Exod. x. 3. Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Hoiv long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me ?
IT cannot be denied that Pharaoh was a remarkable character, raised up by God himself to be a monument
of God's power throughout all generations*. Yet we mistake if we think that the dispositions which he exercised were peculiar to him : the occasions that called them forth into exercise, were peculiar; hut the dispositions themselves were the common fruits of our corrupt nature, visible in all the human race. The command given to Pharaoh to permit all the Hebrews to go into the wilderness to offer sacrifice to their God, he chose not to comply with : and all the judg- ments inflicted on him, and the mercies vouchsafed to him, were ineffectual for the subduing of his rebellious spirit, and for the reducing of him to a willing obedi- ence. And every one who reads the history of these events stands amazed at the pride and obduracy of his heart. But if we would look inward, and see how zoe have withstood the commands of God, and how little effect either his judgments or his mercies have pro- duced on us, we should find little occasion to exult over Pharaoh: we should see, that, however circum- stances then elicited and rendered more conspicuous the evils of his heart, the very same corruptions, which he manifested, are in us also, and that every individual amongst us has the same need as he of the expostula- tion in the text ; " How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?" And it is remarkable that this very account of Pharaoh was ordered to be transmitted to the latest posterity, in order that the children of all succeeding generations might see in it what his ene- mies are to expect at His hands, and what his friendsb. That we may render this subject the more generally useful, we will,
I. Shew wherein true humiliation consists —
A full and abstract investigation of this point would lead us too far : we shall therefore confine ourselves to such particulars as the context more immediately suggests. True humiliation then consists in,
1. A deep and ingenuous sorrow for sin, as con- trasted with forced acknowledgments —
[If confessions extorted by sufferings or by fear were
a Exod. ix. 10. b ver. 1, 2.