It is He also who teaches Moses to act as instructor. For the Lord says, “If any one sin before me, him will I blot out of my book; but now, go and lead this people into the place which I told thee.”[270] Here He is the teacher of the art of instruction. For it was really the Lord that was the instructor of the ancient people by Moses; but He is the instructor of the new people by Himself, face to face. “For behold,” He says to Moses, “my angel shall go before thee,” representing the evangelical and commanding power of the Word, but guarding the Lord’s prerogative. “In the day on which I will visit them,”[271] He says, “I will bring their sins on them; that is, on the day on which I will sit as judge I will render the recompense of their sins.” For the same who is Instructor is judge, and judges those who disobey Him; and the loving Word will not pass over their transgression in silence. He reproves, that they may repent. For “the Lord willeth the repentance of the sinner rather than his death.”[272] And let us as babes, hearing of the sins of others, keep from similar transgressions, through dread of the threatening, that we may not have to undergo like sufferings. What, then, was the sin which they committed? “For in their wrath they slew men, and in their impetuosity they hamstrung bulls. Cursed be their anger.”[273] Who, then, would train us more lovingly than He? Formerly the older people had an old covenant, and the law disciplined the people with fear, and the Word was an angel; but to the fresh and new people has also been given a new covenant, and the Word has appeared, and fear is turned to love, and that mystic angel is born--Jesus. For this same Instructor said then, “Thou shalt fear the Lord God;”[274] but to us He has addressed the exhortation, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.”[275] Wherefore also this is enjoined on us: “Cease from your own works, from your old sins;” “Learn to do well;” “Depart from evil, and do good;” “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity.” This is my new covenant written in the old letter. The newness of the word must not, then, be made ground of reproach. But the Lord hath also said in Jeremiah: “Say not that I am a youth: before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before I brought thee out of the womb I sanctified thee.”[276] Such allusions prophecy can make to us, destined in the eye of God to faith before the foundation of the world; but now babes, through the recent fulfilment of the will of God, according to which we are born now to calling and salvation. Wherefore also He adds, “I have set thee for a prophet to the nations,”[277] saying that he must prophesy, so that the appellation of “youth” should not become a reproach to these who are called babes.