Use. Let us take warning by Pharaoh's example, that this great judgment light not upon us. The Philistines, that were otherwise a blind and stupid people, yet were aftected with it. Dagon was broken in pieces, and they were smitten with emrods once and again, and they begin to consult what to do. Their diviners told tliem, 1 Sam.
230 SERMONS UPON EXODUS IV. 2i.
vi. G, ' Wherefore do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened tlieir hearts? when he had Avrouglit wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed ? ' (lod delighteth not in judgment, and therefore lie hath made a pre- cedent once for all ; here is Pharaoh set up, that all succeeding ages may stand in fear. God would not have us learn to our bitter cost, but take example by others. Qici alieno malo non sapit, gravius punitur — He that will not take warning by others shall be more grievously punished. In judgments it is better to take example than to become examples. If thy life should be nothing else but Pharaoh's story acted over again (for certainly there is an exact parallel between this case and the course of every obstinate sinner), how great will thy doom be ! God was angry with Belshazzar because he was not warned by Nebuchadnezzar's example : Dan. v. 22, ' And thou his son, 0 Bel- shazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this.' You have known and heard of the way of God with Pharaoh ; God hath a quarrel with some of you for your lusts and vanities; do you think to bear it up against warnings with peace and quiet ? Your lusts may not bring you to present ruin, that 5'ou may be the more hardened in them ; but be sure that God will have the best at last ; and then I leave you to judge what will be your condition when you fall under the weight of his displeasure. Have you not some qualms of conscience sometimes about your eternal condition ? doth not con- science say, Surely I am not so careful to make my peace with God as I should be ? Upon every such stirring you are the more estranged from God if you do not improve it. Conscience will repeat over these warnings to you when you lie upon your death-beds ; and then you will sadly howl over your neglects, and wish your magicians and old cora- 2)anions far from you ; then you will send for Moses and Aaron, and it may be too late. When God is showing mercy, the last mercies are the best, and the farther he goeth the sweeter he is ; and when God is punishing, the last punishments are the sorest, and the farther he goeth the more bitter.
I will propound two considerations —
1. From the evil of an hard heart.
[1.] It is a contest with God, not only with his greatness and power, but also with his goodness and mercy, and therefore it must needs succeed ill with us. Before God breaketh out with fury he treateth with us in a mild condescending way ; he beseecheth his own creatiu-e : Jer. xiii. 15, 16, ' Hear ye, and give ear ; be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken : give glory to God before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains ; and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.'
[2.] An hard heart makes us rebels to God and slaves to everything else ; for we are wedded to some inferior thing ; we are our own Pharaohs, and will not let ourselves go : 2 Tim. iii. 4, * Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.'
[3.] It is in itself the sorest of all judgments.
[4.] It never goes alone, but brings other judgments along with it.
[5.] It is the great hindrance of the spiritual life. (See Sermon on Mark iii. 5.)
SEBMONS aPON EXODUS IV. 21. 231
2. From the parties whom it may befall, not only the open wicked, tut in some measure God's own children ; for God may harden two ways — as a judge, and as a father ; by way of punishment, and by way of correction. By way of punishment again two ways— totally and finally. Some are totally hardened, and have nothing of a soft heart in them, and yet not finally; the dreadful sentence of obduration is not yet passed upon them, as it may be upon others, and that dur- ing life, when God leaveth them to their own hearts' counsels, with- out any check or restraint of providence, or purpose to reclaim them. These three kinds I must then speak of — God's hardening the wicked in general, his final hardening, and his hardening in part his own children.
SERMON II.
I will harden his heart, thai he shall not let my people go. — ExoD. iv. 21.
First, Of God's hardening wicked men in general as a judge. The causes of it are — ■
1. Ignorance ; for light and love make the heart tender. Light is that which we are now to take notice of. Light begets tenderness, as it discerneth sin, and maketh us sensible of it, especially the lively light of the Spirit : Eom. vii. 9, ' I was alive without the law once ; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,' Sense of guilt and punishment soon flashed in his face ; as in a dungeon the worms crawl as soon as light is brought in: Jer. xxxi. 19, 'After I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh ; I was ashamed, yea, even con- founded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.' Instruction breedeth remorse, and awakeneth men out of their stupid security ; but while men continue in their ignorance they are stupid and senseless. Now thus men may be for a long time, and yet afterwards God may make the scales fall ofi" from their eyes, and ' open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,' Acts xxvi. 18. However, affected and vinceable ignorance, when men are willingly ignorant and err in their hearts, that is, when men have powerful and enlightening motives and yet remain ignorant, this is very dangerous. And for the present, that ignorance is one cause of their hardening is evident, because the worst usually when they come to die are sensible ; their mind is then cleared from the fogs and steams of lust, and conscience being awakened, they then feel their load, and a great weight of sin lying upon them, and most wish they had lived in a more strict and ready obedience to God's will,