also at this very hour. Hence they, both in Babylon and in their present dispersion, are represented as reminding God of his former mercies, and as urgently imploring at his hands a renewal of them. And, no doubt, a repetition of these mercies, or of deliverances equivalent to them, shall yet take place in their behalf: for it is expressly said, " The Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea ; and with his mighty wind will he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dry-shod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of £gyj)t{."]
But the text is chiefly worthy of observation,
nil. As affording a pattern for God's afflicted people in all ages —
Two things it clearly teaches us :
1. That we should bear in remembrance God's past mercies —
[The inspired writers are continually referring to the wonders wrought by Jehovah in behalf of his people in Egypt and in the wilderness : and God himself refers to them, as marking in a most extraordinary manner his power and grace, and as fitly illustrating his proper character : " Thus saith the Lord, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters." And should not we also bear those wonders in remem- brance ? Are they not shadows of that great redemption which God has wrought for us in the Son of his love, and which it is the privilege of every individual amongst us to experience in his own soul ? Have not ive been held under a bondage infi- nitely more oppressive than that of Egypt ; a bondage to sin and Satan, death and hell? And have not we been delivered, not by power only, but by price, even the precious blood of God's only dear Son ? Are not the wonders of the wilderness also the very same as are wrought for us in Christ ; who is the true bread of heaven given for the sustenance of our souls, and the true rock also, from whence the waters of life are ever nowin^ for our refreshment ?
Nay, more; should we not bear in mind, also, the mercies vouchsafed individually to ourselves — our temporal blessings ; our conversion to God ; our preservation from sin ; our resto- ration from falls and backslidings ; our peace ; our hope ; our consolations in the midst of trials ? Methinks every one of us has within his own bosom a counterpart of all that God has
f Isai. xi. 15, 16.