nauseous and loathsome, which was the common food of the people, and held sacred by the priests. When God inflicts his righteous judgments, He can do it in such a way as shall make the transgressors most keenly feel, and which shall pour most abundant contempt on their idols, and most effectually imbitter those things in which they have chiefly delighted.

3. Fish are alluded to by the sensual, murmuring Israelites, as among the choice delicacies of Egypt, of which they had freely partaken, and which proved a temptation to them to lust after former enjoyments, and forsake the privileges of the Divine guidance and provision, Numb. xi. 5. Exod. xvi. 5.-How degrading and ensnaring are fleshly lusts; and how ought we to pray and strive against their dominion!

4. Fish is alluded to as a commodity of traffick, which the men of Tyre sold to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, and which proved an occasion of their profaning the sabbath-day, Nehem. xiii. 15-22. Nehemiah, that upright and faithful governor, observed the shameful violations of the sacred day, which in his time prevailed, against which he sharply remonstrated, and exerted his authority to prevent. In doing this, it is observable that he dealt his reproofs, not to the men of Tyre, who sold the fish, but to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, the professing people of God, who bought them; not so much to the poor artificer or labourer who toiled on the sabbath-day, as to the nobles who employed them. Crime is often committed by influence and example, and perhaps

no crime more frequently than sabbath-breaking. Many in the higher walks of society, who, to pamper their luxury or gratify their vanity, have required or encouraged the lower classes to make "our Father's day a day of merchandise and toil," will find themselves charged with the guilt of sins which they did not actually and personally commit. It would be very difficult for the Jewish noble, who on the sabbath-day purchased fish, to convince the poor fisherman that he broke the sabbath in catching or selling it; or for those heads of families, who employ their servants the whole sabbath-morning in preparing for them a needlessly luxurious meal, to prove to those servants that it would be wrong for them to spend the afternoon and evening on their own pleasure. These remarks are perhaps scarcely in place here; yet their insertion will be more than forgiven, if they should prove the means of leading any in the higher classes of society to reflect that their observance of the sabbath includes self-denial in such things as would compel their dependants to violate it; and that command extends not only to the heads of families, their sons and daughters, but to their men-servants and maid-servants, and the stranger that is within their gates, the tradesman or labourer employed by them.

5. Deut iv. 15-19. Moses, recapitulating the Divine manifestations to Israel at Sinai, especially charged them to remember, that though they heard a voice, they saw no similitude of Deity, lest they should be tempted to imagine the Godhead like any

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creature, male or female, fowl or fish, or like the host of heaven. All these things the Egyptians worshipped; and it might be feared that Israel, from long residence among them, had become tainted with their idolatry. Dagon also, one of the principal gods of the Egyptians, as well as of the Philistines, was partly in the human form, and partly in that of a fish, as indeed his name signifies. To what awful blindness and depravity must the mind of man have been reduced, before it could have imagined, in the meanest creatures, and the most monstrous human inventions, an image or a symbol of the God in whom they live, and move, and have their being. accurately does the apostle Paul describe the origin and progress of idolatry, when he says, speaking of mankind as disregarding those marks of the great Creator's power, wisdom, and goodness, which He has imprinted on all the work of his hand,-"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and to creeping things," Rom i. 20-23.

6. Among the distinctions of food under the ceremonial law, all sorts of river, lake, and sea fish were allowed to be eaten, if they had fins and scales; others were esteemed unclean, Lev. xi. 9—12.

7. Among the predictions of the ruin of Egypt, and of the punishment denounced against their king, repeated allusions are made to fish, especially Isa. xix. 5-10. where the drying up of their stream, and the destruction of their fish, is threatened. A like destruction is intimated to the Jewish people, Is. 1. 2. and Ezek. xxix. 4, 5. where the king of Egypt is compared to the crocodile, and it is said, "I am against thee, the great dragon, that lieth in the midst of his rivers (in Egypt.) I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish in thy rivers to stick to thy scales; and I will bring thee out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers sball stick to thy scales."

The latter expression is supposed to allude particularly to the remora, a small fish, which in great numbers adheres closely to the shark and other large fish, and torments them exceedingly, so that they sometimes throw themselves on shore, in endeavouring to escape from the irritation.-How feeble and insignificant are the enemies of Jehovah made to appear, when they vainly come into competition with him. The most formidable and powerful is dragged about as easily as the fisherman draws to shore the fish in which his hook is securely fixed, and is insuf-ferably tormented by creatures the most insignificant and circumstances the most trifling. There is nothing so great, but it may be subdued by Omnipotence; nothing so trifling, but it may be made an instrument in inflicting His vengeance on His enemies.

8. Solomon has an affecting illustration, taken from

the fishes, of the frailty of man, and his exposure to temptation, affliction, and to death, Eccles. ix. 12. "For man also knoweth not his time, as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them :" such is our constant exposure to evil! Let us stand prepared, by watchfulness and prayer, to avert moral evil, and by patience to endure that which is natural, and by due and diligent preparation to meet that which is unavoidable.

9. Lawless oppressors are finely compared, by the prophet Habakkuk, to the fishes of the sea, i. 14. "And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping thing, which have no ruler." Were men left without restraint to the exercise of their evil propensities, to what a state would society be reduced! the great would trample upon the small, and the wicked prey upon the good, and rapine and desolation would overspread the world. What reason have we to be thankful for the restraints which are laid by Providence on the passions of men, and the comparative order preserved by civil government !

10. Our Lord, illustrating the tenderness of the Divine Being by that of an earthly parent, says, "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much