brethren, take care to keep God with you, and he will preserve you. He will keep your faith and hope still unconsumed, and though it may be through much tribulation, yet you shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

But oh! let the ungodly also think of the bush burning but unconsumed; and let them ponder on that eternal fire, which never shall be quenched. Oh! fear, I beseech you, lest you come into that place of torment. Flee from the wrath to come. Flee to the merciful and mighty appeaser of God's wrath, who has quenched its fire by pouring his own blood upon it in behalf of all his believing people, and delivered them for ever from its fury. But to be thus delivered you must become one of his by faith. You must get "the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush." You must renounce your sins, and the world, and the devil. You must have Christ dwelling in your heart. You must believe in him and love and serve him.

SERMON VI.

ENCOURAGEMENTS GIVEN TO MOSES.

EXODUS III. 11, 12.

And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee.

THE wonderful appearance in which God was pleased to manifest himself unto Moses is related in the beginning of this chapter, as we saw in our last sermon. While Moses was filled with awe and fear, God made known to him the merciful purport of this visit. He told him that, pitying the oppression under which his people were suffering, he was now determined to deliver them, and that he had selected him to be his instrument

in their deliverance. gative to send by whom he will, and his power to qualify those whom he chooses; and thus he spake to Moses in the tenth verse, "Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt."

It is the Lord's prero

Now surely Moses would hear with delight the mercy intended for his nation, and receive with much satisfaction the honour which was put upon himself. But no; he was appalled by the appointment. He could not believe himself equal to it, or think himself worthy of it. Forty years before in the ardour of youth he had made such an attempt. But he then ran without being sent; he had had no authority given him to undertake their deliverance. He had only of himself "supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them." But the time was not then come, his commission had not been given him, and therefore he failed in his purpose. It came to nothing, and even met with opposition from the very persons whom he meant to benefit. But

Moses now had different views and feelings. He had been leading a quiet life of contemplation and industry, and had gained more knowledge of God and of himself; he had greater experience of the dispositions and manners of others, and more humility and diffidence of his own powers; he could better estimate the magnitude and difficulty of the work; he could better understand the weight of the opposition which would arise from a powerful king and a mighty nation ; and he might also well expect to have again to encounter fear or unwillingness in his own people. Now also he would feel that he could have no protection or favour from Pharaoh's daughter, and obscure as he was in Midian, he looked upon himself as altogether insufficient and incompetent for so great an undertaking.

Such was the feeling of the Apostle Paul, when a dispensation of the gospel was committed to him. He looked at the momentous consequences which were involved in it to himself and his fellow-men, and he felt the awful responsibility of the trust. He anxiously

cried therefore, "Who is sufficient for these things ?" Who is able so to proclaim the infinitely important truths of the gospel, as to deliver his own soul, and save the souls of others? Who has knowledge and judgment rightly to divide the word of truth? Who has discernment to set forth all the counsel of God so correctly and discriminately as that it shall prove the medium of conversion to some, while it leaves others perishing in their sins, yet altogether without excuse?" These seem to have been thoughts that passed in the mind of him who said, "We are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves." And indeed, brethren, the office of the ministry of the gospel is an honour which no man should presume to take unto himself. They only who have deep views of its nature, and lowly thoughts of their own powers and sufficiency, are qualified to enter upon it; and they only will be found competent to execute it rightly; they only can expect to be honoured in it.

It was with such a feeling that Moses said in the text, "Who am I, that I should go