the judgment seat, once died on Calvary. Though you have so long trifled with his blood, though you have so long abused sermons and sabbaths, though you have ten thousand times been found in arms against the Sovereign of the world, yet in that blood all your stains may be washed out,-all your treasons purged. Only do not now seal your damnation by longer rejecting his mercy. Fall down now at his feet. Go not from this house till you have bathed them with your tears and wiped them with the hairs of your head. This is an awful moment. Heaven, earth, and hell are now opened before you. From the throne of God which is placed in the midst the invitation is still proceeding. Not man, but God himself is now speaking to you. If you turn away it will be like those who turned away when their feet touched the borders of the promised land. They could not be forgiven but must perish in the wilderness. Take care what you do, for you are now standing near the Shekinah. Drop the weapons from your bloody hands. With those trembling arms clasp his feet; resolving never to quit your hold; that if he tread you down you will sink, but that you will never leave the spot till one look of peace assures you that your sins are forgiven. O could we see you thus!—Are you afraid to go? Why, it is the same Being that left the realms of glory to die for you. Go with greater confidence than you ever went to an earthly parent. Go with all your sins upon you. It is not to judge that he has now come. He has come to heal the broken-hearted and to preach deliverance to the

captives. The love of Jesus looks out of his eye. His hands, bearing still the prints of the nails, are extended to receive you. Go, and give pleasure to that heart which bled on the point of the spear. Go and find your heaven in the sweetness of that embrace. Go-you see him there,―O go!

SERMON XIX.

HOBAB.

NUм. X. 29-32.

And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel, the Midianite, Moses' father in law; We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us and we will do thee good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel. And he said unto him, I will not go; but I will depart to my own Land and to my kindred. And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayst be to us instead of eyes. And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.

This Hobab, the son of Raguel, the Midianite, is thought by some to have been the brother-in-law of Moses; but others understood him to be called in this very passage the father-in-law. The Septuagint adopts the latter opinion. Assuming this to be the fact, Hobab was no other than Jethro, who is sometimes called Reuel. He was the priest or prince of Midian, and appears to have been a worshipper of the true God. In former days, when Moses had fled from Pharaoh, he came into the land

of Midian, in the neighborhood of Mount Sinai, where he married the daughter of Jethro, and lived forty years. Called of God to return to Egypt, he took leave of his father-in-law and departed with his wife and children, but afterwards sent them back to Midian, and pursued his journey to Egypt alone. Soon after his return to Sinai with the Hebrew nation, Jethro brought his wife and children to him, and assisted him in arranging the civil affairs of the nation, and then took his leave and returned home. During the eleven months that the congregation was at Sinai, Moses might have frequent interviews with his father-in-law, who lived in the vicinity; and just before he commenced his journey to Canaan, he made the proposition contained in the text. Though the invitation was at first declined, yet being pressed it was not finally rejected; for the family of Hobab did accompany Israel. From their greater knowledge of the wilderness they were probably of essential service to a nation of strangers traversing that trackless desert, and in the language of Moses, were to them instead of eyes; and at the close of the forty years they entered the land under Joshua, and had an inheritance assigned them in the tribe of Judah, where they continued a distinct family, under the name of Kenites, but enjoying all the privileges of the people of God, until the Babylonish captivity.

While many in these days are joining themselves to the Church of God and setting out for Canaan, I have selected this text as affording matter both interesting and seasonable.

When this invitation was given by Moses, the people of God had just separated themselves from all the other nations of the earth, and formed themselves into a church state by the solemn transactions at Sinai, and were then setting out for Canaan. All who did not accompany them would be left behind in a wretched heathen state. A strong line of division was thenceforth to be drawn between the people of God and the rest of the world. Under these circumstances it was the duty and privilege of Hobab and all good men to join themselves to Israel, that so they might live among religious ordinances, among sabbaths and tabernacles, and enjoy the presence of God in the shekinah, and worship him in the only way of his appointment. Before that day the true worshippers had been scattered; an Abraham in one nation, an Abimelech in another, a Job in a third, an Eliphaz, a Bildad, a Zophar, an Elihu, and a Jethro in others. And the presence of God had been manifested in all places where his worshippers had lived. In one place he would appear visibly, in another in dreams, in a third he would utter himself from the whirlwind. Before this no particular forms of worshipping and sacrificing were appointed, but all the varieties were accepted. But now the time had come when God would live abroad among the nations no more, but would confine his presence to the mercy seat which was to be established at Canaan. The particular forms in which he chose to be worshipped were minutely prescribed; a great part of which could be observed no where but in the city which he should