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9. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.

10. And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

We are now drawing very near to the conclusion of Pharaoh's sad and painful history. Although there is a division between this chapter and the preceding, it is evident that it formed a part of the same conference before Moses left the presence of Pharaoh for the last time, for he is not said to have gone out from Pharaoh after his own declaration, "I will see thy face again no more," until the eighth verse of the present chapter. Moses was probably in the act of leaving the court, when the Lord stopped him with the solemn declaration, "Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh," and then no doubt proceeded to communicate to him the appalling nature of it, since we find Moses immediately declaring it to Pharaoh, with every circumstance of attendant terror. "All the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die." "And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more." How unutterably fearful a denunciation! and yet how incapable of softening the judicially hardened heart of the monarch! Moses now for the first time seems to be assuming the power and rank with which the Almighty had invested him. "All these thy servants," says to Pharaoh," shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out,

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and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out." "As if he had said, Dost thou refuse to let us go? Hast thou forbidden me to come again into thy presence upon pain of death? then attend; all these thy servants, the princes who surround thee, shall, before this night of vengeance dawns into day, come down to me and supplicate me to depart, and I will not do it until that which thou hast so often denied to me as a matter of justice shall be thus asked at my hands, as a favour and a boon. How wonderfully was the power of the Most High magnified by this bold and fearless declaration of his servant! Who could suppose that this was he who had asked, "Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh ?” or that had so faithlessly entreated, "Send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send," by any one but me? Most fully had the Almighty redeemed his gracious promise, "Go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”

How different a creature is man, when trusting to himself, or when content simply to be guided by the Holy Spirit of God, let St. Peter tell; that weak disciple who denied the Saviour for fear of a simple waiting-woman; that heroic champion who proclaimed the same Saviour at the evident peril of liberty and life, before the assembled Sanhedrim, and who, when his hour was come, did not shrink from making the painful death of the cross even more painful, rather than appear to count himself worthy of the fate of his divine Master. While, during the whole age of the Christian martyrs, how often did it happen that the self-confident warrior was among

the number of "the lapsed," while many a weak and feeble woman, and many a helpless child, walked cheerfully to the stake, "not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." Blessed Lord, in thee, and in thee alone, is our strength found; only qualify us for the burden, and support us under it, and then nothing shall be too painful, nothing too heavy for us to bear. Render us" patient in tribulation," by the same grace which makes us "steadfast in faith," "joyful through hope, and rooted in charity," and then we shall "so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally we shall come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with thee, world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord."*

How awful and awakening to every hardened sinner should be the parting words of the Almighty to the doomed and devoted Pharaoh, "Yet will I bring upon thee one plague more!" Yes, sinner, if thou still hardenest thyself against God, whatever be thy pains or sufferings here, believe not that they will be at an end, when mortal life shall close upon thee; hope not for any earthly termination of them: "one plague more" awaits thee, a plague to which even death itself is but the prelude, from which there can be no escape, in which there is no respite, and with which can never mingle hope. In the midst of thy severest earthly sufferings, think of the "one plague more;" and may God of his mercy give thee grace to fly in time to that city of refuge, the Lord Jesus

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Christ, within the walls of whose fold, and the enclosures of whose love, that plague cannot enter, and where thou canst alone escape the last sad doom of the impenitent, the unbelieving, the hardened sinner.

EXPOSITION XXIX.

EXODUS xii. 1-20.

1. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,

2. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

3. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house;

4. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man, according to his eating, shall make your count for the lamb..

5. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year; ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:

6. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

7. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

8. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

9. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.

10. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

11. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's passover.

12. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment; 1 am the Lord.

13. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

14. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

15. Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

16. And in the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.

17. And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this self-same day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.

18. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

19. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.

20. Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.

The Almighty having plainly declared to Pharaoh in the preceding chapter, that his people should go forth from the land of bondage, and that time having

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