days, in the generations of old," is there made the very pattern of what shall be done for all the Lord's people. A similar assurance is given in reference to the water that issued from the rock ; and we are told " not even to remember or con- sider the former things," since God will repeat them again and again, doing them " anew," so that " every body shall know" and observe it : "I will give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen1." As for the manna, you all are taught by our blessed Lord to pray, " Give us day by day our daily bread k." The matter then is plain : for, if such things as these are to be realized in our experience, there is nothing which was ever done for mortal man, which we are not authorized to expect, as far as our necessities require it. Miracles indeed we are not to expect : but what was formerly done by visible exercises of a miraculous power, shall now, in effect, be done by the invisible agency of God's providential care. The mode of effecting our deliverance shall be varied ; but the deliverance itself shall be secured.]
Now we come to, II. What it affirms —
The proverb is express : " In the mount the Lord shall be seen:" that is,
1. He will interpose for his people in the hour of necessity —
[This is its plain import : and to the same effect it is elsewhere promised, " The Lord will judge his people, and repent himself for his servants ; when he seeth that their power is gone, and that there is none shut up or left1." If it be asked, ' In what way will he interpose?' I answer, ' This must be left to him : he is not limited to any particular means : he can work by means, or without them, as he seeth fit : the whole creation is at his command : the wind shall divide the sea ; and the sea shall stand up as a wall on either hand, when he is pleased to make a way through it for his people : and the waters shall resume their wonted state, when he gives them a commission to overwhelm his enemies : and both the one and the other shall be done at the precise moment of Israel's neces- sity111. If confederate armies come against his people, his enemies shall defeat their own sanguinary purpose, and be the executioners of God's vengeance on each other". Is the destruction of a faithful servant menaced and expected by blood-thirsty persecutors ? an angel becomes the willing agent
1 Isai. xliii. 18 — 20. Cite the whole. k Luke xi. 3. See the Greek. !Deut. xxxii. 36. m Exod. xiv. 10 — 14.
"2 Chron. xx. 1, 10—13, 16, 17, 22—24.