them out of Egypt. How deeply, how solemnly instructive is this. One departure from the fear of God may lead to incalculable mischief.

The feelings of Aaron are different from those of the people. "When he saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To-morrow is a feast to Jehovah." How subtle is sin. Aaron, on being remonstrated with by Moses, excuses himself on the plea of simply humouring the people in what he did. "Thou

knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf." Alas! what amount of evil may not a good man occasion by acting unfaithfully in a case of emergency. Aaron was left in charge of the people, to meet any difficulty which might arise; but the leader falls in with the desire of the people, and unintentionally leads them into idolatry. He himself had no idolatrous object in that which he did, neither was idolatry the intention of the people. In vain was Aaron's proclamation, "To-morrow is a feast to Jehovah." The calf, and not Jehovah, had the homage of their hearts (see Acts vii. 41). "And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." On this is grounded the solemn warning to us, " Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them" (1 Cor. x. 7).

We must now turn to the thoughts and judgment of God Himself on this scene. And at the very outset, we are instructed in a solemn and searching truth-that God does not measure things by the intention of human agents, but by His own glory. The thoughts of God are not as our thoughts, neither are his ways as our ways." Our simple and plain duty is to acknowledge Him in all our ways. There is no such thing before God as innocence of intention, when any man presumes to prescribe for himself the mode in which he thinks

God can be honoured, or the work of God can be furthered. In such instances, the means employed are quite as important as the end intended. God is to be honoured in the means we use, "for to obey is better than sacrifice." And it is in the acknowledgment of God, by waiting upon Him in His own appointed way, that we shall find the most searching test of our obedience to Him, and the uprightness of our heart before Him. And And may it not with truth be asserted, that the deepest corruption, both in Israel and the church, can alike be traced to some individual or corporate acta, the only fault of which was, that it was unauthorised by God. But this is a fatal fault. It is the introduction of the will and wisdom of man into the very sphere, where the will and wisdom of God are pre-eminently displayed in carrying out his own work.

We must now transfer our thoughts from Aaron and the people, and their feast below, to Moses standing in the presence of Jehovah himself, within the cloud of glory on the top of the mount. And well would it be for us frequently to do this practically, so that we might form a godly judgment of our own ways. We should then be enabled, when inclined to rejoice in the work of our own hands, to detect the danger of secretly departing in our heart from God.

And the Lord said unto Moses. Go, get thee down, for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto and

It would be interesting to trace this from the Scriptures; but here it can only be briefly glanced at. "And Gideon made an ephod thereof [i. e. of his share of the Midianitish spoil], and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house." There is nothing which our hearts will not use to displace God. The brazen serpent itself was so used by Israel. Hezekiah "brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel."

And

said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."

The desire of the people, the surrender of their gold, the act of Aaron had together ended in corruption. How fearfully instructive. The people of God cannot interfere with the things of God; but they corrupt them and themselves by them. They cast aside their proper glory, and become occupied with that which debases them. That Jehovah was their God was their glory; but they would make to themselves gods.

In their after-history, they desired to be as the nations, and to have a king over them, when Jehovah was their King. They corrupted themselves, and lost their distinguishing glory. And when do we find corruption stealthily creeping into the early Church. Is it not in "philosophical wisdom, and admiration of teachers?" The glory of the Church is the presence of the Holy Ghost in the midst of her. The gospel needed not the extraneous support of wisdom or the schools-it came “in demonstration of the spirit and of power." The introduction of human wisdom, admiration of teachers, and all that was most esteemed among men, would virtually displace the Holy Ghost, so that His power, His teaching, His guidance would practically be superseded. "If any man defile [corrupt] the temple of God, him will God destroy [corrupt]." How rapidly it spread. Evil communications speedily corrupted the manners of the Church. And surely it does not require depth of learning, but subjection of mind to the Scriptures and the guidance of the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth, to trace back to this germinant corruption in the Church, suppressed at the time by apostolical power, the fullblown corruption yet to be manifested, when that day of the Lord God Almighty comes, "that he should destroy those who destroy the earth." (Rev. xi. 18). Viewed in the light of heaven, and as from heaven, this introduction of human wisdom in the Church was by the Apostle seen to be corruption. Those who would have introduced it, thought it a help and an ornament.

b Corrupt (see margin).

"Thou

"They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them." The rapid inroad of corruption into that which God has set up in purity is remarkable. The people of Israel awe-struck by the Majesty of God, had heard the solemn words, shalt have no other gods before me." To this they had responded, "All the words which the Lord has said will we do." And yet after the lapse of a few short days, they turn aside out of the way, and make to themselves gods. Does this surprise us? Is it not rather too faithful a history of the ostensible people of God in all ages and in every dispensation? God has not been pleased to record how long man stood in innocency-but the sacred narrative proceeds from his exercise of dominion over every living creature, and his reception of the blessed gift of a help-meet from God, to state his grievous fall. When Noah, who had in the Ark passed safe through the judgment, is set up as head of a new world, how quickly there is his fall into drunkenness recorded!"

And has the latest intervention of God in the revelation of the Gospel of His grace proved an exception to the general rule, of immediate failure on the part of man? If we proceed to the period after the Holy Ghost had come down from heaven-what says the Apostle of that which would be after him? "I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise,

How strange, how unlike man, that the chosen instruments of God to introduce anything from God, should themselves predict its failure in man's hands. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.... Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. For I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck; behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death ?" (Deut. xxxi. 16, 25-27.)

speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them." The mystery of iniquity had begun to work in the Apostles' time, when there was spiritual discernment to detect its beginnings, and infallible authority to meet the evil. But how quickly had the disciples turned out of the way. And this is solemnly important to mark; the worst evils which have arisen in the Church, were detected as secretly working in their principles by the Apostles themselves, so that we dare not go back to any form of the Church as a pattern subsequent to the days of the Apostles; because the evil which so secretly was at work in their days would only become more formed, when their discernment and authority was no longer present to detect and to resist it. It is indeed a curious feature of the mind of man, that in the things of God, he prefers stopping at secondary authority when access is open to its primary source. Both Jews and Christians have alike resorted to antiquity for their pattern, when the thing needed was to judge antiquity by the light of the Scripture. Jewish antiquity was the tradition of the elders" vain conversation received by tradition" from their fathers—for this they vehemently contended, even at the expense of nullifying the Scriptures. And so among Christians, the most bitter contention has been for traditionary religion, and "the faith once delivered to the saints" has been little regarded. Christians forget how early was the departure from the faith once delivered to the saints, and propose to themselves as a pattern of excellence some age of the Church in which there must have been deterioration; and thus virtually set aside Scripture and neglect the guidance of the Holy Ghost, to unravel the intricacies of time-honoured tradition and enable them to find that path which is pleasing to God. When tested by Scripture, it surprises us to find how much of that to which we have clung will not bear its uncompromising light.

But how solemn is the judgment of God on the people -"I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiffnecked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them." against them." But if Moses was in the place of righteous judgment, he was also in the