REFLECTIONS
In perusing this account of Israel's shameful apostacy from the Lord God of their salvation, alter the many mercies which they had received, both in their deliverance from Egypt, and especially the tokens of his divine presence on Mount Sinai, what do we read in it but the same melancholy account of our poor, sinful, fallen nature, ever prone to depart from God, and making to itself idols of its own corrupt fancy. Oh! Lord, may it be mine and the Reader's mercy to know, that in ourselves we are not better than they, but of the same stock and root, of whom it is truly said, that there is none good no, not one.
But chiefly in the perusal of this chapter may I behold him of whom Moses was a type, standing up in the glorious character of our intercessor, to make reconciliation for the sins of his people. Yes! thou dear Redeemer, thou art he whom the man of God here represented: thou didst, indeed, take the whole weight of our guilt upon thyself, when, in the eye of God's righteous law, thou didst undertake our salvation, by consenting to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in thee. Oh! bring me, by the sweet influences of thy blessed Spirit, under thy shelter; and since thou hast done away sin by the sacrifice of thyself, may my soul rejoice in thy great salvation, and triumph in the name of the Lord my God.