it into the air, as they were accustomed to do; and instead of averting evil, boils and blains fell upon all the people of the land. Neither king, nor priest, nor people, escaped. Thus the bloody rites of Typhon became a curse to the idolaters-the supremacy of Jehovah was affirmed, and the deliverance of the Israelites insisted upon.

The ninth miracle was directed against the worship of Serapis, whose peculiar office was supposed to be to protect the country from locusts. At periods these destructive insects came in clouds upon the land, and, like an overshadowing curse, they blighted the fruits of the field and the verdure of the forest. At the command of Moses these terrible insects came and they retired only at his bidding. Thus was the impotence of Serapis made manifest, and the idolaters taught the folly of trusting in any other protection than that of Jehovah, the God of Israel.

The eighth and tenth miracles were directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris, to whom, and the river Nile, they awarded the first place* in the long catalogue of their idolatry. These idols were originally the representatives of the sun and moon; they were believed to control the light and the elements; and their worship prevailed in some form among all the early nations. The miracles directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris must have

* Against the worship of the Nile, two miracles were directed, and two likewise against Isis and Osiris, because they were supposed to be the supreme gods. Many placed the Nile first, as they said it had power to water Egypt independently of the action of the elements.

made a deep impression on the minds both of the Israelites and the Egyptians. In a country where rain seldom falls-where the atmosphere is always calm, and the light of the heavenly bodies always continued, what was the horror pervading all minds during the elemental war described in the Hebrew record !--during the long period of three days and three nights, while the gloom of thick darkness settled, like the outspread pall of death, over the whole land! Jehovah of Hosts summoned Nature to proclaim him the true God; the God of Israel asserted his supremacy, and exerted his power to degrade the idols, destroy idolatry, and liberate the descendants of Abraham from the land of their bondage.

The Almighty having thus revealed himself as the true God, by miraculous agency, and pursued those measures, in the exercise of his power, which were directly adapted to destroy the various forms of idolatry which existed in Egypt, the eleventh and last miracle was a judgment, in order to manifest to all minds, that Jehovah was the God who executed judgment in the earth.

The Egyptians had, for a long time, cruelly oppressed the Israelites, and, to put the finishing horror to their atrocities, they had finally slain, at their birth, the offspring of their victims: and now God, in the exercise of infinite justice, visited them with righteous retribution. In the mid-watches of the night, the " Angel of the Pestilence" was sent to the dwellings of Egypt, and he "breathed in the face" of all the first-born in the land. In the

morning, the hope of every family, from the palace to the cottage, was a corpse. What mind can imagine the awful consternation of that scene, when an agonising wail rose from the stricken hearts of all the parents in the nation! The cruel task-masters were taught, by means which entered their souls, that the true God was a God not only of power but of judgment, and as such, to be feared by evil-doers, and reverenced by those that do well.

The demonstration, therefore, is conclusive, that in view of the idolatrous state of the world, and especially in view of the character and circumstances of the Israelites, the true God could have made a revelation of himself in no other way than by the means and in the manner of the miracles of Egypt; and none but the true God could have revealed himself in this way.*

*

* In accordance with the foregoing are the intimations given in the Bible of the design of the miracles of Egypt. By these exhibitions of divine power God said, "Ye," the Israelites, "and Pharaoh shall know that I am Jehovah."

Miracles, moreover, was the evidence that Pharaoh required. Exod. vii. 9, God said to Moses, that when he should present himself as the divine legate, and Pharaoh should require a miracle, to perform it accordingly.

In relation to the destruction of idolatry, the design of Jehovah is expressly announced Exod. xii. 12, “ Against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment: I am Jehovah."

See also Exod. xviii. 11.

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CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING WHAT WAS NECESSARY AS THE FIRST STEP IN THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION.

By the miracles of Egypt, the false views and corrupt habits of the Israelites were, for the time being, in a great measure removed. Previously they had believed in a plurality of gods; and although they remembered the God of Abraham, yet they had, as is evident from notices in the Bible, associated with his attribute of almighty power (the only attribute well understood by the patriarchs) many of the corrupt attributes of the Egyptian idols. Thus the idea of God was debased by having grovelling and corrupt attributes superinduced upon it. By miraculous agency these dishonourable views of the divine character were removed-their minds were emptied of false impressions, in order that they might be furnished with the true idea and the true attributes of the Supreme Being.

But how could minds in the infancy of knowledge respecting God and human duty, having all they had previously learned removed, and being now about to take the first step in their progress-how could the first principles of divine knowledge be conveyed to such minds?

One thing in the outset would evidently be necessary knowledge, as the mind is constituted, can be communicated in no other way than progressively; it would be necessary, therefore, that they should

begin with the elementary principles, and proceed through all the stages of their education. The mind. cannot receive at once all the parts of a system of religion, science, or any other department of human knowledge. One fact or idea must be predicated upon another, just as one stone rests upon another, from the foundation to the top of the building. There are successive steps in the acquisition of knowledge, and every step in the mind's progress must be taken from advances already made. God has inwrought the law of progression into the nature of things, and observes it in his own works. From the springing of a blade to the formation of the mind, or of a world, everything goes forward by consecutive steps.

It was necessary, therefore, in view of the established laws of the mind, that the knowledge of God and human duty should be imparted to the Israelites by successive communications-necessary that there should be a first step, or primary principle, for a starting point, and then a progression onward and upward to perfection.

In accordance with these principles, God, in the introduction of the Mosaic dispensation, revealed only his essential existence to the Israelites. In Exodus iii. 13, 14, it is stated that Moses inquired of God, "Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said, I am THE I AM : and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM