repeated covenant of the Lord, and the oath which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. But if their notions come short of absolute incredulity, their wavering faith is stronger than that of those whose groanings God heard and remembered his covenant; but who, when this very message from the Lord was told them, would not, after the first disappointment of their hopes, hearken unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage.1

Abraham was a stranger in the land of Canaan. There for three generations he and his descendants had sojourned as pilgrims. The possession declared to be everlasting had not, after the lapse of centuries, been once entered on for a single day. In Egypt, long their dwelling-place, the land of Goshen, though once held in free tenure from the king, had been turned into the house of bondage. Gathering stubble in the fields, and beaten for a fault that was not theirs, they looked not like the heirs of a divinely covenanted inheritance; and when their hope was once cast down, and their burdens increased because they dared to cherish it, their hearts were crushed, and their hope was lost, and to the tidings of deliverance they would not listen.

2

But though another king had arisen that knew not Joseph, and the Egyptian dynasty had been changed, the same unchangeable Jehovah, making himself known by that name, declared the immutability of his covenant with the seed of Jacob. Their cry came up unto God by reason of their bondage, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and had respect unto them.3 And when their oppression was increased beyond endurance, and the ordained slaughter of each male child threatened the annihilation of their race, their deliverance was

1 Exod. vi. 9.

2 Ibid. v. 12-17.

3 Ibid. ii. 25.

signal and glorious; and whenever the word for its ratification came forth from their God, all earthly power was tried in vain to prevent or to suspend the execution of the covenant.

Because Pharaoh would not let the people go, miracle after miracle brought plague upon plague, till the last hour had come in which the children of Israel were to remain in Egypt. At midnight the Lord smote the firstborn in every family of the Egyptians; and the hardened heart of the king being humbled at last, he was constrained to urge them to depart, at the very moment when they were equipped for their journey.' When, again infatuated to pursue them, his horse, and chariots, and horsemen were entombed in the Red Sea, while Israel passed over on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on the right hand and on the left:2 the Lord, triumphing gloriously, redeemed the seed of Jacob with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, and with great judgments and fury poured forth upon their enemies.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness. His covenant with Israel could not fail. Rather should the Red Sea be a pathway for hundreds of thousands to pass over dry-shod,rather should manna, as from heaven, fall down daily in abundance for them all, and the stream flow from the flinty rock, rather should a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, guide them on their way, -rather should the waters of Jordan fly back before the feet of those who bore the ark of the covenant, and the walls of Jericho fall down at the blast of the smallest horns, than the Lord should not plant his people in the land which He had promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their seed for ever. Nay,

1 Exod. xii. 31.

2 Ibid. xiv. 22, 28, 29.

rather should the sun and the moon stand still, as his witnesses in the heavens, at the commandment of a man, who was stedfast in the covenant of the Lord, and led the Israelites into Canaan, than the word of the Eternal fail in driving out their enemies before them.

SECTION II.

But God is not a respecter of persons; and merciful and gracious as He is, yet He will by no means clear the guilty. Known to the Israelites as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,—as the Almighty, and as Jehovah; He made himself known to them also as the Holy One of Israel; and He chose them unto himself for a peculiar and a holy people. He entered into a covenant with them, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. The law was then given them; and life and death were set before them. The words of the covenant -the ten commandments—were written on tables of stone by the finger of the Lord; and after the tenor of these words He made a covenant with Israel.

Sin can have no fellowship with God; He is angry with the wicked every day: and sinners, as such, cannot enter into covenant or communion with him. A sinner, however, like all other men, Abraham was; and even when the Lord had made and confirmed his covenant with him, he confessed that he was but dust and ashes in his sight. But he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness. His faith was shown by his obedience to the voice of the Lord, even till his hand was lifted up to sacrifice his beloved son, the very heir

1 Exod. xxxiv. 27.

2 Gen. xviii. 27.

of promise. The covenant concerning the land was made with believing men. They believed in a righteousness not their own; they saw the day of Christ afar off and were glad; and the covenant between God and them was gracious and everlasting, and bears its token in all generations of their race. But even under the Old Testament dispensation, circumcision became as uncircumcision and availed nothing, if, with uncircumcised hearts, they were not the children of faithful Abraham. An Israelite according to the flesh alone, had no right to the inheritance of the land, if faith was wanting.

Of this their earliest history supplies an obvious illustration, a fearful "example of unbelief," in the multitudes that were brought out of Egypt, and were led to the very borders of the promised land, and were commanded to enter it; but who, fearful of their enemies, and distrusting the power and disbelieving the promises of God, "could not enter in because of unbelief." "How long will this people provoke me? how long will it be ere they believe me? for all the signs which I have shown them, said the Lord." He threatened to disinherit them, and in their stead to make of Moses a greater and mightier nation than they. But, jealous for the glory of the Lord, their magnanimous leader, regardless of the promised exaltation of his own house, pleaded fervently for Israel, that the name of their God might not be blasphemed by the Egyptians and other nations. "They will say," said Moses, "that the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which He sware unto them, therefore He hath slain them in the wilderness." "And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word; but as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord;-but because these men have

1 Heb. iii. 14.

2 Num. xiv. 11, 12.

not hearkened unto my voice, surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers; to-morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness." There, according to his word, that unbelieving and evil generation fell. And not till all above twenty years old, who had come out of Egypt-save Caleb and Joshua, who had another spirit in them had perished there, did Israel, when another generation had arisen, enter into Canaan.

A most striking and instructive illustration is thus presented, in the very beginning of their national history, of the fact that their unbelief could not make void the promises of God to their fathers; and that their breaking of the covenant made with them, could not disannul the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which the Lord confirmed as everlasting, centuries before the law was given by Moses. The whole nation might have been disinherited, as threatened, and slain as one man; but God, as He declared, would have made even of a single individual left in Israel, a greater and mightier nation, in whom He would fulfil his promises. An unbelieving generation did perish in the wilderness, and yet the Lord, in contradiction of the averment of the heathen, did bring his people into the land which He sware unto them. Whatever might seem to frustrate the covenant with Abraham; whatever, in the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God, might seem in human view to disannul and to annihilate it, by rendering its execution apparently impossible; still, as truly as the Lord liveth-and his name Jehovah tells that He is the ever-living God-his covenant should stand fast as his very being; and, neither mutilated nor marred, either by the unbelief of his people for a season, however long, or by the blasphemies of the heathen, whatever

1 Num. xiv. 15, 16, 21-25.