assured; for who can contend against his Maker? But the steps by which God was pleased to get himself the victory are very interesting and instructive, full of warning to every opposer of God's will, full of encouragement to all whose cause he espouses.

Moses and Aaron, having received their commission, proceed into the presence of the King of Egypt to deliver their message. They speak to him in the name of the Lord. They tell him that they were sent by the God of the people of Israel, and that He required him to permit his people to go and perform a certain service to him. "Let my

people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness." Nothing is here

said of their quitting the land altogether, or of their return. Pharaoh was left to suppose that they would come back; and under this supposition, which he had no reason to reject, his opposition and rebellion were the more flagrant and inexcusable. He was tried with a small matter, but it was sufficient to call forth the pride of his heart, and manifest his contempt of God. And as the offence of

our first parents was the greater by being a transgression of a commandment easy to be observed, so the refusal of Pharaoh to listen to the demand of the Lord had this aggravation, that the demand was one, which as far as it went might readily have been allowed without any material injury to himself or his kingdom. With the secret purpose of God, even if he suspected it, he had nothing to do; he was only concerned with that which was required of him.

But turning aside for a while from Pharaoh, let us see, my brethren, how God owns his people. The message contains this recognition of them, Let my people go. They were God's people, though they were in affliction and bondage. They were his people through the covenant which he had made with their fathers, and he did not forget he owned them as such before their O brethren, if we be the people

them;

oppressor.

of God through the new covenant which he has made in the Son of his love, the blessed Jesus, never shall we be forgotten of him. We may be exposed to manifold trials, but

even then the Lord hath not forsaken us, nor will he be unmindful of us.

Yet let his people remember that the Lord requires their service. "Let them go," saith Moses to Pharaoh, "that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness." We, brethren, have public services to perform; we have solemn and sacred ordinances to observe; we have righteous commandments to keep, and holy duties to perform. Contemplating ourselves in our covenant relationship unto God, we should say with the Apostle, "whose I am, and whom I serve." My brethren, if we are the Lord's people in Christ, not only are we permitted to cast all our care upon him, and to hope in his protection and mercy, but he also has claims upon our faithful service and dutiful obedience in all things. In him let us put our trust, but to him let us also devote our lives. "I beseech you therefore, brethren," in the words of St. Paul, "by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

There was no such obedient disposition in Pharaoh. When God required him to permit his people to go and serve him, he indignantly rejected the demand. These are his haughty and insolent words; “Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord,

neither will I let
impious answer!
he speak of God!

Israel go." What an How contemptuously does Who is the Lord? What have I to do with him? What greater or better is he than my gods? What right has he in me? What authority to demand, or power to compel me to obey him? Why should I care for the God of Israel?

He is not the God whom I serve. " I know not the "I

Lord." Most true was that last saying. Indeed he knew not the Lord. He knew not the Lord, and therefore he glorified him not as God. He knew not the Lord, or he would have feared him. He knew not the Lord, or he would have loved him. Either feeling would have produced an instant compliance. But he knew not the Lord, and therefore he says, "I will not let Israel go.”

And moreover he did not desire to know him, and did not enquire after him, and therefore he was left to harden himself in his obstinacy and rebellion. The Apostle ascribes the hatred of Christ, which was felt in his day by the princes of the world, to their ignorance of the mystery of God revealed by the gospel; for had they known it," he says, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." But with what animation does he speak of himself as having, through this cause, been made the object of mercy. I "was before," he says, "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." I think that these observations will also lead you to remember and adore the astonishing forgiveness, pity, and mercy, of our blessed Lord, who even on his cross made his memorable prayer on this very ground, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Instead of reproaching Pharaoh, or threatening him with the judgments of the Lord, Moses and Aaron besought him to permit