that only he who fears God can have any true happiness on earth, and for this reason St. Paul says: “Glory and honour and peace to every one that worketh good” (Rom. 2, 10); but all the same we Christians ought not to serve God for earthly rewards, but for those which are' imperishable and eternal. We ought to love God for His own sake (independently of all rewards and punishments), because He is infinitely worthy of love. The law of the New Testament is more perfect than the law of the Old Testament. Moses pointed to the New Covenant, for, in his parting discourse, he gave utterance to
5. the seventh promise of the Messias. He foretold to his people that one day another prophet should rise in their midst, who also would institute a Covenant: “The Lord will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation, and of thy brethren, like unto me. Him thou shalt hear.” Who is this prophet? Jesus Christ, who was a Prophet like to Moses; for, firstly, He instituted the New Covenant as Moses had instituted the Old; and secondly, He foretold the future as Moses did, proclaiming the divine law. (See chapter XXXVII, in what way Moses was a type of our Lord, and also New Testament, chapter XXXVII, where Moses appears at the Transfiguration.)
The threefold office of Christ. Moses’ prophecy about the Redeemer points to the prophetical office of our Lord. Balaam’s prophecy points to His kingly office: and the typical brazen serpent pointed to His priestly office, by foreshowing that the Divine Saviour would be sacrificed on the Cross, and would heal our sins.
Look back at Moses' great virtues, his living faith, his firm confidence in God, his burning zeal for God’s honour, his patience, humility, piety, gentleness, fortitude, and love of his people. Think of his blessed death at the end of his laborious life spent in the service of God. He is now great in heaven, and we on earth venerate him as one of the best and noblest of men.
Our pilgrimage to heaven. The forty years’ wandering of the Israelites in the desert is a sensible type of our pilgrimage to the promised land of heaven. The passage of the Red Sea delivered the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt: we must pass through the waters of Baptism to be freed from the bondage of sin. The Israelites wended their weary and perilous way through the desert to the Promised Land: our road to heaven is also wearisome, and many are the enemies that we meet on the way (“Narrow is the gate, and strait is the way which leadeth to life.” New Test. XXI). The Lord God Himself, going before them, showed the Israelites the way: Jesus has gone before us and has, by word and example, shown us the way to heaven. God fed them with manna: Jesus feeds and strengthens our souls with the true Bread from heaven, His Sacred Body and Blood. The Israelites strove and fought and conquered only by the help and protection of God: we too, in our fight against the enemies of our salvation, must seek God’s
