THE title of this Book sufficiently indicates the chief topic with which it is occupied. It contains the history of the exodus, or exit, of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but it embraces altogether a period of one hundred and forty-five years from the death of Joseph, with which event the book of Genesis closed, to the erection of the Tabernacle in the wilderness.

The design of this Lecture, as you are aware, will be to illustrate the scope of this portion of the Divine Word; and we think that an examination of its contents will warrant us in saying, that the purpose of the Spirit of God throughout it was this-to fix attention on Israel's race as that one chosen nation, in whom Jehovah had decreed, from that time forth, to shew before the world his presence, his sovereignty, and the principles of his government. In the midst of the idolatry, and polytheism, which were fast overspreading the earth, the Most High was resolved to retain a witness for Himself. spite of the waywardness and rebellion of the human family, He would yet maintain a Theocracy before their eyes. For this the Children of Israel were selected, and separated from the rest of mankind; and we conceive it was at their exodus from Egypt that the will of God concerning them was proclaimed; for there were certain features attaching

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to that event which indicated most em. phatically the purposes of heaven toward them. An impress was stamped upon them then which they were ever after. wards to bear. The circumstances which then transpired seemed especially designed to premonish, and foretel to all men, what manner of people this people was to be.

We will proceed, then, at once to point out the circumstances to which we allude. They form the subject matter of the forty chapters of which this book is composed; and they arrange themselves under four heads, exhibiting Israel as pre-eminently the objects of an Almighty defence-a miraculous Dispensation-a Divine revelation-and a sovereign election.

We have said that Israel emerged from Egypt as a race that were preeminently the objects of an Almighty defence. For, in the first place, their very preservation in existence to that time, betokened something preternatural. The last chapter of Genesis leaves them, on the death of Joseph, the guests of the Egyptian people. Up to that period they had been treated well for Joseph's sake. The services which he had rendered to the land, claimed, and received an acknowledgement. But in course of time the impression wore away. "Another king arose, which knew not Joseph." The Israelites were rapidly

multiplying, and a jealousy of them gradually gained possession of the native mind. Princes and people were equally moved to seek their suppression, and extermination; and for a period of almost ninety years a cruel system of bondage, and at length of deliberate murder, was adopted toward them. Here, then, the occasion was given for the manifestation of the power of God put forth for their defence. That power had more than three hundred years before been pledged to Abraham to watch over his seed, even when in the land of strangers, and suffering oppression there. We read, accordingly, that all the devices of the Egyptian monarch, and his officers, to diminish the numbers of the Children of Israel, were defeated. "The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew." The phenomenon was marvellous in the eyes of the tyrants themselves. They began to be alarmed. There was a vitality in Israel so irrepressible, so indomitable, that it awakened a strange apprehension in the breasts of those who afflicted them. "They were grieved because of the Children of Israel." There was a mystery in the case that was above their comprehension. It was not long, however, before that mystery was explained, and even these heathen were forced to own that Omnipotence was on Israel's side. And hence it was that this enslaved and persecuted people, notwithstanding every hardship and cruelty, were found, when the time was come for their release, so numerous and strong. The fact was of itself a token, not to be gainsaid, that Heaven was engaged for their defence.

We come, in the next place, to the year of their deliverance. The annals of that year were full of additional signs, previous to the actual escape of the people, that the shield of an Almighty Providence was over them. Terrific judgments desolate the land. Every house is made a scene of suffering, and at length of death; but, in the

midst of all these calamities, Israel are kept in safety; Goshen is unharmed; no plague is there; no angel of destruction enters one abode of that peculiar people.

We witness, then, the circumstances of their escape. Scarcely are they gone ere Pharaoh rises in pursuit; he is overtaking them; but, lo! a cloud from heaven descends, and intercepts him ; they approach the shores of the Red Sea; the waters divide, and they pass through. Pharaoh and his host are mad enough to follow; the sea closes over them, and they are drowned. What a proof of the determination of an Almighty power to befriend this people!

Once more, we trace their steps only a little way into the wilderness. The food which they brought out of Egypt is spent ; but, behold! manna from the clouds is showered down about their tents, and they are sustained. They have no water; but a rock in the desert bursts forth with living streams, and they are refreshed. They have hardly marshalled their tribes, when Amalek gathers his armies against them; and yet this hitherto crushed, unwarlike, undisciplined multitude discomfit the "first of the nations."

In all these circumstances, then, we see undeniable evidence exhibited before the world, of a purpose on the part of God to take the race of Israel as the

with miraculous credentials; he bears in his hand a rod; he casts it on the ground, it becomes a serpent; he lays hold of it again, and it is a rod as before. Pharaoh defies his mission, and the scourge of God's wrath must be employed to make the haughty monarch bow; but every stroke of that scourge, every successive plague, descends at Moses' call, and departs at Moses' prayer. Utterly beyond all

human control as those visitations were, the stretching forth of Moses' rod is the only visible cause. The people at length are escaped, and stand on the borders of the sea. Behold! their leader extends his rod, and the waters are parted; but as soon as Israel are crossed over, that rod again is raised, and the returning waves overwhelm the pride of Egypt. The desert is entered, and there is no water; the rod of Moses strikes the rock, and the fountain gushes forth. Amalek appears to war on Israel, but Moses lifts up his rod, and the enemy melts away before them.

So that, we repeat it, Jehovah not only brings this people forth before the world, as the objects of his defence, but He is pleased to put forth his power toward them in a way which proclaims them to be the inheritors of a dispensation of miracles, peculiar to themselves.

III. We observe, further, that the exodus of Israel exhibits them as the peculiar objects of Divine revelation.

Their state in Egypt had become very degraded in every point of view. They appear to have lost, to a lamenta. ble extent, the remembrance of their God. But their deliverer was also to be their prophet; and no sooner had he conducted them out of Egypt, led them through the sea, and set them on their way through the wilderness toward Canaan, than he is summoned up into Mount Sinai, to receive on their behalf, and under circumstances of the most imposing awfulness, Jehovah's law for their direction. It was a transaction which gave to Israel another

pre-eminent distinction, as they entered on their national career. The Lord Almighty was pleased to make them the depository of his truth and will. They were to be the ark, in the midst of that deluge of idolatry which was covering the earth, for the preservation of the Church, and the maintenance of the true worship of God. His religion was to be their especial charge; a religion consisting not only of rules of moral purity, but of rites also, which, being duly interpreted, would be found to be significant of most essential truths. The ten commandments indeed were distinguished from the rest of the Divine communications at Mount Sinai, by being spoken aloud, and written on tables of stone; for they were to be the basis of all holy principles, and practices, to the end of time. The ritual observances were added afterwards, and were intended to last only for a given, though a lengthened period. Yet those observances, it was plain, could never have been imposed merely for their own sakes. Infinite wisdom could never have enjoined a system so minute in its details, and so stringent in its obligations, for no higher end than the usages which it ordained. Its sanctuary, its ark, its altars, its sacrifices, its priesthood, its days of atonement, its solemn feasts, with all the multifarious ceremonies of the Levitical institution, could not themselves have been an end, but must have been intended as means toward something beyond them. They were so many symbols, in fact, of precious truths. The character of God, the evil of sin, the only way of a fallen creature's approach to his Creator, the happiness of reconciliation with God, the sanctity of his service, these, and their kindred verities, were the solution of the types, and figures of the cere monial law.

And with this system of religion, so replete with moral and with spiritual instruction, Israel was gifted immedi

ately on their coming up out of Egypt. Jehovah singled them out, on that occasion, in the most solemn manner, to be the recipients of a revelation which was to elevate them, in future time, above all other nations on the face of the earth.

IV. We have one more particular to notice. It is peculiarly worthy of our attention, because it so forcibly illustrates a feature in all the subsequent history of Israel, of deepest interest. Jehovah, on their exit from Egypt, treats them confessedly as the objects of a sovereign election. In other words, his acts towards them were, beyond all question, dictated by no desert on their part, but entirely by his own good will.

It is very striking, indeed, how the complete unworthiness of Israel is made to appear, in the history of their exodus from Egypt, in contrast with the display of Almighty power for their defence, and in opposition to the miraculous mission with which they were visited, and the Divine instruction with which they were favoured. For example. Is Moses sent to claim for them their freedom? Yet, impatient and unbelieving, they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit. "Let us alone, they cried, that we may serve the Egyptians." Are they at length emancipated, and on their way to Canaan? Yet, notwithstanding the marvels of their deliverance, on the very first appearance of danger, what is their language? "Were there no graves in Egypt, that thou hast taken us away to die in the wilderness ?" Soon after, the bread which they had brought out of Egypt being consumed, "Would God," they exclaimed, "that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Presently they arrive at Rephidim; they lack water; again

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their faithless spirit breaks out, "Wherefore is this, that ye have brought us up out of Egypt to kill us, and our children, and cattle, with thirst?" But, above all, when encamped at the foot of Sinai, and after that appalling manifestation of Divine majesty which they witnessed there, because Moses had tarried in the Mount longer than they wished, they fall at once into idolatry, and setting up a calf, they dance superstitiously round it, and shout, "These be thy Gods, O Israel."

We say, how striking are these facts in proof of the sovereign and gratuitous character of the favours of God toward

such a people. On their part, most assuredly, there was nothing to merit such distinctions. Just the reverse; for at those very seasons when God was about to show his great power on their behalf, and to do for them acts of marvellous might and goodness, the temper of mind which the people were evincing was of the worst description. Jehovah had not chosen them for their goodness; not for their righteousness, or for the uprightness of their hearts, were these mercies granted them, for they were a stiff-necked people; but simply because the Lord loved them. This

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fact indeed was to be repeatedly illus trated in their future history, and we cannot therefore but notice it, as it meets us at the commencement of their national career, and sets a mark upon them as a people whom Jehovah, from the first, had made the objects of a sovereign election.

And thus, within the space of a few months, from the mission of Moses to the giving of the law, what a concentration we have of all the great features in Israel's position as the chosen people of God. Just in the crisis of their departure out of Egypt, and their appearance, in their national capacity, on the stage of this world's history, we mark the indisputable tokens of their destiny to a peculiar distinction as a race whom the Lord hath made his own;-his own,

not by their choice, nor for their deserving, but entirely of his own good-will and pleasure.

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This, therefore, we consider as the scope of the book of Exodus. that sirgular variety of information, touching the origin of all things, which we have in the book of Genesis, our minds are now directed to one topic out of all the rest as about to assume a singular prominence. The family of Abraham, the children of Israel, are presented before us as the center of coming events in the future annals of the world. God himself singles them out from all the rest of human kind, and invests them with a claim to universal notice. He makes it manifest that his hand is over them, that his presence is in the midst of them, that among them his truth and will are to be known, and this, not for any worthiness in them, but of his own sovereign loving-kindness towards them. And to the Christian mind what more interesting, or what more pleasing, than to go back, in this way, three thousand three hundred years and more, to see that nation emerging from their house of bondage, and bearing the tokens upon them of a people selected to stand, as they have done ever since, in the face of the world, the chosen generation, the peculiar people of the Lord God Almighty? For such they are still, notwithstanding their own blindness, and consequent fall. God hath not cast them away, his eye is on them still; still does He cause them to dwell alone in the midst of the nations. There are purposes of high and glorious concern

ment yet to be accomplished in their experience. And under this persuasion our minds revert with deep and increasing interest to the great topic of this book of Exodus. It is the germ of all that Israel has been from then till now. It is the opening out of that Theocracy under which, as a nation, we may say, they remain to this hour. Nor can we better epitomize the topics of our lecture, than in the stirring language of the man of God himself, when addressing his people. "For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven to the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Hath God assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord He is God; there is none else beside Him. Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that He might instruct thee; and upon earth He showed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. And because He loved thy fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt."

THE following rule, adopted in a village Sunday school, has been found to answer its intended purpose ;"Any child not present at the hour for opening, is excluded for a quarter

of an hour, during which time a hymn is taught, simultaneously. At the end of a month, every child who can repeat the hymn perfectly, receives an illu minated card."