Let us listen, then, to what He says concerning Himself:—we shall find Him speaking, as might be presumed, in sublime tones. And, first, of His Being. He calls Himself the I AM, that is, Being Itself, and the Fountain of all other being. He said to Moses, when he inquired who, he should tell the Israelites, had sent him to them, "Say to them, I AM hath sent me to you." And how simple yet sublime is that account of His discovery of Himself to Moses: "Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.—And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold the bush burned with fire, and was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight why the bush is not burnt. And God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses! Moses! and he said, Here am I. And He said. Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was affraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey."[1]
This manifestation of Himself to Moses, was the beginning of a long series of splendid exertions of Divine power, by which was accomplished the deliver-
- ↑ Exodus iii. 1—8
