Israelites : let it also be peculiarly dreaded by you : and never cease to humble yourselves before God, till you have attained a sweet assurance of his guidance through this wilderness, and of his blessing in Canaan at the termination of your way.]
Exod. xxxiii. 12, 13. Thou hast said, I knoio thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy ivay that I may knoiv thee, that I may find grace in thy sight.
NOTHING is more profitable than to be brought, as it were, into the secret chamber of the saint, and to be a witness of his intercourse with God. His humble confidence, his holy boldness, his fervent supplications, his almost irresistible pleadings, give us a juster view of man's present salvation, than any declarations, however strong, could convey. The blessedness of true religion is there embodied, and is therefore seen in all its fair proportions and mag- nificent dimensions.
The prayer which we have just heard, was uttered on occasion of the transgression of Israel in the matter of the golden calf. God had threatened to destroy the whole nation: but, at the intercession of Moses, he so far forgave them, as to suspend his judgments, and to promise, that though he would conduct them no longer by his immediate presence, he would send an angel with them, who should lead them to the promised land. This, however, Moses could not endure: if God should not go with them, he judged it undesirable to be guided thither at all : and there- fore he renewed his pleadings with God in their be- half, hoping to prevail to the full extent of his wishes. God had offered to destroy that whole nation, and to raise up another from the loins of Moses: and this token of God's good-will towards him he laid hold of as a ground of hope, and urged it as a plea with God to grant him his full desire : " Thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in