n See Heb. ix. 13, 14.
164.1 aaron's rod that budded. 97
every one of you, to forget yourselves, as it were, and your own personal concerns, and to be swallowed up with love and pity for your perishing fellow-creatures. Remember that they are not a whit safer by reason of their delusions. They may call rebels, " the people of the Lord ;" but that will not make them the Lord's people. They may cry out against God's judgments as injustice and cruelty ; but that will not prevent those judg- ments from being inflicted, either on others or themselves: yea rather, it will bring down those very judgments the more speedily, and more heavily, upon them. Try then to stir up within you the feelings of men, the feelings of Christians: " Of some -have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh0."]
0 Jude, ver. 22, 23.
aaron's rod that budded.
Numb. xvii. 10. And the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron s rod again before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels; and thou shalt quite take away their murmuring s from me, that they die not.
ONE cannot read one page in the Bible without seeing abundant evidence that God delighteth in the exercise of mercy. Judgment is with great truth called, " his strange act :" it is an act to which he never resorts but from absolute necessity : but mercy is his darling attribute ; and to that he is inclined, even when the conduct of his enemies calls most loudly for tokens of his displeasure. Of this we have a surprising instance in the chapter before us. The competitors with Aaron for the high-priesthood had been struck dead by fire whilst they were in the very act of presenting their offerings to God ; whilst their associates in rebellion, with their whole families, were swallowed up by an earthquake. These judgments produced a murmuring throughout the camp ; and fourteen thousand seven hundred were swept off by a plague, which was stopped only by the interpo- sition of Aaron. The people now were dumb : but God knew that, though intimidated, they were not so
vol. ii. n