that they were the ministers of Satan; the annoyance he experienced from the gnats and the boils should have humbled his pride; the goodness of God, in the respites from the terrors, should have led him to repentance; the protection of the Hebrews against the plagues, should have rebuked his unbelief; the refusal of Moses to grant any concessions as to the festival, ought to have persuaded him to yield to the necessities of the case; and the exposed position of Israel at the Red Sea should have taught him, in connection with what had already taken place, that Jehovah of Hosts was surely encamped not far

away.

The results of the foregoing inquiry may be summed up in a few words. The wonders in Egypt introduced a new era in the development of the plan of salvation. Israel had been slowly maturing, as a distinct nationality, in the womb of Egypt, and at the Exodus the nation was born in a day. The era of its birth was marked by the self-revelation of the Almighty, according to his new name, Jehovah, as the only living and true God, and the God of salvation; and by the introduction of the miracle as the credential of the divine. mission whether of Moses, or the prophets, or Christ, or the apostles. And still further, just as when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them, so now the miracle was instantly fronted by its counterfeit. As Principal Hill remarks, the introduction of both the Jewish and Christian dispensations was marked by a certain display of the power of evil spirits-in the works of the Egyptian magicians and the demoniacs of the New Testament.

In this controversy the real adversary of the true religion. was not Pharaoh, as a man, or as a monarch even, nor Egypt as centralized in him, but heathenism itself, entrenched in its stronghold on the Nile, and represented in the person of its monarch, its armed warriors, and its system of magic. In its inmost sense, it was an attempt, in the interest of idolatry, to strangle the church of God while hidden in the womb. The severity of God toward the king was both an act of justice and an act of necessity. It was just, because he had cruelly oppressed the people of God, and had met the Almighty, coming to the rescue, with derision and defiance; necessary, because

the king stood forth as the representative of heathenism, the minister of Satan's kingdom in its fierce onset on the kingdom of God, and indeed, for the time being, the very head of the conspiracy against the seed of the woman.

With regard to the wonders themselves, it is to be observed they were not, as the naturalists teach, phenomena of nature, and nothing more; they were not, as the superstitious might imagine, terrors cast forth from the stars when they turn earthward their malignant aspects; they were not, as the sceptical philosopher might conjecture, the effects of an unexplained outburst of tumultuous forces; nor even were they, according to what may be the rapid impression of the reader of the narrative, a series of miracles, selected at random, for the mere purpose of delivering the Hebrews from bondage. There was in them a discipline, a legislation, a theology, a power, a revelation. They moved over the land like an army, squadron following squadron, all in deadly array; they imposed on nature the law of obedience to the immediate behests of the lawgiver; they taught the truth that all the gods of the heathen are vanity and a lie; they detected and exposed the lying wonders of Satan's kingdom; and they revealed the Almighty, both to the church of God and to the heathen, according to his new and incommunicable name, JEHOVAH.

NOTE. The foregoing observations on the hardening of Pharaoh's heart indicate the proper method of interpreting Isaiah vi: 9, 10, and its paraphrases in the New Testament. The ninth verse draws attention to the agency of the Jews in hardening their own hearts: "Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not." If the Hebrew verbs translated hear and see, be taken as futures, the place is a prophecy; if they be taken as imperatives, it is a solemn ironical rebuke in the form of an exhortation to inflict spiritual insensibility on themselves, and it resembles the remark of Christ to the Jews: "Fill ye up the measure (the iniquity) of your fathers." Matt. xxiii: 32. The tenth verse directs attention to the agency of the prophet in their induration: "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes," etc. The guilty causality of the people and the instrumental causality of the prophet in this process are, therefore, the two aspects of the case here presented. Christ

in Matt. xiii: 15, and Paul in Acts xxviii: 27, by way of showing that the words in Isaiah were fulfilled in the Jews of their day, dwell on the first of these aspects, to wit, their personal agency in the premises: "For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed," etc. Finally, in John xii: 40, Christ paraphrases the same words in such manner as to reveal the third aspect, namely, the agency of God in the process: "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts," etc. It appears, therefore, from the original passage in Isaiah and from the interpretation put upon it by Christ and Paul, that the three parties concerned in this induration are the sinner himself, God, and the prophet. On the part of the sinner it is an act of aggravated guilt; on the part of God it is an act of retribution, and on the prophet's part an instrumental act. Michaelis states it thus: Deus sic præcipit judicialiter, populus criminaliter, propheta autem ministerialiter. J. A. Alexander thus: "In this fearful process there are three distinguishable agencies expressly or implicitly described: the ministerial agency of the prophet, the judicial agency of God, and the suicidal agency of the people themselves." A fine instance this of the way in which the Scriptures exhibit, successively and harmoniously, the various phases of a many-sided truth, and of the divine wisdom with which Christ, in quoting the words of the prophets, developed their most profound spiritual meaning. See J. A. Alexander's Notes on Isaiah vi: 9, 10, and Acts xxviii: 27.

Rom. ix: 18 is to be interpreted by the same rule: "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." The discrimination here indicated is explained by the distinction existing between the dealings of God, which are judicial and those that are sovereign. The reason why he punishes any man is to be found in the bad conduct of the man, and the act of punishing is judicial. The reason why he punishes one sinner rather than another, is to be sought, not in that other, but in God himself, and that discrimination is sovereign. The hardening itself presupposes the existence of sin in the subject of it, and is the fruit and punishment of sin. The order of thought to be observed in the explication of this form of retribution, and the means by which it is inflicted, are indicated in what is said on a preceding page respecting the case of Pharaoh. See above pp. 665, 666.

ART. VI.-Negro Slavery and the Civil War.

THE President of the United States devotes about two-fifths of his annual message to the Congress now in session, to the direct consideration of questions immediately involved in the subject indicated by the title of this article. And other important portions of that State paper appear to be so related to the same immense and perilous topic, that hardly less than half of the message can be said to be inspired by it. He has shown, on many previous occasions, and in the most emphatic manner, how deeply he participated in the anxiety, with which all thoughtful men regarded the connection of the whole question of the black race in America with the rebellion, the civil war, and the future destiny of the country. He has constantly avowed his conviction that he had great duties to perform, as President, connected with the subject; and has as constantly declared that the ends to which he was resolved to discharge them, were the preservation of our national existence, the maintenance of our Federal Union, and the enforcement of the Constitution and laws of the Government and Nation whose executive head he was. Nor did he conceal the fact that he was subjected to a pressure from without, at once ceaseless and severe, pointing to a course of extreme policy which he was most reluctant to adopt, but which he might, as he apprehended, be compelled at last to pursue, in order to crush the rebellion and insure the triumph of the nation. Taking all the public utterances and all the public acts of the President together, from his inaugural to his present annual message-so far as they illustrate the progress of his thoughts, and the successive conclusions he has reached, touching his own official duty with regard to slavery and its relations to the origin, the progress and the result of the civil war-there is, probably, no considerable party in America which cordially adopts all that he has recommended, and probably no considerable party in the loyal States which does not cordially approve some portions of what he has advised. Respect for the President himself, and respect for his great office, equally forbid us, in discussing a subject so deeply involving the

character of the war, and the fate of the country, from even appearing, on the one hand, to overlook what he has said and done with regard to it-and from dealing, on the other hand, with his reasonings and conclusions, as we might, without offense, if they were those of a private person. Loyalty to the country would carry us great lengths in supporting a patriotic Administration, in times like these, even when we might suppose there was a policy wiser than that they pursued, and principles sounder than those they adopted. But loyalty to posterity, to truth, and to God-no less than to our country, even in a case like that-should forbid us from concealing the real ground of our support; and should oblige us to lift up our voice of warning-however unheeded it might be-in proportion as we saw that the way taken for triumph led only to ruin. And if the worst must come, in defiance of whatever efforts we could make-the deep and sharp distinction between devotion to our country, and support of any particular party or administration, remains as a rule of duty to loyal and virtuous men. And such, we are persuaded, will prove to be the sentiment and rule of conduct of the great majority of the American people, in all the loyal States, upon this question of the black race in America, as well as upon all other questions connected with the suppression of this atrocious revolt.

It is proper to say here, and to say it with emphasis, that however we, with the mass of the American people, might find ourselves unable to agree with Mr. Lincoln in all the successive and various recommendations he has made, as to slavery and the black race, we heartily participate in the leading sentiment out of which they have all sprung. They all represent phases of his judgment concerning the best manner of crushing the rebellion, and preserving the nation; they all spring from his resolute, and, we trust, unalterable purpose, to achieve that grand object. We share, with all the power of our being, the conviction that the rebellion should be crushed, and that the national existence should be preserved. We but feebly express our deliberate judgment, when we say, it would be far better for us to fight both England and France, if they oblige us to do so, on this quarrel, than to agree to a division of the nation, in any way whatever: better for us to risk all, frankly and manfully, on the field of battle, and against any odds that the