MOSEs' CHOICE.
Heb. xi. 24 — 26. By faith Moses, loJien he was come to years, refused to he called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing rather to suffer affliction ivith the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the re- proach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
IT is a great advantage to us to be conversant with the Holy Scriptures, not only because from them we learn the principles of religion, which can be derived from no other source, but because we see in them examples which have upon them the stamp and impress of God's approbation, and which there- fore we cannot presume to disapprove. Had any individual of the present day acted as Moses did in the instance before us, we should, I doubt not, have all agreed in condemning him as inconsiderate, en- thusiastic, and unwise. Not knowing his motives, or not giving him credit for them, we could not
have formed a correct judgment of his actions : but we are sure that the choice which Moses made, how- ever absurd it might appear to those more imme- diately connected with him, was truly commendable. In bringing it before you, I shall endeavour, I. To explain it —
Two things must here be noticed :
1. His conduct —
[He was, next to Pharaoh, the first man in the whole land of Egypt, having been adopted by Pharaoh's daughter as her son, and being regarded as such by Pharaoh himself. All the pleasures, the riches, and the honours that man could possess, with the exception only of the imperial diadem, were within his reach, or rather he was in the actual enjoyment of them. Yet the whole of these did he renounce : and not at a season when by reason of youth he was unable to form a just estimate of them, or by reason of age was incapable of enjoying them, but in the very prime of life, at the age of forty, when he had ar- rived at full maturity both of body and mind'*: and when, from *' being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians''," he was able to relish them with a zest, which a vulgar and uninstructed mind knows nothing of, and which nothing but refinement can bestow. All these he sacrificed voluntarily and with a deter- mined pxu'pose, "refusing" to be recognised any longer under the august character of Pharaoh's daughter, and choosing rather to appear in his own proper character as a child of Abraham.
Whilst Moses was in this exalted station, his brethren ac- cording to the flesh were suffering under the most grievous oppression. To unite himself with them, was to subject him- self to all the reproach and cruelty under which they groaned. Yet he acknowledged them as his kindred : and voluntarily participated with them in their lot: descending thus at once from the highest eminence in the kingdom to the lowest state of degradation and infamy.]
To obtain a just view of this conduct we must notice,
2. The principle from which it proceeded —
[We are told that he acted thus " by faith." By faith, he saw that the Hebi'ews were exclusively " the people of God ;" and that, as such, whatever they might endure from man, they were and must be happy ; since God, the God of the whole earth, was their God, and esteemed them as his own peculiar treasure. He saw too, that the reproach that was cast upon
a Exod. ii. 11. Acts vii. 23. ^ Acts vii. 22.
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them was " cast upon them for the sake of Christ," in whom tliey professed to believe as their future Messiah, the Saviour of the world. Had they chosen to intermarry with the Egyp- tians, and become one people with them, they would have suffered nothing from Pharaoh, but would have fared as the rest of his subjects : but, holding fast their regard for Abraham as their father, and their expectation of Christ as to spring from one of his descendants, they exposed themselves to all the injuries which an envious, cruel, and despotic monarch could inflict : so that their reproach was properly " the re- proach of Christ," Christ himself being the object of it, and suffering it, as it were, in the person of his people''. He saw- yet further, that the afflictions which they endured for Christ's sake should in due time be recompensed ; and, that all who participated in their sufferings, should partake also of their reward. As the patriarchs looked by faith to a heavenly city, and a heavenly country, so did Moses look to a heavenly re- ward ; in the prospect of which he was willing to forego all that this world could give him, and to sustain all that his most potent and malicious enemies could inflict upon him. Indeed in this vdew he esteemed reproach to be " riches," " great riches," yea, " greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt."]