To conduct this series of events, and to establish these laws with his people, God raised up that great prophet Moses, whose faith and piety enabled him to undertake and execute the most arduous enterprises, and to pursue, with unabated zeal, the welfare of his countrymen: even in the hour of death, this generous ardour still prevailed: his last moments were employed in fervent prayers for their prosperity, and in rapturous gratitude for the glimpse vouchsafed him of a Saviour, far greater than himself, whom God would one day raise up to his people. Thus did Moses, by the excellency of his faith, obtain a glorious pre-eminence among the saints and prophets in heaven; while, on earth, he will be ever revered, as the first of those benefactors to mankind, whose labours for the public good have endeared their memory to all ages. The next book is LEVITICUS, which contains little besides the laws for the peculiar ritual observance of the Jews, and therefore affords no great instruction to us now: you may pass it over entirely; and, for the same reason, you may omit the first eight chapters of NUMBERS. The rest of Numbers is chiefly a continuation of the history, with some ritual laws. In DEUTERONOMY, Moses makes a recapitulation of the foregoing history, with zealous exhortations to the people, faithfully to worship and obey that God, who had worked such amazing wonders for them: he promises them the noblest temporal blessings, if they prove obedient, and adds the most awful and striking denunciations against them, if they rebel or forsake the true God. I have before observed, that the sanctions of the Mosaic law were _temporal_ rewards and punishments, those of the New Testament are _eternal_: these last, as they are so infinitely more forcible than the first, were reserved for the last, best gift to mankind--and were revealed by the Messiah, in the fullest and clearest manner. Moses, in this book, directs the method in which the Israelites were to deal with the seven nations, whom they were appointed to punish for their profligacy and idolatry! and whose land they were to possess, when they had driven out the old inhabitants. He gives them excellent laws, civil as well as religious, which were ever after the standing municipal laws of that people. This book concludes with Moses' song and death.