seem to him just as if he had the Red Sea before him. The sea of worldly and evil thought will lie in his way, and he will be oppressed with the idea that he cannot possibly get out of the element in which the world is immersed. All the persuasions of evil urge, saying,—it is no use your attempting to become good, it is no use your attempting to live a life of religion, it is no use your supposing that you can overcome fashion, prejudice, custom, and worldly allurement. Society is against you, you will make no way, give up the effort, do as others do, and take your chance. All false principles will gather in his front, and if he could see through the veil that hides the inner world from our perceptions, he would see a whole mass, as if it were of horrid waters in front of him-spiritual waters—the waters of falsehood and evil,-obstructing his way, as they did the way of the Israelites. Could we behold the scene, we should see the tried soul with crowds of evil spirits, coming after him and saying, “Behold, we will pursue, we will overtake, we will divide the spoil, our lust shall be satisfied upon them, we will draw our swords; our hand shall destroy them."-Ex. xv. 9. We should find the soul spiritually, and in miniature, in circumstances parallel to the literal ones here given. It is impossible for a man by his own unaided efforts to break asunder those meshes of hell which surround him. Just as easy would it be for a person to roll back the waves of the stormy ocean, as for him to beat back the enemies of the soul by his own unaided power.

But when he is brought to this crisis; when he is beset before and behind; when he comes to the sad conviction that there is no help for him-that he must die-that he might as well have died before, for now it is clear he must perish—if he is sincere and genuine, and humbles himself before the Lord, feeling there is no help in himself, there will come this whisper from heaven, "Fear not, stand in order." Shun evil. Do right. Wait upon the Lord. "Stand in order, and be still, and thou shalt see the salvation of the Lord, which he will do to-day." A divine power will descend into his soul, and scatter the clouds that hang over his path, open a way before him of real liberty, upon which he can commence the journey which will end in the Canaan of Heaven.

Remember that great deliverance my brethren, for your own comfort, accompanied by this additional blessing, the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day,—the evils which have harassed you so sorely, and are harassing you so grievously now, ye shall see no more for ever.

SERMON XIV.

THE SONG OF MOSES, AND THE BITTER WATERS OF MARAH.

"And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore, the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters became sweet: there he made for them a statute, and an ordinance, and there he proved them."-Exodus xv, 24, 25.

en

The chapter from which our text is selected has this peculiarity —that it contains one of the oldest and grandest pieces of sublime poetry which exists in the world, and far more sublime than exists in any other language whatsoever. If we deavour to realize this magnificent production in the circumstances in which it was given, we shall find how wonderful is the grandeur that is stored up in it. We must bear in mind its description of, and its applicability to, the peculiar circumstances of the Israelitish passage over the Red Sea. There is seen the eagerness of Pharaoh and his host to seize their escaping bondsmen, and make them their slaves once more. The Israelites, apparently cooped up and imprisoned, saw the dreaded Egyptian army behind them, the chariots and horsemen led by Pharaoh himself, and the vast host of infantry behind, for they had rallied from their discomfited condition, when they had allowed Israel to escape them, and had increased every step in eagerness, -we might say in viciousness—until at length the excitement was beyond all expression, except in such magnificent and graphic sentences as those which occur in this chapter, "The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my lust shall be satiated upon them." Just conceive the tyrannical pride, the impetuous ardour to grasp the prey and make it once more their own, which is expressed in these words. Then the Word goes on, " And I will draw my sword," thus expressive, as it were, of the very moment of inflicting their vengeance upon the Israelites :-" My hand shall destroy them." And then think of the sublime majesty and power of the Godhead which defeated all this malignity, "Thou did'st blow with

66

thy wind." There was no array of outward parade, but the invisible power of the wind was all that was needed to discomfit the eager and serried host, and render the whole mass weak, sinking, and silent, as it is described a little further on, "The sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters. With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together; the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea." There is nothing equal to this in majesty and sublimity, even in its very letter, in any language whatsoever, finishing up, as it does, with those sublime words, in the 17th and following verse, "Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for them to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.

*

But interesting as these divine events are in the letter, sublime, and beyond all measure magnificent, as they are in the circumstances in which they are given, and eloquent and grand as are the descriptions of those astonishing events, we must bear in mind that they call our attention to something infinitely more grand than the scene disclosed in the letter of the Word before us. And here allow me to remark, that though hitherto we have dwelt upon the various circumstances of Israel in Egypt, and their delivery from the house of bondage, especially in relation to the spiritual deliverance by which every man who comes into the path of the regenerate life is redeemed from the powers of evil, and of hell; yet there is a sublime redemption, a wondrous series of events of illimitable grandeur, that is prefigured in relation to the whole condition of the universe, in this sublime deliverance of Israel from Egypt. This wondrous event is that of the redemption of the world, which differs only in magnitude, from the redemption of each individual soul.

We cannot pass on in the divine history before us then, without first resting here for a little time, to contemplate the teaching of this wondrous narrative in relation to that still more wondrous event.

You are aware that at the time when it became necessary for God to become a Redeemer, the whole world was in a worse than Egyptian bondage, it was in a spiritual bondage, in which the powers of hell enveloped the human mind to so deep, to so horrid an extent, that we can but faintly grasp the truth while we learn it from the Prophets and from the Gospels.

Through a long series of degradations the powers of darkness had been multiplied. Millions of bad men had passed into the

the

eternal world, and taken their selfishness and falsehood and infamy with them; and the result was that the powers of hell had increased. The powers of heaven had been rejected, until human minds, as seen by the eye of the all-seeing God, were just as the description in the Word, where we are told that "they sat in darkness and the shadow of death." "I looked" it is said by the Lord, in the 59th of Isaiah, "and there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor." "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? The captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. And all flesh shall know that I Jehovah am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."-Isaiah xlix. 24, 26. Now that wondrous work of redemption, so little understood and so much perverted by those who are for ever crying-believe that Christ died for you; believe that Christ saved you-but understand scarcely a whit of the sublime work in which redemption and salvation consisted and consists, was Israel brought out of Egypt. The powers of hell are here represented on the one hand by the Red Sea, as one awful mass of falsehood, interposing itself against progress of the people; and on the other hand, those who were malignantly opposed to what is good, being interiorly bad, are represented by Pharaoh and his host pursuing. Conceive of this! Realize the awful spectacle, and then just look at the chapter, and see who it was that saved them, and you will perceive, in every salient point of this description, it is declared to be Jehovah Himself. At the very commencement, how sublimely this is given (bearing in mind that wherever we find "Lord" written in capital letters, it is "Jehovah" in the original) "I will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. Jehovah is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation. He is my God and I will prepare him a habitation; my father's God and I will exalt him. Jehovah is a man of war: Jehovah is his name." How different from that idea so widely spread, the root of so many false notions, and of so many evils of conduct, -that Jehovah was the Being who held the people in bondage; who weighed them down by His wrath; who threatened them with eternal ruin ; who had to be pacified; who had to be bribed to be gracious by the punishment of Christ, a punishment infinitely dear, and infinitely terrible. As if the Lord Jesus Christ were not God Himself, and His sufferings, while He was redeeming men, were not from evil men

and evil spirits.

It was Jehovah Himself that was our Redeemer. The very same truth that is taught here, and throughout almost every verse of this divine song, is found in nearly every chapter of the divine prophecies.

We read in Isaiah xliii. 10, "Before me there was no God formed; neither shall there be after me. I even I am Jehovah, and beside me, there is no Saviour." "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people."—Luke i. 68. It is always the same truth. The Lord of infinite love, our adorable Father is our Redeemer Himself. And who does not feel his heart spring up with ten thousand times more thankfulness to believe that he is saved and redeemed by, and that he will owe every blessing to his Heavenly Father. I would not like to think I was saved by anybody else. It would disturb the gratitude that loves Him, because He created and formed me with all my faculties of mind and body, to think that all these had been of no use if it had not been that some other came and redeemed me. Oh no! we could not love with all our hearts a God whose plan in creation was utterly defeated unless he was helped out by a second divine person. Rather let me with the deepest emotions of a thankful heart say, in the language again of the prophecy of Isaiah, "Thou, Oh Jehovah, art our Father and Redeemer, thy name is from everlasting."

All mankind were redeemed, and therefore all mankind were made salvable. But salvation itself comes after our souls have been set free, and as individuals we fight against our own evils by the Lord's power, and expel them from the heart. Until redemption was effected, souls could not do that. They were fettered, they were in captivity, they were Israel in Egypt. But when redemption had been completed they were free, and could work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Of the Lord it is said, "His name should be called Jesus "-for He would save His people from their sins. The Lord worked out our redemption alone, but He gives us the power to work out our salvation, by co-operating with Him.

Hence, we have it described as the chief point of the redemption from Egypt by the Red Sea, that the triumph for which this glorious song was offered, was of Jehovah alone. So the redemption of the world was of Jehovah alone. The feelings of thankfulness and gratitude, glowed with the holy outburst. "The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." This song of triumph was when their redemption was entirely completed. When the redemption of the world was finished, and hell conquered, all heaven burst into heartfelt and triumphant glorification, which was the