when it was itself illumined with the divine glory.
Humility before God is thus the path to the highest honour, and
reverence, to the closest intercourse.

Meantime the Divine Person has announced Himself: "I am the God of thy
father" (father is apparently singular with a collective force), "the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is a
blessing which every Christian parent should bequeath to his child, to
be strengthened and invigorated by thinking of God as his father's God.

It was with this memorable announcement that Jesus refuted the Sadducees
and established His doctrine of the resurrection. So, then, the bygone
ages are not forgotten: Moses may be sure that a kindly relation exists
between God and himself, because the kindly relation still exists in all
its vital force which once bound Him to those who long since appeared to
die. It was impossible, therefore, our Lord inferred, that they had
really died at all. The argument is a forerunner of that by which St.
Paul concludes, from the resurrection of Christ, that none who are "in
Christ" have perished. Nay, since our Lord was not disputing about
immortality only, but the resurrection of the body, His argument implied
that a vital relationship with God involved the imperishability of the
whole man, since all was His, and in truth the very seal of the covenant
was imprinted upon the flesh. How much stronger is the assurance for us,
who know that our very bodies are His temple! Now, if any suspicion
should arise that the argument, which is really subtle, is over-refined
and untrustworthy, let it be observed that no sooner was this
announcement made, than God added the proclamation of His own
immutability, so that it cannot be said He was, but from age to age His
title is I AM. The inference from the divine permanence to the living
and permanent vitality of all His relationships is not a verbal quibble,
it is drawn from the very central truth of this great scripture.

And now for the first time God calls Israel My people, adopting a phrase
already twice employed by earthly rulers (Gen. xxiii. 11, xli. 40), and
thus making Himself their king and the champion of their cause. Often
afterwards it was used in pathetic appeal:--"Thou hast showed Thy people
hard things,"--"Thou sellest Thy people for nought,"--"Behold, look, we
beseech Thee; we are all Thy people" (Ps. lx. 3, xliv. 12; Isa. lxiv.
9). And often it expressed the returning favour of t