still higher than the man of God, who is already almost glorified. For here, in very deed, the Lord hath His abode; and only He can give us words through which to speak, in some way as we should, about the loving care which lighted up that death. Are not all things here ordered by a heavenly hand, whose workings you can see even in the smallest incident? Think of the lonely spot that was determined on to form the scene of Moses' death. Far from the earth, near unto heaven, upon the borders of Canaan, and yet beyond the reach of the vast, gazing multitude. Nay, Israel must not be able to depict to their own minds the man of God whom they have seen in all his greatness, with the sunken countenance and the distorted features that appear in death; he needs must vanish from their sight in his full powers, a more than earthly form, so that his matchless personality may leave the deeper impress on their minds. Think of the time when he is summoned to depart, — when everything connected with the desert-life is done, and nothing of the bloody work in conquering Canaan has yet begun: to-day, the tabernacle of his flesh falls down, and scarcely any sound is heard, — to-morrow, if need be, the tents of Israel may be lifted from their last camping ground. Think of the words the Lord last uttered to His servant on the earth, words equally remarkable for holiness, for love, for faithfulness: 'This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.' But, above all, think of the privilege to which these words refer, and which you scarce can picture to yourself in any way that adequately represents the truth, — the privilege of looking on Canaan. There he beholds, on one side, richly-wooded Gilead, with all its fields and meadows; while his vision there is bounded by the steep and lofty Hermon, clad in everlasting snows. There lies the mountain-land of Ephraim, and in the foreground the luxuriant plain on which the palms of Jericho wave to and fro. And yonder, Judah's vineyards smile, adorned with pleasant green; yonder, again, lies Jordan's valley, stretching from the city of palm trees away to distant Zoar; over all, the heavens, from which a more than ordinary glow of light seems to descend upon the land that formed the basis of his faith and hope. It stretches out before his eyes, now specially enlightened, like a map, while there is pointed out to him, as by a heavenly finger, every spot that claims regard; never has such a prospect been enjoyed by Moses upon any mountain-top. And yet, what is even that, compared with the grand view of the Canaan above, that now grows clearer every moment as he looks? Does it not seem as if the spirits of the patriarchs were hovering before his eyes, and beckoning on him to come, — as if some other clouds were vanishing, besides those that obscure the far horizon of this earth, — as if the stillness found on Nebo were becoming yet more still, — as if his spiritual eyesight were becoming constantly more clear? But now the cold kiss of the messenger of death is felt upon his lips; the staff falls gently from his trembling hands, but God Himself receives him, in the agonies of death, into His fatherly embrace. . . . 'So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, by the mouth of the Lord.'¹⁰

'By the mouth of the Lord.' Whether you understand these words, with most expositors, to signify, 'according to the word that the Lord had spoken;' or, with others, think the reference is to a death which happened at the mouth of God, i.e. in His immediate presence, in all gentleness and blessedness, while he was still engaged in speaking with the Lord, — in either case you witness such a death as earth has never seen at any other time. But is this Moses, then, the only one who has experienced so plainly what it is to have a friend in God, not only when near death, but also in and over death? Put Nebo out of the consideration, the immediate and direct communications that he had with Heaven, the picturesque and most extensive view that he obtained; then say if you can count the multitudes of those who, just like Moses, are found more than conquerors in the fierce strife with death? But nay, we need not set aside all these considerations; for the same thing ever reappears in other forms, though seldom in the same connection as before. Celestial Wisdom still continues to determine both the time and place of death for those who honour her in all integrity of heart; nor is there any mother who can show more tender care in making a first resting-place for her dear child, than that with which the Father in Christ Jesus has selected what is destined to become the final resting-place of His redeemed. The great death-sentence, certainly, continues equally in force for Christians as for Moses; but what enemy is any longer to be feared, who meets you with his weapons broken, and a kiss of peace? 'Peace through the blood of the cross:' — faith in that fact makes separation easy for the Christian, death sweet, and hope of the eternal life a blessed thing. He is already freed from his attachment to the earth before it sinks beneath his feet; he is at home within the better land, even long before he plants his foot in it. If he were but to take a retrospect, indeed, of the vast multitude of his transgressions, then the confidence of faith would disappear more rapidly than breath upon the lip. But he is well aware there is a better sacrifice than any one that Moses instituted; so to speak, he has, through faith, by slow degrees, outgrown death, though he knows that he shall soon endure the penalty of death. These distant Pisgah-views, far more than we well know, are seen on multitudes of dying beds; you may perceive them in the poorest cottages, where some dear child of God lies stretched upon a humble bed of straw. Those who are struggling in the agonies of death do not describe to you the whole that they begin to see of the good land on yonder side of that dark flood; but could we listen to the whole of what the Spirit of Consolation still can whisper into ears already more than half-closed to the world around, we should, like Paul, be able to make known to others mysteries revealed to us from the third heaven, but not expressed before in any earthly tongue. And how the love of God can sweeten even the bitterness of death, by what He brings about in daily life, by the refreshing He bestows, by influences brought to bear on us, not one of which we possibly can reckon on for even one hour before it comes! If but the peace of God refresh our souls, and God's love guide us on our way, does it make any real difference whether we must meet death, like Moses, upon Pisgah, or like Paul, upon a scaffold, or like Stephen, overwhelmed with stones, or on a cross, as Peter did? The blessedness of death does not depend upon the mode in which we die; and for the Christian, loss of life remains the painful but the certain way to everlasting and inestimable gain. In God's presence there is fulness of joy; at His right hand there are pleasures for evermore!

'Fulness, satisfaction:' — that word brings us to the third particular. We did not see the whole when we observed the way in which the servant of the Lord awaits and suffers death. How he survives death is the final lesson taught by Moses' history. What honour there is paid his memory when he is dead! And what unutterable blessedness rewards that death!

Once more we leave the heights of Abarim, descending to the plains of Moab down below. It is a change from heaven to earth, yet the transition is as touching as it is immense. 'The children of Israel wept for Moses, in the plains of Moab, thirty days.' I know, indeed, that thirty days were spent in mourning over Aaron too; and that the solemn lamentations of the Orientals were not always felt as deeply as observance of them might be called general and comparatively tedious. Nevertheless, do you not also think that, over Moses, there were certainly poured other tears than those of simulated grief; and that, within the first month after his decease, many an eye looked, in deep sadness, on the place left void through death? No one need watch to see whether the man of God will possibly return, or set about the search for his remains. Well do men know they will not look on him again on earth; and scarcely has he vanished from their eyes — not from their hearts — ere there ascends from earth to heaven a sound of woe. The cry no longer reaches the departed one; but those who have been left behind call, each unto his fellow, through the midst of tears, that earth has suffered a great loss, yea, in a certain aspect, an irreparable loss. Would conscience not be roused in those who formerly made Moses' life so wretched, but who now are well aware how high his true position was, — how deeply, too, they often fell? I think I see how such as Joshua, in deepest sadness, daily mourn the absence of his guidance and advice; I think I hear the testimony of the many blind whose eye he was, the many weak to whom he was a hand, the many in perplexity whose counsellor he was: 'Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel? 'The time of mourning hastens to an end, but Moses' memory is carried with the Israelites, as something sacred, from the wilderness into the Promised Land, now opened for their entering. With one exception, his posterity quite disappear from off the stage in history,¹¹ but his mighty spirit animates the words and deeds of Joshua; and when the latter, in his turn, forsakes the great arena here below, it is not till the people have anew been bound, by the most sacred oaths, to the observance of the whole Mosaic law. And soon his image is found hovering before the minds of all those judges, kings, and prophets who were faithful to the Lord; the book of Moses' law remains the basis of religious teaching, and the record of God's ancient revelation, throughout many ages afterward. Yea, verily, the further back that form recedes into the past, so much more lustrously does it appear before the eyes of all who look at it attentively; of all the seers who come treading in his footprints, which are ineffaceable, there is no single one in Israel that reaches such a height; of all the legislators who are still the pride of ancient heathendom, there is no single one that can compare with him. Where are they all, — the Dracos, Numas, Solons, and Lycurguses, and all those who succeeded them? whose image has a brighter halo crowning it.-'Their work has perished with them; that of Moses is as permanent as Israel, — eternal as the God of Israel Himself Even unbelief bears witness, though unwillingly, to Moses' matchless greatness, by the violence of the attacks which it preferred to make against these sacred pages, and by the futility (already plain enough!) of its attempts to give an explanation, by a method merely natural, of a personality, a work, a law like those of Moses. And the Christian; — yes, he renders thanks to God that he has Jesus, and not Moses, for his Master, and resists most strenuously all attempts to bring him back from the Redeemer to the schoolmaster with his hard discipline. Yet not a moment does he hesitate to show respect for Moses' greatness, and adopt the language used already by the son of Sirach in his praise,¹² — 'Moses, the favoured one, beloved of God and man, whose memory is blessed, and whom God has made in glory like His saints! 'And did not even God's incarnate Son once, when a child, sit at the feet of Moses? has He not, too, in His mediatorship, so far from abrogating Moses' law, rather fulfilled it gloriously? Did not the apostles, in the mirror of the Old Mosaic Covenant, behold the glory of the New? and do not we perceive, in Paul, the spirit which had animated Moses risen again with mighty power? And though the legal dispensation, with its shadows, has now passed away, does not its founder still address his brethren? Even as of old, Moses has still, in every city, those who preach him, and who read him every Sabbath in the synagogues¹³ and though, alas! the veil formed by the Talmud over Israel's face is thicker far than that which once obscured his sight, yet he continues to fulfil his lofty calling as a servant — to prepare the way for Christ. Yes, to the whole of Christendom on earth, his word comes as a message sent from God; the history he writes is like a mine of gold; his life and death become a revelation of God's glory; and in heaven the songs of Moses and the Lamb still mingle on the lips of the redeemed.¹⁴ And when, for weeks on end, he has again by turns been putting many to the blush, and giving us encouragement, or guiding us and making us devote our lives more to the Lord, — who will continue to affirm that his name belongs to the unprofitable recol lections of a long-dead past? Who will not rather apply to him the words used by the Lord with reference to His apostles, 'I have ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain'?¹⁵ So true is it that the name of the righteous is held in everlasting remembrance, and that, even on this side of the grave, there is reward reserved for all who fear the Lord and who record His name. Say not that the comparison of every other death with that of Moses fails us here, because even the most faithful servant of the Lord among us has not even the smallest right to expect the thousandth part of the honour paid to Moses' memory. The question to be asked is not, how widely does the fragrance of our Christian name and our example spread around, but whether it indeed be true that our life's story also may be summed up in the words, 'He walked with God, and God took him.' If it be so, we need not fear even though we are forgotten on the earth; and the tears of love and gratitude, shed on our dust, will shine more brilliantly, in the esteem of God's own angels, than the polished marble covering the sinner's bones. Those who walk in all humility before the face of God, and who are even anxious that their name should be unknown, — I mention merely Thomas a Kempis, — such men not seldom still continue to be held in far more precious memory, even after ages pass away; and is it possible that Hofacker, or Chalmers, or Adolph Monod can be the only servants of the Lord who still continue to exert a greater influence, after their death, than during life? Oh, what a blessed privilege, when any feeble word of ours, or our example, proves to this or that man, whom we knew not here below, but shall meet up in heaven, a savour of life unto eternal life! Christians! do you know anything that is to be accorded us, when we are dead, finer than that most honourable testimony, 'They have fought the good fight, they have finished their course, they have kept the faith '?

'Yes,' you will say, 'something that is assuredly far finer than even that, — the crown of righteousness itself, which is awarded by the righteous Judge.' And you are right: how could we stop, content with what we have already said of Moses, without casting one more glance, at least, at the unutterable blessedness that followed on the death of this great servant of the Lord? How small a thing is even the honour which we pay his memory, compared with all the joy prepared for him in the Canaan above! His last look rested on the earth; but now, who shall describe this first look up in heaven? That azure stream and those green lanes now vanish from his sight; but the palms of Paradise wave their glad welcome, while the stream of living water now for ever satisfies his thirst. I will not venture to express myself decidedly regarding the dispute which, as we learn from a remarkable tradition, Michael the Archangel carried on with Satan as to Moses' body.¹⁶ Yet, viewing this in its connection with the statement that no man has ever known his grave, after the Lord Himself had laid him in his rest, I cannot but consider it at least as probable that Moses died, though — and in this respect, too, he becomes a type of Christ — his soul was not left in the grave, nor did God's holy one see corruption.¹⁷ If we could speak of merit here, is there another man whose exaltation to such honour would be less astonishing, when we behold him placed upon a level with both Enoch and Elijah? Certainly, such an opinion gains no little confirmation from his being seen on Tabor afterwards, in glorious robes of light. If, by his death, the rigorous requirements of God's holiness were satisfied, especially on Israel's behalf, his honourable resurrection gave him, on the other hand, the fullest compensation he could wish; and such immediate exaltation into glory, after his death-sentence had been so inexorably carried out, comes on us like a ray of sunlight breaking through a tempest-cloud. In vain does he who has the power of death demand that he shall be allowed to exercise his right upon that lifeless form: 'The Lord rebuke thee,' calmly says the resurrection-messenger; and forthwith, in the man of God, what was corruptible is clothed with immortality. Oh that we now could rise on eagles' wings, — nay, on the wings of dawn, — to reach, if only for a moment, the pure atmosphere in which a Moses has, for ages past, been privileged to breathe! What a transition, from the wilderness into the paradise of everlasting life; from the society of Israel into the company of angels; from the earthly manna to the joyful feast of heaven! What light is shed now on the past, the present, and the future of the Israelites; and what a pleasure is it, when, with Abraham, he can behold the day when Abraham's great Son was to effect salvation, and, together with Elijah, greet that Saviour when He comes! What a sight, — to find the promises and threatenings of his own law even to this very moment being carried out upon his people, whom he still regards from heaven in love! And what a future to expect, — to see that nation yet once more restored, the honour of the law so thoroughly maintained, grace fully glorified, the whole earth once more changed into one Nebo where God's glory is revealed, but where death reigns no more! Moses, Moses, what inexpressible deliverance is this of which you prophesy to us, that never yet has entered any human heart? But surely, brethren, where this Moses now has gone, thither shall all those one by one remove, who, after having lived, like him, upright in heart before the Lord, though quite lost to our view, yet have not wholly disappeared from God's immense domain. This Nebo, too, proclaims that the existence of God's servants does not terminate, but still goes on — nay, properly begins only at death; and the whole history of those who fall asleep in Christ admits of being summarized in these five words, 'for all live unto God.' Moses and Aaron, — they and such as they still live! The Joshuas and Davids, — they still live! The Daniels and Isaiahs, — they still live! Your godly friends that fell asleep, some early and some late, — they are not dead, but they still live! Yes, that alone deserves the name of life, — to be no longer burdened and encumbered with the load of flesh that here oppressed them; to be free from wrestling any more with sin, that daily vexed and plagued them here; no more to stand in trembling awe of death, the fear of which, though they might combat it as strongly as they chose, they never could entirely lay aside. To be sanctified, and to attain salvation; to behold the Lord Himself, and listen while He points out to His children the celestial Canaan, and shows them place by place, just as He showed the earthly one to Moses here; and now to meet with Jesus, whom he only looked upon before in the dim distance. . . . But here we must stop. This Moses was permitted to behold the earthly Land of Promise, — not to enter in; we do not yet behold the heavenly one, but are assured of an abundant entrance, through God's grace. He who gave Moses burial shall one day bring again with Him, in glory, all those who have fallen asleep in Jesus Christ. Then shall they all be perfected, — those who have been redeemed in early and in later days of grace, — when Christ, who is their life, has been revealed. Till then, O Moses, thou shalt still surpass us in thy glory; but we do not separate without the words of faith and hope, — 'Until we meet again!'

'Until we meet! 'What words these are to form the close of our last contemplation of the life of Moses! To how many or how few of us will they be something more than a mere empty sound? You feel yourselves that we must not now separate, ere we have turned from looking at the servant of the Lord in death, to cast a glance upon ourselves. We still in thought are standing upon Nebo, and in the name of God, whose is the power of life and death, we ask both you and our own selves, 'Your hour, too, soon shall come; will your death be, in any measure, such as Moses' was? ''Undoubtedly,' I hear some say; 'Impossible,' I hear some others cry; 'Thank God,' some others still exclaim. Love for your souls forbids my closing ere I treat of such diversified replies.

'Undoubtedly,' I hear some say, 'I hope to die as Moses did. I have, indeed, my faults and weaknesses, — perhaps far more than he; but I do not by any means belong to those who well may be afraid of being lost. I have been most religiously brought up; I am, in general, most piously inclined; and, like him, I find nothing that delights me more than living for the good of other men. The laws of Moses, in so far as they concern us still, I have observed from youth till now. I do not swear, or break the Sabbath day; I am not guilty of unchastity; I do not steal; I am no slanderer; I give to every one his due. Assuredly, if such as I had still some cause to be afraid of death — 'No more, my friend, unless you wish that every word which you may utter yet should cast another stone into the scale which shows you are condemned. If Moses had not had some other reasons for ascending joyfully the hill of death. how sad and mournful would his end have been; and how unutterably great your self-deceit is, when you build your house of hope, for the eternity now drawing near, on such a loose and sandy soil! 'You have religious impressions,' — had not Israel, also, such impressions frequently? and yet, who of all Israel would have faced death with calmness such as Moses showed?

'You give to every one his due: 'then, have you also given to God your heart, as that of Moses was, in honesty and faithfulness, given to the Lord? For, mark, — without this one essential, all else avails not; nor is it in vain that these words were proclaimed and echoed from another mountain-top: 'Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.'¹⁸ The first and most important question which concerns us here is not what we appear to be, — not even simply what we do, — but, above all, what we are inwardly, before the eyes of Him who searches hearts and reins; and though the one-half of the world should call us blessed, verily I say unto you, if our life has not been like the life of Moses, one in fellowship with God, our death shall never be like Moses' death. But know ye not that there may also come another death; and must we picture it to you in darkest hues? Oh, dreadful is the sinner's fate, who — not like Moses, long prepared, but with surprise — hears the command addressed to him while straying on his fatal path,

'Return thou to destruction! 'He, too, like Moses, will look back, but back upon a life of carelessness and sin, of which each reminiscence rises up against him with a crushing force. He, too, like Moses, must depart; but he will not be able to perform what Moses could, and would; and might. To him, too, a Canaan — the heavenly one — is shown; but there remains against him the dread sentence in eternal force, 'No entrance here for you! 'Thus die, without God and without hope, not merely the bold libertine, the hypocrite, and he who basely makes himself a slave to his own lusts, but all who seek their portion in this life; thus shall ye also die, ye who are unrenewed in heart, when death comes on you suddenly, and finds you have not known the second birth. How, brethren, could we spare you such disquieting reminders, when, as you are well aware, even ministers who preach the gospel do not know the day and hour, and cannot but feel deep concern lest there be passed on them the dreadful sentence, 'You have not shown sufficient earnestness in exhortation and in prayer; the blood of those whom you have led astray shall be required of you! 'For the sake of our — nay, for the sake of your own everlasting welfare, we entreat you not a moment longer to deceive yourselves with false ideas as regards your state. Ye who are old in years, perhaps your eye already has grown dim, and your best strength departed; but it is not yet too late to see your sins and to forsake destruction's path. Ye who are young in years, reflect that Moses, in his dying hour, assuredly did not regret that he had made a good choice in his early days. Whoever we may be, the spot that shall receive our lifeless dust is ready even now: are w^e, like Moses, able fearlessly to tread on it?

But others cry, 'That is impossible! Moses, indeed, may thus depart in peace, — but then, he was among God's chosen ones; he had been long, and in a most especial way, assured of grace with God; he had the witness of a good conscience before God — in short, he was a man surpassing thousands even of other men. I am a man like — nay, far worse than others. Oh, if you, who preach the gospel, knew what reason I have for detesting my own self. . . .' That, certainly, we do not know; but we know something better far, — that there is not a sinner, on this side the grave, who need despair of reaching such an end as Moses did. But what was it that gave the man of God such confidence when the decisive hour approached? Surely it was not his own righteousness, or faithfulness unto his sacred calling? Ah, even the lustre of a brilliant life grows dim, when there comes down before our eyes the cloud of death; and Moses, under that Old Dispensation, never would have overcome the last great enemy, if he had known no better righteousness before the heavenly Judge than merely that resulting from the keeping of the law. But in his latest song he sings these words in honour of the Lord: 'He is the Rock, whose work is perfect; 'and God's grace, God's faithfulness, God's pity even to the greatest sinner, form what he can now lay dow^n his head upon, when otherwise the stones of Nebo certainly would have been far too hard for him. My fellow sinners, look to Nebo — nay, look to Golgotha, where, for every one who will believe, the law's curse has been borne and turned away; and in the loving heart of Christ that died, seek for the rest you cannot find within yourselves. When you stand at His cross, you find a fairer view presented to your eyes than that which Moses saw; and God there comes before you, not in the capacity of Judge, but as a Father who forgives. The whole appearance and the work of Moses have been pointing you to Christ; nay, God Himself points you to Him on each occasion when the gospel is proclaimed, and calls to you from heaven, 'Turn ye to Him, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth! 'Moses alone was privileged to tread on Nebo, but Golgotha stands with access free to all, from every side. Only, do not forget that, to depart like Moses, full of gratitude, we must first learn to pray like him; and that we may at death know what it is to have a peaceful Nebo, we must previously have felt the curse of Sinai in our conscience, and received upon Golgotha the assurance of God's grace. Then, whosoever you may be, do not leave Moses' company, unless it be to come unto the Mediator of the second and the better Covenant Give ear to his last exhortation, and return unto the Lord.¹⁹ Obey His voice, and ask Him to baptize you also with the Holy Ghost, that rested on this Moses so abundantly. Do not inquire if all of you are chosen to eternal life or not, but rather bear in mind the words of Moses, uttered in the closing days of life: 'The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children.'²⁰ Cling you, like him, to God's sure promises; and let your life, like his, become a daily sacrifice of true obedience — ever offered, and yet never perfected. And then shall you, too, feel increasingly the witness in your hearts, that you are growing constantly, and ripening for heaven. And in whatever place death comes on you, the words of Him who is the Prince of life shall be in all respects confirmed: 'He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'²¹

Ye friends of God and of the Lord, is that not even already your experience? 'Thank God,' may be your answer, 'I shall not require to wait so long as Moses for fulfilment of the hope laid up in heaven.' Yes, well you may thus praise the Father, that hath now begotten you unto this living hope. Oh, what can faith not bear with, and be quite content to want on earth, when it discovers at the end a Nebo, and above that Nebo a wide-open heaven! Surely the stones of Abarim proclaim, 'There remaineth a rest to the people of God;' and that rest shall be the more refreshing to our souls, the longer we have wrought, and the more wearisome our task has been. 'Then let us labour,' Moses still exclaims as he departs, 'to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the example of Israel's unbelief!'²² Let us, like him, all the more faithfully perform what has been laid on us, the more distinctly we perceive a secret voice that says it will not be much longer now; and let us not impose upon our Leader the disgrace of bearing the last burdens of our journey through the wilderness with heavy hearts and drooping heads. Let us without reserve commit all care as to the time, and mode, and place of death to Him who, then especially, never forsakes His friends; and let us only see to this one point — to be indeed prepared! If we already miss those who, like Moses, have departed at God's beckoning, let us show faith like theirs, and mark the issue of their earthly course, rejoicing specially in this, — that Jesus Christ shall still remain the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever! Oh, what a blessed comfort is it that, while we have seen the mediator of the Older Covenant die for the sins that were his own, the Mediator of the New has died in our behalf, and now He lives for evermore, and has the keys of hell and death! Just as the days of mourning over Moses reached an end, so, too, the close of even the deepest sorrow of this earth approaches; and eternity unites all those that truly loved the Lord, like Moses and Elijah, who had never known each other on the earth, but found each other up in heaven. And now, like Peter, John, and James on Tabor, you see Moses there once more — but with no veil nor spot upon his face. Nay, more, like these selfsame disciples, you see Moses straightway disappear, and you behold — Jesus alone. Yes, Jesus only; and in Him, what Moses looked for far more than fulfilled; and through Him, Moses' blessedness made sure to all His own. How grand a sight! Compared with this, all Sinai's glory, Nebo's too, and even Tabor's, pales before our eyes! Yes, willingly we bid farewell to that Old Dispensation, even with all the glory which belonged to it. And then, too, blessed Moses, whom we never can forget, withdraw into thy cloud of light! Now we have Jesus, and we will retain our hold of Him; nor shall we ever look on any one with greater love than Jesus, and Jesus alone.

Amen.