he fucks in; he depends, every instant of his existence, on the aid of every element. Let the quantity or the qualities of any one of them be ever so little changed, and that moment he becomes miferable. One rainy or droughty season makes whole nations to languish; the frost of a night destroys the hope of a year; and a single blast of wind sends mighty navies to the bottom. There is no need of a miracle to plague those whom God means to punish. All nature is at war with his adversaries: the stars, in their courses, fight against those who fight with God. O may we never be so mad as to provoke that Power by which we are continually supported, and from which we cannot flee!

After a chastisement so awful, who could have imagined that Pharaoh was able still to stand out? But the human heart exhibits a mystery of iniquity, which nothing but multiplied experience could render credible. The next fummons has a threatening annexed it; and the moment of refusal is to be the moment of execution. The plague threatened, being particularly specified beforehand, was likely to excite the greater alarm, and thereby to drive the offender to the means of prevention : but, it would appear, Pharaoh despised it. What, terrified at a swarm of frogs! vermin, loathsome indeed, but defpicably harmless. How ignorantly do men estimate the judgments of God, when they confider only the instrument which he employs. Men effect little with large and abundant means; God performs wonders with things mean and contemptible. Is a haughty tryant to be fubdued? There is no need of more than twelve legions of angels; an army of frogs, in the hand of GOD, is fufficient for the purpose. Again the magicians are weak enough to affift the plague; at least, they affect to lend their aid; and rather than not be thought mighty, will feek to themselves a name by doing mischief. Again the river, which ministered fo much to their pride, is made the minifter of avenging

Heaven to punish them. As its waters were lately all blood, to poison the fishes which it contained, and to taint the air, so now they are all putrefaction, to give dreadful life to an innumerable race of odious vermin, for humbling the proud. Every creature is, and does, just that which GOD would have it to be, and to do-it becomes either a blessing, or a curse, at his command! And, were we wife enough, to affist our weak, or to correct our erroneous vision, by the optics of the fanctuary, we should behold, under many a fair and flattering form, much loathsomeness and deformity.

Pharaoh despised this plague, while it was only threatened, but feels it to be no flight one, when it falls upon him: and he is, in this respect, the image of many a thoughtless finner, who trifle with the judgments denounced in the word of God, till bitter experience teaches them, that every arrow from the quiver of the Almighty is both penetrating and poifonous. The proud heart which refused to bend, at length begins to break; and a flow, lingering, partial, reluctant confent is given to the demand of Heaven; and permission is granted to the people, to go, " that they may do facrifice unto the Lord." The concefsion, flight as it is, procures a respite. Mercy, ever on the wing, flies to fuccour the miferable.

We have feen Mofes and Aaron executing the judgments of avenging Heaven, by the agency of a rod. Christ himself is the powerful word, by which Gon made and sustains worlds; the all-potent instrument to fave, and to destroy. "With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity, for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." Mofes acted by a delegated power: Jesus has all power in himself. fes verily was faithful in all his house as a servant : but Chrift as a fon over his own house." The fame Mofes was the deliverer of Ifrael, and the scourge of Egypt:

"Mo

Egypt: the fame Jesus, who is the author of eternal salvation to them that believe, " shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire: taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Chrift.” " All judgment is committed to the Son." "He shall reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet.” "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

"O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," Amen.

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Hiftory

History of Moses.

:

LECTURE VI.

EXODUS X. 7.

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And Pharaoh's fervants faid unto him, How long shalt this man be a snare unto us ? Let the men go, that they may ferve the Lord their God: knowest thou not yet, that Egypt is destroyed?

How very different an appearance do objects wear, according as they are beautified and exalted by the favour of Heaven, or blasted and disfigured by the curse of an offended GOD! Eden, before man's apoftacy; Eden, fresh planted, by the fovereign hand of the Creator, contained every tree that is pleasant to the fight and good for food, and in the midst of it was the tree of life; but, O fad reverse, the fatal effect of tranfgreffion! " Cursed is the ground for thy fake; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;" and the tree of life is removed to happier regions, or guarded from guilty man's approach, by the flaming fwords of the cherubim. The plain of Jordan, well-watered every where, and beautiful as the garden of the Lord, delighted the eyes, and allured the heart of Lot, when he feparated himself from his uncle Abraham. But O how awfully changed that once delicious spot! The day when Lot went out of it, "Abraham looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and towards all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, the fmoak of the country went up, as the smoak of a furnace." What a charming prospect did Egypt present in the days

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days of her glory? Her fertile furface, covered witl the filver flux of her stately, overflowing river, excep where thousands of populous cities lifted up thei proud heads to the skies; or, when the river retreated her golden, luxuriant harvests waving with the fra grant wind. How changed the scene, when the Nile ran, not water, but blood; after the murrain had de stroyed all their cattle; after the lightning and the hail had blasted every tree, had devoured every herb, and the "locusts had confumed what the hail had left!" What makes earth resemble heaven; and men like angels? The prefence, the bleffing, and the image of GOD! What once covered the earth with water, and shall at length destroy it by fire? What finks men to the level of diabolical, damned spirits, and adds tenfold horror to gloomy hell? The wrath of the Almighty, and the deprivation of his glorious fimilitude. Nature sinks under the description and the denunciation of the divine displeasure. What must it be to endure its dreadful effects, without intermiffion, and without end!

Instead of going into a particular detail of the fubfequent plagues wherewith God afflicted Egypt, we shall suggest a few historical and practical remarks upon the fubject in general, serving to unfold the windings and the workings of the human heart, to illustrate and vindicate the ways of Providence, to expose the madness of striving against God, and to difplay the wisdom, the fafety and the happiness of fubmitting readily, cheerfully and universally to the divine authority.

And, first. We observe, that as God has many inconceivable methods of doing good to men; fo his power of punishing is unlimited, and the treasures of his wrath are far beyond what fear itself, which magnifies every object, can fancy. Of his glorious capacity and difpofition to bless mankind, who has not enjoyed the sweetest, and frequently repeated experience? Whose life is fo short, as not to contain a hif