sometimes, it argues that grace is not our own. It is our frailty, that those services which we are forward to, aloof off; we shrink at near hand, and fearfully misgive. How many of us can bid defiances to death, and suggest answers to absent temptations, which when they come home to us, we fly off, and change our note, and instead of action, expostulate! Exod. iii.

OF THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

It is too much honour for flesh and blood, to receive a message from heaven; yet here God sends a message to man, and is repulsed. Well may God ask, Who is man, that I should regard him? but for man to ask, Who is the Lord? is a proud and bold blasphemy.

Thus wild is nature at the first; but ere God hath done with Pharaoh, he will be known of him; he will make himself known by him, to all the world. God might have swept him away suddenly.

How unworthy is he of life, who, with the same breath that he receives, denies the Giver of it! But he would have him convinced, ere he were punished; first therefore, he works miracles before him, then upon him,

Pharaoh was now, from a staff of protection and sustentation to God's people, turned to a serpent that stung them to death: God shews himself in this real emblem; doing that suddenly before him, which Satan had wrought to him by leisure; and now when he crawls, and winds, and hisses, threatening peril to Israel, he shews him how in an instant he can turn him into a senseless stick, and make him if not useful, yet fearless.

The same God, which wrought this, gives Satan leave to imitate it: the first plague, that he meant to inflict upon Pharaoh, is delusion. God can be content the deyil should win himself credit, where he means to judge, and holds the honour of a miracle well lost, to harden an enemy; yet, to shew that his miracle was of power, the others of permission, Moses's serpent devours theirs. How easily might the Egyptians have thought, that he, which caused their serpent not to be, could have kept it from being; and that they, which could not keep his serpent from devouring, could not secure them from being consumed! but wise thoughts enter not into those that must perish,

All God's judgments stand ready, and wait but till they be called for. They need but a watch-word to be given them. No sooner is the rod lift up, but they are gone forth into the world; presently, the waters run into blood, the frogs and lice crawl about, and all the other troops of God come rushing in upon his adversaries.

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All creatures conspire to revenge the injuries of God. the Egyptians look upward, there they have thunder, lightning, hail, tempests; one while no light at all, another while such fear

ful flashes as had more terror than darkness: if they look under them, there they see their waters changed into blood, their earth swarming with frogs and grasshoppers: if about them, one while the flies fill their eyes and ears; another while, they see their fruits destroyed, their cattle dying, their children dead: if, lastly, they look upon themselves, they see themselves loathsome with lice, painful and deformed with scabs, biles, and blotches.

First, God begins his judgments with waters. As the river of Nilus was to Egypt, instead of heaven, to moisten and fatten the earth; so their confidence was more in it than in heaven. Men are sure to be punished most and soonest, in that which they make a co-rival with God.

They had before defiled the river with the blood of innocents; and now it appears to them, in his own colour. The waters will no longer keep their counsel. Never any man delighted in blood, which had not enough of it ere his end: they shed but some few streams, and now behold, whole rivers of blood.

Neither was this more a monument of their slaughter past, than an image of their future destruction. They were afterward overwhelmed in the Red Sea, and now beforehand they see the rivers red with blood.

How dependant and servile is the life of man, that cannot either want one element, or endure it corrupted! It is hard to say, whether there were more horror or annoyance in this plague, They complain of thirst, and yet doubt whether they should die, or quench it with blood.

Their fish, the chief part of their sustenance, dies with infection, and infecteth more by being dead. The stench of both is ready to poison the inhabitants; yet Pharaoh's curiosity carries him away quite from the sense of the judgment: he would rather send for his magicians to work feats, than to humble himself under God for the removal of this plague; and God plagues his curiosity with deceit those whom he trusts shall undo him with prevailing; the glory of a second miracle shall be obscured by a false imitation, for a greater glory to God in the sequel.

The rod is lift up again: behold, that Nilus, which they had before adored, was never so beneficial as it is now troublesome; yield.. ing them not only a dead, but a living annoyance: it never did so store them with fish, as now it plagues them with frogs; whatever any man makes his god, besides the true one, shall be once his tormenter. Those loathsome creatures leave their own element, to punish them which rebelliously detain Israel from their own. bed, no table, can be free from them: their dainty ladies cannot keep them out of their bosoms: neither can the Egyptians sooner open their mouths, than they are ready to creep into their throats; as if they would tell them, that they came on purpose to revenge the wrongs of their Maker.

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Yet even this wonder also is Satan allowed to imitate. Who can marvel, to see the best virtues counterfeited by wicked men, when he sees the devil emulating the miraculous power of God? The

feats that Satan plays may harden, but cannot benefit. He, that hath leave to bring frogs, hath neither leave nor power to take them away, nor to take away the stench from them. To bring them, was but to add to the judgment; to remove them, was an act of mercy. God doth commonly use Satan in executing of judgment, never in the works of mercy to men.

Yet even by thus much is Pharaoh hardened, and the sorcerers grown insolent. When the devil and his agents are in the height of their pride, God shames them in a trifle.

The rod is lift up: the very dust receives life: lice abound everywhere, and make no difference betwixt beggars and princes.

Though Pharaoh and his courtiers abhorred to see themselves lousy; yet they hoped this miracle would be more easily imitable : but now the greater possibility, the greater foil. How are the great wonder-mongers of Egypt abashed, that they can neither make lice of their own, nor deliver themselves from the lice that are made! Those, that could make serpents and frogs, could not either make or kill lice; to shew them, that those frogs and serpents were not their own workmanship. Now Pharaoh must needs see how impotent a devil he served, that could not make that vermin which every day rises voluntarily out of corruption. Jannes and Jambres cannot now make those lice, so much as by delusion, which, at another time, they cannot chuse but produce unknowing, and which now they cannot avoid. That spirit, which is powerful to execute the greatest things when he is bidden, is unable to do the least when he is restrained.

Now these co-rivals of Moses can say, This is the finger of God, Ye foolish enchanters, was God's finger in the lice, not in the frogs, not in the blood, not in the serpent? And why was it rather in the less, than in the greater? Because ye did imitate the other, not these. As if the same finger of God had not been before in your imitation, which was now in your restraint: as if ye could have failed in these, if ye had not been only permitted the other. While wicked minds have their full scope, they never look up above themselves; but when once God crosses them in their ceedings, their want of success teaches them to give God his own. All these plagues perhaps had more horror than pain in them, The frogs creep upon their clothes, the lice upon their skins; but those stinging hornets which succeed them, shall wound and kill, The water was annoyed with the first plague, the earth with the second and third; this fourth fills the air, and, besides corruption, brings smart.

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And, that they may see this winged army comes from an angry God, not either from nature or chance, even the very flies shall make a difference betwixt Egypt and Goshen. He, who gave them their being, sets them their stint. They can no more sting an Israelite, than favour an Egyptian. The very wings of flies are directed by a providence, and do acknowledge their limits.

Now Pharaoh finds how impossible it is for him to stand out with God, since all his power cannot rescue him from lice and flics. And

now his heart begins to thaw a little: Go, do sacrifice to your God in this land: or, since that will not be accepted, Go into the wil derness, but not far.

But how soon it knits again! Good thoughts make but a thoroughfare of carnal hearts; they can never settle there: yea, his very misgiving hardens him the more; that now, neither the murrain of his cattle, nor the blotches of his servants, can stir him a whit. He saw his cattle struck dead with a sudden contagion; he saw his sorcerers, after their contestation with God's messengers, struck with a scab in their very faces; and yet his heart is not struck. Who would think it possible, that any soul could be secure, in the midst of such variety and frequency of judgments? These very plagues have not more wonder in them, than their success hath. To what a height of obduration will sin lead a man, and, of all sins, incredulity!

Amidst all these storms Pharaoh sleepeth; till the voice of God's mighty thunders, and hail mixed with fire, roused him up a little. Now, as betwixt sleeping and waking, he starts up and says, God is righteous, I am wicked; Moses, pray for us; and presently lays down his head again. God hath no sooner done thundering, than he hath done fearing.

All this while, you never find him careful to prevent any one evil, but desirous still to shift it off, when he feels it; never holds constant to any good motion; never prays for himself, but carelessly wills Moses and Aaron to pray for him; never yields God his whole demand, but higgleth and dodgeth, like some hard chapman, that would get a release with the cheapest: first, They shall not go; then, Go and sacrifice, but in Egypt; next, Go sacrifice in the wilderness, but not far off; after, Go ye that are men; then, Go you and your children only; at last, Go all save your sheep and cattle. Wheresoever mere nature is, she is still improvident of future good, sensible of present evil, inconstant in good purposes; unable, through unacquaintance, and unwilling to speak for herself; niggardly in her grants, and uncheerful,

The plague of the grasshoppers startled him a little, and the more through the importunity of his servants: for, when he considered the fish destroyed with the first blow; the cattle, with the fifth; the corn, with the seventh; the fruit and leaves, with this eighth; and nothing now left him, but a bare fruitless earth to live upon, and that, covered over with locusts; necessity drove him to relent for an advantage: Forgive me this once; take from me this death only.

But, as constrained repentance is ever short and unsound, the west wind, together with the grasshoppers, blows away his remorse; and now is he ready for another judgment. As the grasshoppers took away the sight of the earth from him, so now a gross darkness takes away the sight of heaven too: other darknesses were but privative, this was real and sensible.

The Egyptians thought this night long; how could they chuse when it was six in one! and so much the more, for that no man

could rise to talk with other, but was necessarily confined to his own thoughts: one thinks the fault in his own eyes, which he rubs oftentimes in vain: others think, that the sun is lost out of the firmament, and is now withdrawn for ever: others, that all things are returning to their first confusion: all think themselves miserable, past remedy, and wish, whatsoever had befallen them, that they might have had but light enough to see themselves die.

Now Pharaoh proves like to some beasts that grow mad with baiting grace often resisted turns to desperateness: Get thee from me; look thou see my face no more; whensoever thou comest in my sight, thou shalt die. As if Moses could not plague him as well in absence: as if he, that could not take away the lice, flies, frogs, grasshoppers, could at his pleasure take away the life of Moses, that procured them. What is this, but to run upon the judgments, and run away from the remedies? Evermore, when God's messengers are abandoned, destruction is near,

Moses will see him no more, till he see him dead upon the sands; but God will now visit him more than ever. The fearfullest plagues God still reserves for the upshot: all the former do but make way for the last, Pharaoh may exclude Moses and Aaron, but God's angel he cannot exclude: insensible messengers are used, when the visible are debarred.

Now God begins to call for the blood they owed him : in one night, every house hath a carcase in it; and, which is more grievous, of their first-born; and, which is yet more fearful, in an instant. No man could comfort other: every man was too full of his own sorrow; helping rather to make the noise of the lamentation more doleful and astonishing,

How soon bath God changed the note of this tyrannical people! Egypt was never so stubborn in denying passage to Israel, as now importunate to entreat it: Pharaoh did not more force them to stay before, than now to depart: whom lately they would not permit, now they hire to go. Their rich jewels of silver and gold were not too dear for them, whom they hated; how much rather would they to send them away wealthy, than to have them stay to be their executors! Their love to themselves obtained of them the enriching of their enemies; and now they are glad to pay them well, for their old work, and their present journey: God's people had stayed like slaves, they go away like conquerors, with the spoil of those that hated them; armed for security, and wealthy for main

tenance.

Old Jacob's seventy souls which he brought down into Egypt, in spite of their bondage and bloodshed, go forth six hundred thousand men besides children. The world is well mended with Israel, since he went with his staff and his scrip over Jordan. Tyranny is too weak, where God bids, Increase and multiply. I know not where else the good herb overgrows the weeds; the Church outstrips the world. I fear if they had lived in ease and delicacy, they had not been so strong, so numerous. Never any true Israelite lost by his affliction,