indicated by the answer which was given to it--For the _blotting out
of God's book_, is doubtless to be understood in the same sense in the
prayer, and in the answer; and the latter explains the former.

_Oh! this people have sinned a great sin--Yet now, if thou wilt,
forgive their sin; and if not_--if thou wilt not forgive their sin
--_blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, which thou hast written. And
the Lord said unto Moses_, WHOSOEVER _hath sinned against me, HIM will
I blot out of my book_: THEREFORE _now go lead the people unto the
place of which I have spoken unto thee_.

The passage thus presented to our view, seems scarcely to need a
comment; but such sad work hath been made of this text, and such
strange conclusions been drawn from it that it may be proper to
subjoin a few remarks.

That God had threatened to "destroy that people and blot out their
name from under heaven"--that Moses had prayed for them--and that "the
Lord had repented of the evil which he thought to do unto them" we
have seen above. And here Moses is ordered to resume his march, and
carry up the tribes to the promised land, and the reason is assigned--
"_whosoever_ hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book,
_therefore_, now go lead the people to the place of which I have
spoken unto thee."

When we thus view the subject can a doubt remain respecting the sense
of this text? (But keeping in view the reason here assigned for the
renewed order given to Moses to conduct the tribes to Canaan, namely,
God's determination _to blot of his book--whosoever had sinned against
him_, in this affair) let us try it in the different senses which have