This is uncommonly fine. The order, the tone, and the spirit of this entire appeal are most exquisite. There is, first and chiefest of all, a jealous care for the Lord’s glory. This must be fenced round about on every side. But then it is on this very ground, namely, the maintenance of the divine glory, that pardon is sought for the people. The two things are linked together in the most blessed way in this intercession. “Let the _power_ of my Lord be great.” To what end? Judgment and destruction? Nay; “The Lord is _long-suffering_.” What a thought! The power of God in long-suffering and pardon! How unspeakably precious! How intimate was Moses with the very heart and mind of God when he could speak in such a strain! and how does he stand in contrast with Elijah, on Mount Horeb, when he made intercession _against_ Israel! We can have little question as to which of these two honored men was most in harmony with the mind and spirit of Christ. “Pardon, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of this people, according unto the greatness of Thy mercy.” These words were grateful to the ear of Jehovah, who delights in dispensing pardon. “And the Lord said, ‘I have pardoned, according to thy word.’” And then He adds, “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Let the reader carefully note these two statements; they are absolute and unqualified.—“I have pardoned,” and, “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Nothing could, by any possibility, touch these grand facts. The _pardon_ is secured, and the _glory_ shall yet shine forth over all the earth. No power of earth or hell, men or devils, can ever interfere with the divine integrity of these two precious statements. Israel shall rejoice in the plenary pardon of their God, and all the earth shall yet bask in the bright sunshine of His glory. But then there is such a thing as government, as well as grace. This must never be forgotten, nor must these things ever be confounded. The whole book of God illustrates the distinction between grace and government; and no part of it, perhaps, more forcibly than the section which now lies open before us. Grace will pardon, and grace will fill the earth with the blessed beams of divine glory; but mark the appalling movement of the wheels of government as set forth in the following burning words: “Because all those men which have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it: but My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To-morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.” (Ver. 22-25.)