world. When our Lord is described as the Being who would come and bruise the serpent's head, it is to teach us that He would come to put down the preponderance of selfishness and sensuality; to reduce in us that lowest degree which had become the ruling one. For selfishness, which ought to be at the bottom of the soul, has all over the world been suffered to get to the top, and to be worshipped. It has been said of savage tribes, that they all, more or less, worship the serpent at one time or other. Alas! it is equally true of civilized nations. They worship the serpent too, and if their demon serpent is not so gross, it is more subtly malignant than that which the savages of far-off nations worship. Now, it was to teach the king of Egypt this fact that the rod of Moses was placed before him; and it became a waterserpent. The Egyptians, the scientific nation with their great river, were representative of those who delight in the waters of scientific truth. The Egyptians in a state of defying God, like this Pharaoh, represent those, who, with science and learning, with fashion, with the world in all its glory, and in all its knowledge, erect pretensions against God, and claim all for their own. They fancy in lordly pride they have a right to do as they please, ungoverned by the divine commandments. Such a state of the soul is represented here by Pharaoh, and it is described very emphatically by the prophet Ezekiel, when he says, "Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself."-XXIX. 3. Precisely, as everything is represented here, is it where a person has got a great river of scientific knowledge, and claims it to be his and not God's, and says "Who is the Lord that I should serve Him?" and wishes to erect himself proudly up; he is a human water-serpent, vain of his information, vain of his talents, vain of his philosophy, vain of his endowments; he is a dragon that saith "my river is my own, and I made it for myself." Now to show him this,―to be a sign of it, the rod was cast down before Pharaoh. The rod, as we have mentioned, and shewn formerly, was the symbol of the letter of the Word of God, which is a rod to the spiritual pilgrim, and was represented by the rod of Moses, a ROD of power for the Israelites as they were to be delivered by the Lord. The same letter of the Bible, when it is laid hold of, handled, perverted, and twisted by the vain self-conceit of a person who will not have God's law-of love to Him and love to man,-becomes a serpent.

A self-asserting intellect pretends to make God's Word subservient to its own evil purposes, not becoming regenerate, not

becoming good, not putting the love of God and the neighbour as they ought to be, in the ruling place in our hearts and minds! it either invents a false religion, pretending to obtain forgiveness without inward and real change; or it assumes infidelity and rejects all religion. Whenever either of these is done, it is turning the rod of Moses into a serpent. It is said "The magicians did the same with their enchantments."

Time will not permit us to dwell upon the mode in which enchantments at that time, and afterwards, were made the means of the most terrible kind of communication with hell. The magicians were not mere conjurors, nor was it to put down mere conjuring that the laws were given, contained in the 15th Deu. against having communication with the dead, and against familiar spirits. The ancient nations had to be rooted out; and it is said by the Lord in the same chapter, they were rooted out for these abominations, as ulcers upon the human race, as gangrenous masses. By diabolical magic, they opened up a communication with the hells, and thus imitated divine power, introducing the most terrible abominations into the world. It was in this way that the magicians could do these things by their enchantments. There are spiritual magicians now, there are curious jugglers, who play freaks with divine truth, and make it the very means of perpetuating sin. These are spiritual enchanters; and when the Divine Word says to such a one as Pharaoh, see you are turning your soul into a serpent, your religion is represented here by this rod turned into a serpent. These intellectual enchanters say, Oh, yes, it is quite true, but we can only be selfish in religion. People are selfish in everything. They are selfish in business; down goes that rod and it becomes a serpent. People are selfish in writing books; away goes that rod and becomes a serpent. These enchanters turn all their rods into serpents. They say all things are alike. and highest wrong is the perversion of religion. is wrong, trade is wrong, literature is wrong, politics are wrong, education is wrong, everything goes wrong. They all become serpents together. It is this great truth which is taught by Aaron's rod swallowing up all these serpents.

But the first When religión

The next sign was the water being turned into blood. Water is the symbol of truth; the water of Egypt, the land of ancient science, being symbolical of scientific truth. This truth is salutary and excellent, just as truth on spiritual and eternal things is salutary and excellent for the inner matters of the soul. But where selfishness is allowed to rule instead of God, Pharaoh

Then science is violated. It

becomes a great water-serpent. is full of selfishness, slain, and bloody. The trail of the serpent is over it all. This was the second sign shewn before Pharaoh. How different from that was the glorious sign which our Saviour exhibited in the very first miracle that He wrought,-the turning of the water into wine. This latter represented the transformation of cold truth into generous loving thought. That which is received merely as a matter of knowledge at first, being turned by the Saviour into loving, holy, cheering, exhilarating and delightful wisdom. Water turned into wine! What a contrast! Self, in opposition to God, turns water into blood. Obedience to the Saviour, turns water into wine.

And the third sign, that of the frogs covering everything, was a symbol of what such a character eventually becomes. The croaking of frogs is symbolical in the Divine Word, of the croaking and quibblings of false reasoning, of reasoning against God, goodness, and heaven. This croaking spirit complains that everything else is at fault but the croaker himself. Frogs of this kind are represented in the 16th chapter of the book of Revelations, where John says, "I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon." And such croaking, such reasoning against truth, such murmuring and complaining against the glorious principles of righteousness, and the order of the world, come and cover the whole mind. If a man will not suffer the Lord to make him happy, he will make himself a croaking, conceited, miserable being, covering the land of his soul with frogs. You may meet with such persons now; they are not difficult to find. If people will not be made better, they become worse; and after a while, they become entirely set against the pure and simple requirements of heaven.

How astonishing is this strange perversity of the human character! How wonderful, and yet how true, that multitudes shun in every way the easy method of asking the Lord Jesus to lead them; and when they are shewn what to do, of doing it. The law of right is the simplest law that can be expressed; it is simply when we see the truth to walk in it; not stopping and hesitating, scheming, and fancying, but simply doing what the Divine Will in mercy tells us to do. in heart, for they shall see God." distempers of the soul will cease, out of bondage, into the freedom liberty of light and love.

"Blessed are the pure Then all the plagues and and the Lord will lead us of those that walk in the

SERMON VIII.

WHY THE MAGICIANS COULD NOT CREATE LICE.

AND

WHY THE STINGING FLIES DID NOT REACH GOSHEN.

"Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said."— Exodus VIII. 19.

It has been justly considered to be one of the most striking of the circumstances connected with Israel's deliverance from Egypt, that after three miracles had been performed, and the magicians had been able to imitate first one and then another of these, that there should come a plague, apparently of a less important and weighty character than the others, and that then the power of the magicians should entirely fail.

If the magicians could produce serpents, why could they not produce lice? May we not regard it as a manifestation of the Divine Omnipotence saying, "Thus far shall you go and no farther." It intimated that it was by divine permission and mercy alone, and for gracious ends of highest good, that anything could be done by these magicians.

Providence ordains what is good, and permits what is evil when evil can be made subservient to good. When the magicians produced serpents, turned water into blood, and brought frogs, they were permitted for wise ends; when they were not permitted, they could not produce the meanest insect.

It is a fact no doubt, affecting all things, that no evils can be permitted at any time, except by the Divine Mercy, and that whenever Omnipotence chooses to interfere, whenever Divine Wisdom sees that no good would come out of even the slightest evils, then they are not suffered to exist at all, however minute or poor they may be, even like these wretched and troublesome insects. Evil men do not think so; when their schemes are prospering, they are elated and insolent. They imagine that God does

not observe them, or, that they are defeating His gracious laws. Like Sennacherib, one day they defy the God of heaven; like him, in the morning they awake when the divine action comes, to find their schemes shattered, their helpers prostrate, dispersed, or dead. Even the wicked are made at length to confess that the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men.

But there are reasons, still deeper and broader, why the Divine Omnipotence should single this especial miracle out as one that could only be done by Himself. We shall perceive the divine wisdom in this circumstance, if we notice, first, that the dust of Egypt was representative, as well as every thing else in relation to that land, and to the divine drama then being enacted in the world. For dust is the symbol in the Word of God of things of the most worldly and material character. Objects which are of value in the sight of the Lord are represented in the Sacred Scriptures by things most valuable in themselves. Precious truths are signified by precious stones; high excellencies of celestial love are represented by gold. But things of a merely external character, although the evil set their hearts on them so thoroughly that they must have them; by honest means if they can, but by all means have them, are represented in the Divine Word as mere DUST. In the 14th verse of the third chapter of Genesis, it is said concerning the serpent, the symbol of mere sensual life, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." There is no animal, either of the serpent kind or any other, which outwardly does really live on dust, but because this creature is the symbol of that selfishness which evil men deify, which evil men exalt to be the rulers of their hearts and minds, and are ever craving to feed with more wealth, more power, larger houses, greater possessions; dust shall be the serpent's meat.* How truly the craving of the wicked is represented by this eating of dust. Every one will see, if he reflect for a moment, that the hankerings of a selfish man after more material power and wealth are just as unsatisfactory to him spiritually, as dust for food would be to the yearning stomach, ever eating, but never satisfied, ever hankering after fresh enjoyments, but never filled. Animals fed on dust, would vainly try to fill themselves where there could be no satisfaction, no nourishment, no comfort derived. So is it with a wicked person, who longs after the mere grovelling things of earth, as the objects worthiest of his attention. Dust shall be the serpent's meat, and dust is the serpent's curse.

* In Central America there is a race of savages, who extract a miserable food by feeding on large quantities of a fatty kind of clay. They look loathsome and are haggard.