Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

38 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMdelivered from their darker slavery, and led through ,the desert of the world to their divine inheritance.ut in that transit Moses was the leader and lawgiverof his people. As their mediator with God hereceived from God and gave to them a revelation ofdoctrine and a code of morals. Into his people as areceptacle he poured the knowledge of one personalGod, the Creator and rewarder of men, and as adeduction from that truth he gave them a code ofduties in which the first table contained all their relationsto God, and the second all their relations to eachother. Thus in the person of Moses were combinedthe two great powers of the Prophet or Teacher, andof the Lawgiver or King, both as the deputy ofAnother, with whom he communed on the mount.And in the same character, as the deputy of thaOther, the Revealer of truth, the Source of authorityand the Object likewise of worship, he instituted thethird great power, the priesthood, not however in hisown person, but in his brother Aaron and Aaron'sons. It is in this triple mediation, as the instrument through whom a revelation was conveyed and jlaw promulgated, and a priesthood together with itworship instituted, that the pre-eminence of Mosesconsisted. He thus made a complete society, feedinghis people with truth, governing them with law, andtifying them with sacrifice and prayer. In thunion of the three he educated them for thpromised possession, and constituted them a nation.For their nationality was to consist in the continuedjoint possession of these three things, by maintainingwhich they were to be distinguished from all othernations down to the coming of the great Chief whomthey expected. Thus it is to be observed that in the