patent wichdn~s. The temptation, on the contrary, may now be to accuee the law• gFer 0!_ un_1ustifi1thle and unholy anger-of reckless diBl'Elgard of human life. The charf!n_ IS groun<lleRB; but if, for a moment, it should appear natural, the reply to it is f\'IID<I m thPst.udy of this second scene upon the mount. Surely, if ever human heart !aid hare its mtense and yearning love for those whose sin fidelity to duty yet compelled It to ~eprobat~ and loathe, it is the heart of Moses in this new, and altogether marvel- lolll!, Juncture in his historv. Consider- !. 'l'HE OONFESBrot- MADE (vere. 30, 31). Moses makes a full confession of the sin of the people. This confession Wlll!-1. Holy. He has just views of the demerit of the !!ID for which he seckH forgiveness. His impressions of its enormity are even stronger the.':'- at the time of his first int.erce&Bion. 80 heinous does it now apr-r to him that he 1s mentall~, in doubt whether God possibly can forgive it. 2. Perfectly truthful,. M?ses _full! admits the people's sin. He does not make light of it. He does not seek to rru:n1mise 1t. Not _even _to secure the salvation of the people over whom ho yearns with so mtense an affection will he unduly palliate their offence, or feign an excuse where he knows that there is none to offer. Mark how, in both of these respects, Moses answers to ~he. true id_ea of a mediator. "A mediator is not a mediator of one" (Ga.I.. iii. 20). It 1s his fu:nct10n, in conducting his media.tion, to uphold impartially the interests of both of the parties between whom he mediates. Both are represented in his work. He stands for- ~th equally. He must do justice by both. His sympathy with both must be alike pertect. He m~t favoll! neither ~t tht> expense, or to the ~vant&g?, of ~he other. '.l.'hcse acts of mtercession show m how supreme a degree this qualification of the m_ediato~ is found in Moses. He has sympathy with the people, for whose sin he is willing, 1f need be, even to die; he has also the fullest sympathy with God. He looks at tl1e siu from God's standpoint. Be has sympathy with God's wrath a,,aainst it. He is as jealous for God's honour as he is anxious for the forgiveness of the people. He is thus the true daysman, able to lay his hand upon both. 3. Vicarious. He confesses the people's sin /or them. On the depth to which this element enters into the idea of atonement, and on the place which it holds in the atonement of Jesus, see J. McLeod Campbell's work on The Nature of the .Atonement. II. '.!.'RE ATONEMENT OFFERED (ver. 32). The new and awful impressions Moses had received of the enormity of the people's conduct gave rise in his mind to the feeling of the need of atonement. " Now I will go up to the Lord," he says to them, "peradven- ture I shall make an atonement for your sin" (ver. 30). That the intercessory element entered into Moses' idea of " making an atonement " is not to be denied. But it is not the only one. So intensely evil does the sin of the people now appear to him that he is plainly in doubt whether it can be pardoned without some awful expression of God's punitive justice a..,uainst it; whether, indeed, it can be pardoned at all This sense of what is due to justice resolves itself into the proposal in the text-a proposal, probably, in which Moses comes as near anticipating Christ, in his great sacrifice on Calvary, as it is possible for any one, bearing the limitations of humanity, to do (cf. Rom. ix. 3). Observe-1. Th£ proposal submitted. It amounts to this, that Moses, filled with an immense love for his people, offers him.self as a sacrifice for their sin. li God cannot otherwise pardon their transgression, and if this will avail, or can be accepted, as an atonement for their guilt, let him-Moses-perish instead of them. '.!.'he precise meaning attached in Moses' mind to the words, " If not, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book wh.ich thou hast written," must always be a difficulty. Precision, probably, is- not to be looked for. Moses' idea of what was involved in the blotting out from God's 0
book could only be that afforded him by the light of his own dispensation, and by his sen.se of the exceeding greatness of God's wrath. His language is the language of love, 11ot that of dogmatic theology. In.finit.e things were to be hoped for from God's love; infinite things were to be dreaded from his anger. The general sense of the utterance is, that Moses was willing to die ; to be cut off from covenant hope and privilege ; to undergo whatever awful doom subjection to God's wrath might imply; if only thereby his people could be saved. It wa.s a stupendous proposal to make ; an extraordinary act of self-devotion; a wuudrous exponent of his patriotic love for his people; a not less wor,drous recognition of what was due to the justice of God ere sin could be forgivcn- 11 g-limpse even, struck out from the paseionat.e yearning of his own heart, of the actual n.etL.od of redemption. A type of ChriJ;t Wloii been seen iII . he youthful Isaac ascending CH, llXXIII, 1-6.] '.l'liE BOOK 01!' EXODUS.