his mind, and he determines once more to reduce them under his subjection. Thus it is oftentimes with the sinner. After repeated mercies, and calls, and warnings, have been found ineffectual to produce repentance, some overwhelming blow descends, which comes upon him as a thunder stroke, and makes the inmost soul to tremble; some grievous affliction is sent whose influence is irresistible; and the spirit awakens suddenly to a consciousness of its real state, to a sense of its actual peril. He sees in the affliction the handwriting of God against him, and his conscience with ready accusation enables him to read it truly. For a time he repents, and resolutions are formed of future amendment. With the danger, however, or with the acute sense of suffering, these convictions pass away; repentance exists no longer, and the resolutions are entirely forgotten; sin resumes its empire; conscience again returns to its torpor; and "the last state of that man is worse than the first1. That this would be the case

with Pharaoh, was foretold to Moses by the Lord; and it was so ordained that he might fill up the measure of his iniquities; that God" might be honoured upon him and upon all his host; that the Egyptians might know that he was the Lord.'

The route pursued by Moses, which led the people into this danger, is an additional proof to those which we have before adduced, of the reality of his miraculous powers. For so little of human foresight or of carnal wisdom mingled in his counsels; so little does he appear to have acted upon any plan of ordinary prudence, that it would have been clearly impossible, without divine interposition, to escape from the perils which surrounded him. They are led into a mountain pass, with the sea in front of them, and the hosts of Egypt in the rear. In wilfulness or ignorance they became " entangled in the land." Thus situated, they are speedily overtaken by Pharaoh, and, to prove more fully that the whole deliverance was the Lord's, the Israelites are represented as bewailing their fate, and bitterly re

proaching Moses that he had thus led them out to certain death. In the extremity of danger he cries unto the Lord, and then, obedient to the command of Him by whom every step of his way had been marked out (for "the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire"), Moses stretches out his hand over the sea" and the waters were divided, and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground." The Egyptians pursuethe waters of the great deep close upon them-and Israel see their enemies no more. Thus the chosen people of God depart from Egypt, at the end of four hundred and thirty years, reckoning from the time when Abraham was first commanded to leave Charran, and sojourn in the land of Canaan'. When the desert had resounded with the voice of joy and thanks

"From Abraham's coming to sojourn in Canaan, to the birth of Isaac, was twenty-five years; and Isaac was sixty years old when he begat Jacob; who was a hundred and thirty years old when he went down into Egypt: which numbers put together make

giving for this glorious deliverance, they set forth on their journey, the Lord leading them the way, until he brought them to Horeb; to that mount where he had already revealed himself-his name-his nature-his perfections, unto Moses. Thus fulfilling that which he had given unto him as a token of his truth, saying,

When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain."

This passage of Israel through the Red Sea, wonderful in itself, as an exhibition of Almighty power and providential mercy, and calculated to excite attention on on this account alone, becomes still more memorable, from the allusions continually made to it in the Scriptures, and particularly from its mysterious and typical signification in the New Testament. As the whole

two hundred and fifteen years. And from his family's coming into Egypt was just as many more."-Bp. Patrick.

Jewish dispensation was preparatory to the Christian, there can be no doubt that most of the circumstances attending the establishment of that which was imperfect, ceremonial, and carnal, were intended, arranged, and ordained, as emblematical and figurative of that which was perfect and spiritual. We find this typical resemblance not merely in national events, but in individual characters and actions; and even prior to the existence of the Jewish people, nay, from the very beginning of time, it was the purpose of Jehovah to shadow forth those great things which should be hereafter. The character of Moses, as it is the most exalted and prominent in the Old Testament, so it resembles most closely the character of Christ; and his actions, as they are the most momentous in themselves and the most durable in their effects, so do they most clearly prefigure the actions of the Messiah. In meekness, in forbearance, in long-suffering, in love towards his people, in being the instrument of salvation to the