Direct promise of success at the mouth of God was, to one so faithful as Moses, as powerful t-0 cheer, encourage, and sustain, as success itself. Vere. 19, 20.-Pha.rao11's obduracy, aml God's mode of ove1·coming it. '!'hero aro stubborn hearts which no warnings can impress, no leseons teach, no pleading, even of G-od's Spirit, bend. With such he "will not always strive." After they have resisted him till his patience is exhausted, he will break them, crush thell)., overrule their opposi- tion, and make it futile. God's will surely triumphs in the end. But it may be long first. God is so patient, so enduring, so long-suffering, that he will permit for months, or even years, the contradiction of sinners against himself. He will not interfere with the exercise of their free-will. He will warn, chide, chasten, afflict, contend with the sinner; try him to the uttermost; seek to lead him to repentance; give him chance after chance. But he will not compel him to submit himself; man may resist to the last; and even "curse God and die" at war with him. The final success in such a struggle cannot, however, rest with man. God" will not alway be chid:ino-, neither keepeth he his anger for ever." At the fitting time he " stretches forth his hand and smites " the sinner, strikes him down, or sets him aside, as the storm-wind sets aside a feeble barrier of frail rushes, and works his own will in his own way. Mostly he works liy natural causes ; but now and again in the history of the world he has asserted himself more openly, and has broken the power and chastised the pride of a Pharaoh, a Benhadad, or a Sennacherib, in a miraculous way. Such manifestations of his might produce a marked effect, causing, as they do, " all the kingdoms of 'the earth to know that he is the Lord God. and he only" (2 Kings xi.x. 19). Vers. 21, 22.-God brings good out of evil. Had Pharaoh yielded at the first, the Egyptians would have seen the departure of Israel with regret, and would have in no way facilit.ated it. The opposition of the king and court, the long struggle, the ill- usage of the Israelites by the monarch who so often promised to release them, and so often retracted his word, awoke a sympathy with the Israelites, and an interest in them, which would have been altogether lacking had there been no opposition, no struggle, no ill-usage. Again, the plagues, especially the last, thorotighly alarmed the Egyptians, and made them o.nxious to be quit of such dangerous neighbours. "Egypt was glad of their departing, for they wer.e afraid of them" (Ps. cv. 38). But for Pharaoh's obduracy the p~ITU.es would not have been sent; and but for the ·p~1TJJ.es tqe departing Israelites would not have been looked upon by the Eg¥ptians with the "favour " which led to their going out laden with gifts. Thus Pharaoh's stubbornness, tbough it led to their swferings being prolonged, led also to their final triumphant exit, as spoilers, not as spoiled, laden with the good things of Egypt, "jewels of silver and jewels of gold," and rich apparel, the best that the Egyptians had to offer. History presents an infinitude of similar cases, where the greatest advantages have been the result of oppression and wrong. Extreme tyranny constantly leads to the assertion of freedom; anarchy to the firm establishment of law; defeat and ill-usage by a conqueror to the moral recovery of a declining race or nation. Each man's experience will tell him of the good that has arisen to him individually from sickness, from disappointment, from bereavement, from what seemed at the time wholly evil God brings good out of evil in a thousand mar- vellous ways; at one time by turning the hearts of oppressors, at another by raising the tone and spirit of the oppressed; now by letting evil run riot until it produces general disgust, anon by making use of adverse circumstances to train a champion and deliverer. Countless are the evidences that God causes evil to work towards good; uses it as an instrument-evolves his own purposes, in part, by its means, vindicating thus his absolute lordship over all, and showing that evil itself, though it fight against him, mnnot thwart him.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vera. l-5.-Moses at the bush. We do not now see burning bushes, or hear voices calling to us from their midst. The reason is, that we do not need them. The series ofhlstorical revelations is complete. Revelation in the sense of the communication of new truth-of truth beyond the range of our natural faculties, or not capable of beh1g CH. III, l-6.) THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 66