as a wall on each side. It is not explained by the modern theory of certain divines, that there luckily blew a strong wind, which divided, drove the waters all on one side, and made a dry passage. It is one of the tendencies of the day, a tendency patronized and upheld by some very eminent divines in the Church of England, who belong to what is called the Broad Church school, to explain away every miracle whatever. It is a very painful and a very sad thing that men should try to refine away God's word till it means anything and everything. It seems to me the safe way and the only way is to hold fast by this word as inspired of God; and always to understand it in its literal meaning, except where that literality would involve absurdity or impossibility, or where it is explained by the Spirit himself interpreting it. "Dividing the water before them," And if you read carefully the record of that miracle, you must see it is a miracle from the account of it: all the winds of heaven never could cut an arm of the sea as a knife would cut any soft substance. The wind might have blown the water over to the opposite shore, but the Israelites would still have had to wade through it; but the water stood up like a crystal wall, upon each side, and they passed through, not amid water, but dry-shod. It was unquestionably the deed of God. But people seem so anxious to get rid of God, that as long as they can explain any phenomenon on what are called natural laws, so long they will not admit God is. I believe, on the contrary, that it is strictly and literally true that God is in the falling of a leaf, or a drop of water, that he is in all the least and tiniest incidents of the humblest individual, just

as much as in the grandest and most magnificent events of history; and if you can prove to me that a hair can fall to the ground without his permission -if you can prove to me that the hairs of your head are not numbered by him-I will prove to you, on the premises by which you prove your proposition, that God neither reigns nor rules in the universe at all. Deny a special providence, and you must deny a general providence; and deny a providence, and, disguise it as you like, you deny the existence of God.

We read in another passage here, "As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest;" that is, as the ox, as the sheep, are led down into the valley for shelter and for pasture, so God's people are protected.

Then his own people lift up their hearts to him in these touching words: "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory;" that is, translated into literal words, pity us, have compassion upon us. "Where is thy zeal and thy strength," which thou didst show for thine own of old, "the sounding of thy bowels?" The ancients conceived, and in Scripture it is constantly supposed, that the heart and the viscera are the seat of compassion and of sympathy; and therefore the expression is used, “the sounding of thy bowels.” The heart is constantly spoken of in Scripture as the seat of affection, and of feeling, and of sympathy. Then he says, "Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham ignore us;" that is, he supposes it, that Abraham, the first founder of their nation, would ignore them or despise them: yet let him do so,

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thou art our father;" and Jacob, or Israel, may not acknowledge us, may be ashamed of us; but yet thou art not. The idea is this, that all the most illustrious personages in our history may care nothing for us; all our grand historic characters may forget us; or, to come nearer still, a mother may forget her infant, that she should not have compassion on it; but "thou art our father; thou art still our redeemer; thy name is still from everlasting."

In the 17th verse, as if repenting of their sins, they ask the question, "O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear?" Does this mean that God literally makes people to err, deliberately hardens their hearts? We cannot take the literal sense, because it would involve what is absurd. If God be the author of sin, it is impossible he can be the punisher of sin to suppose that God would punish in a man that which he himself has planted there, is to form a notion of Deity altogether inconsistent with the revelation of his character in the word of God. Then what is meant by causing us to err? The meaning of it is, leaving us to err. In one sense God, being omnipotent, could prevent anything; but governing, as such, intelligent, and rational, and responsible beings, omnipotence must not restrain them; but motives, arguments, fears, and hopes, these alone must influence them. Well, if God withdraws his influence, man errs; he may be said to cause them to err by withdrawing what prevents them from erring; but the sense of causing them to do what they are not inclined to do, never can for one moment be entertained. So again, hardening the heart:

we read he hardened Pharaoh's heart. Now the way in which he did so was not by directly making that man insensible to his duty, and then scourging him for the insensibility that he himself had implanted; that is a monstrous and extravagant explanation: the meaning is, that he gave those means, and motives, and opportunities which accepted save, which repudiated harden. When the sun shines on Midsummerday he softens by his rays a piece of wax, and hardens a piece of clay; it is the same sunbeam, yet the clay is hardened and the bees'-wax is melted; but the fault is not in the ray, it is in the substance itself that is the secret of the change that takes place. So God's Gospel is said to be a savour of life or a savour of death; it is not in the Gospel, but in the subject that refuses that Gospel. Wherever a man, therefore, rejects the truth, he hardens himself. Never forget that, every successful rejection of a call from God today is the parent of a more easy and successful rejection to-morrow. He that has lived through 1861 rejecting Christ, will live with greater ease through 1862 rejecting him. The act increases the power of performing it, till the heart becomes what one of the old Puritan divines calls by a strange expression, but a perfectly true one, "Gospel hardened." God, therefore, is in no sense the author of sin; in no sense does he harden the human heart. God in no sense reprobates or drives to destruction a single human being; but it is the law of that Gospel that you hear, that where it does not save it ruins; where it does not prove a blessing, it must necessarily prove a calamity and a curse. May it be a blessing to us!

THIS chapter is an appeal by God's ancient people in its primary sense, and by his own people of every nation, tribe, and kindred in similar circumstances, that he would be pleased to bow the heavens, and to come down, and to arrest the victorious progress of the foes of his people, and to deliver them who were captives and prisoners for Christ's sake. The first verse contains the expression, "Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens!" oh that an opening might take place in the firmament! oh that we might see him whom the heavens will contain until the times of the restitution of all things, coming in the clouds of heaven with power and with great glory! It is equivalent to, Oh that thou wouldest fulfil the promise that "this same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go!" oh that thou wouldest hasten that day when the great division that cleaves the world's population in twain shall take place; and thine own shall appear in glory upon thy right, thine enemies upon thy left hand; thy church delivered, and all its oppressors either converted now or laid low then! He then describes the scene that would take place in such a manifestation; namely, that as when the melting fire burneth, the fire

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