Fain would I, my Brethren, be " free from your blood," in that awful day. I would, too, that " you also might, every one of you, deliver your own souls u." But it is indeed most painful to your minister to reflect, that perhaps at this very moment, whilst labouring to save your souls, he is sinking many of them into yet deeper perdition : for we may be sure, that, " if he who despised Moses' Law died without mercy, there is a yet sorer punishment" awaiting those who despise the Gospel x. I appeal to yourselves, " How shall ye escape, if ye neglect so great salvationy?" Now, then, let me prevail upon you to go unto your God, and to entreat of Him to write these tilings upon your hearts by his Holy Spirit : for I declare unto you, that " they are your life :" yes, " I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, that both ye and your seed may live2."]
u Ezek. xxxiii. 2 — 9. x Heb. x. 28, 29.
v Heb. ii. 3. z Deut. xxx. 19.
Deut. xxxiii. 8, 9. And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children : for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.
AS the father of his people, Moses desired to bless them before his death; and the pronouncing of this blessing, in which he was endued with a spirit of prophecy, was the last act of his life. The grounds on which the blessing was bestowed on the tribe of Levi, are so peculiar, that they deserve a distinct consideration. There is manifestly a testimony given them of decided approbation: and from this circum- stance commentators have been led to regard the whole of what is spoken in the text as of the same import ; and to supply from conjecture what is no- where noticed in the Mosaic history, or rather to contradict altogether what is plainly noticed. The conduct of Levi both at Massah (which was also called