out reserve, a similar experience mil produce a similar open- ness and boldness in other ministers of the gospel. This in- deed is one of the glories of Christianity. It is characteristic of error to practise reserve and to seek concealment. In all the religions of antiquity there was an esoteric and exoteric doctrine ; one for the people and the other of the initiated. They all had mysteries carefully concealed from the public eye. So in the Romish church, just in proportion as it is in- fected with the sx)irit of heathenism the doctrine of reserve is avowed and practised. The gospel is not preached with openness, so that all may understand it. The people are kept in ignorance. They are told they need not know ; that faith without knowledge, a blind confidence in rites which they do not understand, is all-sufficient. But if a man in a church has the conviction that the gospel is of God, that it is unspeakably glorious, adapted to all and needed by all in order to salva- tion, then the word will be preached ojjenly and without reserve.
13. And not as Moses, (whicli) put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.
And not as 3Ioses^ that is, we do not do what Moses did. Paul had just said that he used great plainness of speech, that he practised no concealment or reserve. Of course he means that Moses did the reverse. He did use concealment and practise reserve. This is no impeachment of the character of Moses. Paul is not speaking of his personal character, but of the nature of his office. The truth concernmg man's re- demption was not " in other ages made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit," Eph. 3, 5. It was not consistent with the nature of the ministry of Moses to use the Trapprja-ta, the openness, in communicating the doctrines of redemption, which it is the glory of the Christian ministry to be permitted to employ. He was sent to speak in parables and in types, to set forth truth in the form of significant rites and ceremonies. He put a veil over the glory, not to hide it entirely from view, but to obscure its brightness. The people saw the Hght, but only occasionally and imperfectly. Paul had alrea- dy spoken of the brightness of Moses's face as a symbol of his