claimed to the people of Israel by Moses, its minister and interpreter, and to present to the faithful an epitome of the mysterious economy of Providence towards that people.
The pastor will first show, that from amongst the nations of the earth God chose one which descended from Abraham; that it was the divine will that Abraham should be a stranger in the land of Canaan, the possession of which he had promised him; and that, although for more than forty years he and his posterity were wanderers, before they obtained possession of the land, God withdrew not from them his protecting care. " They passed from nation to nation and from one kingdom to another people; he suffered no man to hurt them, and he re proved kings for their sakes." [1] Before they went down into Egypt, he sent before them one by whose prudence they and the people of Egypt were rescued from famine. In Egypt such was his paternal kindness towards them, that although opposed by the power of Pharaoh who sought their destruction, they increased to an extraordinary degree; and when severely harassed and cruelly treated as slaves, he raised up Moses as a leader to conduct them from bondage with a strong hand This their deliverance is particularly referred to in these opening words of the Law; "I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The people Having premised this brief sketch of the history of the people of Israel, the pastor will not omit to observe, that from amongst the nations of the earth one was chosen by Almighty God whom he called " his people," and by whom he would be known and worshipped; [2] not that they were superior to other nations in justice or in numbers, and of this God him self reminds them, but because, by the multiplication and aggrandizement of an inconsiderable and impoverished nation, he would display to mankind the extent of his power and the riches of his goodness. Such having been the circumstances of the Jewish nation, " He was closely joined to them, and loved them," [3] and Lord of heaven and earth as he was, he disdained not to be called " their God." The other nations were thus to be excited to a holy emulation, that seeing the superior happiness of the Israelites, mankind might em brace the worship of the true God; as St. Paul says that by placing before them the happiness of the Gentiles and the knowledge of the true God, " he provoked to emulation those who were his own flesh." [4]
The pastor will next inform the faithful that God suffered the Hebrew Fathers to wander for so long a time, and their posterity to be oppressed and harassed by a galling servitude in order to teach us, that to be friends of God we must be enemies of the world, and pilgrims in this vale of tears; that an entire detachment from the world gives us an easier access to the friendship of God; and that admitted to his friendship we
