self-conceit, vanity, ostentation, with a variety of evil counsellors perverting the imagination to think that wrong is right, that good is evil, and truth is false. Below these, are the lusts which pander to the peculiar outward sins to which the soul is prone, whether the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, or the pride of life. (1 John, II. 15.) Besides these, there are the acquisitive powers of the soul employed to provide the means for carrying out its projects of indulgence or aggrandizement, there are the principles which cover all over with fair seemings of decency, modesty, and order, except in cases of degradation so deep as to be reckless of all good report, and lost to all appearance of virtue. Usually there is a decorous outside, a form of reason and religion, a righteous appearance of morality, which makes a certain air of beauty around, though within there are rottenness and dead men's bones. (Matt. XXIII. 27.) Often indeed! with this prevalence of sin and selfishness within, there is much talk of devotedness to eternal things, and of reverence for the Scriptures, and for God; the form of piety, and the doctrines of faith are loudly maintained, but form only, and faith alone. Every portion of Scripture which can be pressed into meaning that we are sure of salvation done out of us for us, is diligently pressed into the service of inward sin, and the evil soul will believe anything, however crude, contradictory, or absurd: will believe that it was chosen from eternity out of thousands of others, equally deserving or undeserving, by the God of infinite love, to be saved whether it would or not that its sins were taken away on our Lord's cross nearly two thousand years before it was born, and had any sin: it will believe its sins are forgiven because a man says they are forgiven, though it feels their desires and delights as strongly as ever; in short, it will believe anything, only let it practically be spared from slaying self within, and its darling propensities, or yielding more obedience to the commandments of the God of love than such as the world demands.

This is the condition of the soul, which Pharoah and his kingdom represent in the first chapter of Exodus. A king has arisen which knew not Joseph. Piety in youth has given way to selfishness, pretence, and sin. Our Lord describes this state in that remarkable passage in the Gospel, "When a strong man keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour in which he trusted."-Luke xi. 21, 22.

We have described the evil condition of the soul, but there is the other side. Divine mercy provides an Israel in Egypt. There is the ground-work of good implanted by the Lord in the

very embryo of our being, and which enabled Him to say of children, Of such is the kingdom of God."

The hour is approaching when this slavery is to end, and the trumpet of deliverance shall sound; but in the meantime, the principles and powers of good are made to serve. They build treasure cities for Pharoah, Pithom, and Raamses, the latter city being called, there is reason to believe, after the king's eldest son, which the name favours,* and the former, Pithom, signifying an abundance for the mouth. Both being expressive of those gatherings of divine knowledge which are common with the evil, when they fear, and doubt, and dread, yet will not alter. They gather spiritual knowledge, to support their eldest son, the conceit of a worthless faith, they gather abundance for profession, the mouth is fully supplied, but for self-sacrifices, for real love to God and their neighbour, they are miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

The labour which they compel the Israelites to perform in clay (called wrongly, mortar in the text) and brick, represents the bending and prostitution of things good and true in the soul, to be subservient to what is evil and false. The filthiness of evil is expressed by clay, when used in reference to the wicked, and the artificial character of falsehood is expressed by brick as contrasted with stone. Of the Babel-builders it is written, "brick had they for stone, and slime had they for mortar."-Gen. xI. 3. In the Psalms, a foul and filthy state of the heart is signified by clay. "I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, and out of the miry CLAY, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings."-Ps. XL. 1, 2. "Save me O God for the waters are come in upon my soul. I sink in deep MIRE, where there is no standing."

Rocks, from their solid nature, and their use for foundations, and for walls, are the symbols of foundation-truths, hence, the Lord is called the Rock of Israel, and the Head-Stone of the corner, bricks therefore as artificial substitutes for rock and stone, represent the substitutes for truths, which are fallacies.

The scene of the Israelites labouring in the field with clay and brick, strikingly symbolizes the condition of the soul while knowing and yearning for what is good, being compelled to submit to what is evil and make excuses for it. The mind in such cases feels itself defiled, loathes its occupation, but is compelled to slave on, and to find bad arguments which in its heart of hearts it condemns and abhors.

* Raamses in Egyptian, or Rameses, the offspring of the sun.

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Pharoah becomes more and more alarmed, and more and more cruel and desperate. Hence, at last the decree, that the midwives should destroy the male children.

In spiritual things, the union of love and faith in the inmost soul is likened to a marriage, and the affections and thoughts thence born in the mind are regarded as daughters and sons. The affections for truth are daughters; hence, the muses with the ancients are represented as nine maidens, and in the Scriptures we read of the daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem, the king's daughter all glorious within; but the more sturdy sons represent thoughts of truth, firm and strong.

The gentle affections can be made subservient to evil states, they can make sin graceful and lend it support. Indeed the strength and life of every evil system in the world, arise chiefly from the hoodwinked good people who are associated with it. Pharoah is quite content with them, let the daughters live he says. They recommend a system which is fraught with evil and a curse to the world, they prop it up, they continue it, they make it respectable. But the sons of Israel, the true thoughts which spring up in the mind are more penetrating and discriminating, they try evil systems and condemn them. the sons, and commands that they should be been ever so, the thinkers terrify the despots. to destroy the male children by means of the instructive representation of an important fact. science is a mid-wife to spiritual realities, it illustrates them, confirms them, ushers them as it were into the world. It is friendly to spiritual truth, it points through nature up to nature's God. All truth is in harmony, and each part conspires to strengthen the other. Yet sin always wishes to set science against religion, the mid-wife to kill the child. But if the midwife be true, she ever fears God and preserves the child. confirms the mid-wives, and makes them houses.

Hence, evil dreads destroyed. It has The king's effort mid-wives, is an All true natural

God

of

When astronomy was new, it was supposed by the opposers divine things, to serve their purposes; and so with geology, but now, both are seen to point to eternal love, millions of ages past storing the appliances of metals, minerals, soils, gases, in all their multiform and wondrous varieties, while the inner and higher sense of Scripture unfolds to us truths of regeneration, which more than keep the children alive. So the mid-wives ever reply, "the Hebrew women are lively, the children are born and live.” And they will live. The Lord Jesus by His law will break the bondage of Pharoah. Heaven's freedom must be given.

SERMON II.

THE FINDING OF MOSES.

"And the daughter of Pharoah came down to wash herself at the river: and her maidens walked along the river side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children."-Exodus II. 5, 6.

It is an adage trite and true, that great events arise from little things. No doubt, there is another side to this truth. There must be causes adequate to produce all effects. And behind and underneath causes apparently weak and small, there must be immense powers, when the causes increase and become mighty, and change the face of the world; yet how simple and powerless they seem at first. How forcibly is this truth illustrated by the circumstance presented in our text. Here was a little child born in terror, of despised parents, hidden for safety in a frail chest of bulrushes, crudely preserved from the water and the observation. of the dangerous crocodile, feeble as feebleness itself, to all appearance; yet that child was to be the deliverer of his people, the legislator of his nation, and not of that nation only, but through the Divine Word, of which he and his nation were the receivers and depositories of the ever increasing christian nations, and for all time. Even in heaven, they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb.

How clearly and how wonderfully does this teach us not to despise the day of small things, not to imagine that the race is ever to the strong, but to rest in perfect faith on the truth, that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will. If any one had been asked at the time of the event recorded in our text, which will be the most influential in the world, the proud and powerful Pharoah who rules the world's mightiest and most ancient throne, or, that weak and weeping babe, especially if the courtiers had thus been questioned

there would have been no doubt the king would have had every suffrage, but it was not so; the name of the once proud despot is scarcely known, while the name and influence of that infant will never die. "God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." 1 Cor. I. 27-29.

The greatest of all examples of this kind, is that of the Lord himself; lonely, forsaken of every disciple, left to die upon the cross. He was rejected, despised, crucified. Against Him, were his own nation, his own kindred. Against Him were the Jewish dignitaries, entrenched in their rank and influence by centuries of usage and prejudice, behind them, the Roman Power, the greatest the world had ever known. There were church and state in both these powers, rooted, ramified, triumphant. To all appearance, the dying Saviour would have no influence in forming the new age, like that which these old and powerful organizations would exert. But how different is the event, embodied and entrenched error, though surrounded by the respectability of antiquity, rank, fashion, prejudice, magnificence, power, has nevertheless faded, crumbled, and gone; while TRUTH, Small, weak, rejected, trampled upon, supposed to be extinguished, nevertheless rose again, and with healing in its wings, spread its holy splendours ever wider, ever grander, and will spread them until they embosom the whole earth. The moral of all this is. Let us be ever on the side of truth, however feeble or few they may be who hold it now. The day is sure to come, when the truth despised to day, will be welcomed by millions. "Fear not little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

Permit me now to direct your attention to the spiritual lesson enclosed in the divine narrative before us. It is the birth of the law in the soul; that inner sense of right which becomes law to the conscience. The name Moses signifies DRAWN OUT, and in giving it, Pharoah's daughter said, "Because I drew him out of the water."-Ex. II. 10. The spiritual Moses now, is the law of the divine commandments, as seen in their essence and explained by the Lord. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-Matt. XXII. 38-40.