enforce the judgments as well as the mercies of God, and warn, reprove, and exhort. (Numb. x. 5-9.) Were the trumpets sounded on the days of festival, gladness, and rejoicing? the Gospel of Christ is then best heard on the days of the commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, when on the Lord's days we celebrate His restoration from the dead. And were they sounded over the sacrifices of the peace-offerings? the preaching of the Gospel best attends the praying of the Christian, when he offers his own heart and soul as sacrifices to God, and when he delights in the presence of his God at the Holy Communion of the body and blood of Christ. Christian duty and Christian happiness are both summed up in the four occasions on which the trumpets were ordered to be sounded in the wilderness, the march, the battle, the festival, and the sacrifice. So are we to hear the sound of the trumpet from heaven to earth, in our progress through the wilderness to Canaan, in our warfare against temptation, on the festivals of the Lord's Days, and the commemoration of the events in the life of Christ, and in the remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ, the true Passover. In all the four we hear the sound of the trumpet, the voice of the Law which God gave from heaven, and the voice of the promise that He will come again to judgment. If we thus hear the sound of the trumpet, then shall it be with us as it was with Israel in the wilderness. When the hosts of Israel were assembled in preparation for their march, then the wonderful manifestation of the presence of the God of Israel, which rested over the tabernacle in the form of a column or pillar of cloud by day, and a column or pillar of fire by night, moved on to guide the people to their appointed encampment, or rested in the encampment where they might happen to be. Their only duty was, as it is with us, to be ready to obey. If we acknowledge the presence of God in all our ways, His Providence, though to us invisible, will still dwell in our paths. Very difficult is the attainment of the happiness of believing, in the midst of sorrow, anxiety, and care, that the cloud and fire are with us, and around us. And the only way in which the Christian can reconcile the mysteries of Providence with the failure of his earthly hopes, and the disappointment of his earthly expectation, is this, to remember that heaven, not earth, is promised to him, and to welcome the words of the poet : BEFORE CHRIST 1490. "With patient mind thy path of duty run; God never does, nor suffers to be done, But what thyself would'st do, could'st thou but see NUMBERS X. 1-11. Use of the silver trumpets. a BEFORE CHRIST 1490. Isai. 1. 13. 1 And the LORD spake use them for the calling of unto Moses, saying, the assembly, and for the 2 Make thee two trum- journeying of the camps. pets of silver; of a whole 3 And when they shall Jer, 4. 5. piece shalt thou make blow with them, all the them that thou mayest assembly shall assemble b Joel 2. 15. BEFORE CHRIST BEFORE CHRIST themselves to thee at the blow with the trumpets; 1490. door of the tabernacle of and they shall be to you 1490. the congregation. for an ordinance for ever 21. 4 And if they blow but throughout your generawith one trumpet, then the tions. ch. 31. 6. Josh. 6. 5. Exod. 18. princes, which are heads 9 And if ye go to war ch. 1. 16. & 7. of the thousands of Israel, in your land against the 2 Chron. 13. shall gather themselves enemy that 2. a ch. 2. 3. e ch. 2. 10. ! ver. 3. Joel 2. 1. h ch. 31. 6. Josh. 6. 4. 1 Chron. 15. 24. 2 Chron. 13. 12. • Exod. 40. 34. Ps. 78. 14. P Exod. 13. 21. & 40. 38. unto thee. e you, then ye 14. oppresseth Judg. 2. 18. k shall blow an & 4. 3. & 6. 9. & 10. 8, 12. 5 When ye blow an alarm with the trumpets; 1 Sam. 10. 13. alarm, then a the camps and ye shall be remem-1 that lie on the east parts bered before the LORD your shall go forward. God, and ye shall be saved 6 When ye blow an from your enemies. alarm the second time, 10 Also m in the day of then the camps that lie on your gladness, and in your the south side shall take solemn days, and in the 2 Chron. 5.12. their journey: they shall beginnings of your months, blow an alarm for their ye shall blow with the Ezra 3. 10. journeys. trumpets over your burnt Ps. 81. 3. 7 But when the congre- offerings, and over the gation is to be gathered sacrifices of your peace together, ye shall blow, offerings; that they may shall not sound an be to you " for a memorial " ver. 9. before your God: I am the 8 h And the sons of LORD your God. Aaron, the priests, shall 15 ¶ And on the day the children of Israel jourNeh. 9. 12, 19. that the tabernacle was neyed: and in the place reared up the cloud covered where the cloud abode, the tabernacle, namely, the there the children of Israel tent of the testimony: and pitched their tents. Pat even there was upon 18 At the commandment the tabernacle as it were of the LORD the children of the appearance of fire, until Israel journeyed, and at the the morning. commandment of the LORD they pitched: as long as '1 Cor. 10. 1. the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in tabernacle, then after that tabernacle many days, then longed. BEFORE CHRIST 1490. 8 BEFORE the children of Israel kept was taken up, they jour- CHRIS the charge of the LORD, neyed. ch. 1. 53. & and journeyed not. 3.8. + Heb. was. 1490. 22 Or whether it were two 20 And so it was, when days, or a month, or a year, the cloud was a few days that the cloud tarried upon upon the tabernacle; ac- the tabernacle, remaining cording to the command- thereon, the children of ment of the LORD they Israel abode in their tents, 'Exod. 40. abode in their tents, and and journeyed not: but according to the command- when it was taken up, they ment of the LORD they journeyed. journeyed. 23 At the commandment 21 And so it was, when of the LORD they rested in the cloud abode from the tents, and at the comeven unto the morning, mandment of the LORD and that the cloud was they journeyed: they "kept taken up in the morning, the charge of the LORD, then they journeyed at the commandment of whether it was by day or the LORD by the hand of by night that the cloud Moses. 36, 37. " ver. 19. 19. 11, 16. 28. 6 And there were certain men, who were defiled › ch. 5. 2. & by the dead body of a man, See John 13. that they could not keep the passover on that day: and they came before Exod. 18. Moses and before Aaron on 15, 19, 26. that day: 7 And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of the LORD in his appointed season among the children of Israel? ch. 27. 2. 8 And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and a Ich. 27. 5. will hear what the LORD will command concerning you. 9¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 10 Speak unto the chil BEFORE CHRIST dren of Israel, saying, If ney, and forbeareth to keep 1490. any man of you or of your the passover, even the same b 2 Chron. 30. 2, 15. h BEFORE CHRIST 1490. posterity shall be unclean soul & shall be cut off from 8 Gen. 17. 14. 11 The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and с 14 And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, Exod. 12. 8. eat it with unleavened and will keep the passover bread and bitter herbs. unto the LORD; according e i ch. 5. 31. 12 They shall leave to the ordinance of the none of it unto the morn- passover, and according to ing, nor break any bone the manner thereof, so shall of it: according to all the he do ye shall have one Exod. 12. ordinances of the passover ordinance, both for the they shall keep it. stranger, and for him that k 13 But the man that is was born in the land. clean, and is not in a jour 49. PRAYER. LET US PRAY, that we ever remember the day when the Lord God of the Jew and of the Gentile shall again be manifested from the invisible world with the sound as of a trumpet, and the dead shall awake, and the living shall be changed. That we remember the presence of God in our conduct in life, in the temptations of the world, in the ordinances of religion, and especially at the Holy Sacrament. That with peace, hope, and obedience, we keep the charge of our God, and ripen for heaven as the full corn for the harvest. O THOU, the high and lofty One, who inhabitest eternity, whose Name is Holy, and who hast been graciously pleased to reveal to Thy creature man, the beginning and future end, the promise of immortality, and the command of that holiness, without which no man can see Thee, the Lord; so bless to us the knowledge of the past, the uncertainty of the present, and the anticipation of the future, that we be ever prepared to meet Thee in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment. Thy presence has been manifested in the past, when, in the thunders of Sinai, and with the sound as of the trumpet, Thou didst shake the heaven and the earth at the giving of the Law to man. "We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge ;" we believe, that the day shall come, and is coming, we know not how soon, when Thou, the God of Revelation, shalt again be manifested in the clouds of heaven; that the trumpet shall sound again, the dead revive, and the living be changed, to be enabled, together with the dead, to begin their new existence in the world beyond the grave. We pray Thee for the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, that we ever be so mindful of that great day, that we live now, as those who desire to meet Thee at Thy coming, with joy, and not with grief. In all the ways of life, may we acknowledge Thee, that Thou mayest direct our paths. Make the present moment Thine. Whether we be in adversity or prosperity, in joy or grief, may we believe in Thy mercy, trust in Thy goodness, and hope in Thy Providence. We repent us of the past. O may the present be more pure, more holy, than the past has been. In VOL. II. PART VI. PP all the transactions, the business, the changes, and the duties of life, may we escape from the snares of the world, and from the sin which doth most easily beset us in our place, and station, and circumstances, and varieties of life. May sin be more terrible to us than death. May the love of God be powerful within us, to preserve us from all evil. In all our ways may we acknowledge Thee, and do Thou direct our paths. When temptations allure us; when the love of riches would betray us to selfishness and hardness of heart; when the fascinations of pleasure would entice us to vice and crime; when the desire of pleasing the godless or the thoughtless, by whom we may be surrounded, would lead us to become in levity of demeanour, or in silent approbation, or in carelessness of language, the same as they may be who love Thee not: O then, may the remembrance of that day, when for every idle word which reproaches the religion of our Lord and Saviour, we shall give an account unto Thee, ever be present to our remembrance, ever prevent our forgetfulness of God, and by the grace of Thy Holy Spirit strengthen the resolution of our souls to serve Thee. When the morning of each day returns, may we thank Thee for Thy preservation of us during the night that is past. When the shades of evening close the day, may we thank Thee for the prolongation of our time of trial. When the Lord's day returns to bless us, then may we with joy go up to Thy house of prayer, to implore Thy blessing, to thank Thee for Thy mercies, and to rejoice in the hope, that as Christ rose from the dead, to return to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God, we may rise from the dead with joy, and live with Him, and live with Thee, in the future and better state. When commemoration of the death and Resurrection of Christ shall be appointed for the comforting and the refreshing of our souls, may we rejoice to go up to Thy Table and Altar, to partake of the bread and of the wine, spiritually to eat the flesh, and spiritually to drink the blood of the Crucified, that Christ may dwell in us, and we in Him. So may it be, that in the actions of our life, the temptations that beset us, the seasons of religious duties, and the remembrance of the sacrifice and death of Christ, we never forget the day when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised; and all the sons of Adam shall appear before God, and be either eternally separated from His presence, or called to dwell with Him for ever. Prepare us for death. Prepare us for the judgment. May Thy law be our rule, Thy Spirit our guide, Thy Providence our protection. In peace with the world, in peace with our own consciences, in peace with Thee, in the well-founded hope of Thy glory, and in stedfast obedience to Thy Holy Law, may the souls be kept which Thou hast committed to our trust and charge, till the day when the word shall come from Thee, "Thy soul is required of thee." Then may Thy promises be fulfilled to our parting spirits. Then may we be enabled to say, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." So like the shock of corn fully ripe, may we be received into the garner of God. may we be Thine, O Lord God of earth and of heaven, in life, in death, and in the world beyond the grave, for ever. We ask all in the Name and in the words of Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Saviour. So |