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in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us unto the Lord our God, and according unto all that the Lord our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it." Let there be then in you, I beseech you, a true and sincere repentance: pray with all your soul that the Spirit of the Lord may himself produce it in you; and bring forth its genuine fruits in future submission and constant obedience to his word.

2. Secondly, Beware of attempting to make any conditions with God. Think not of professing the service of God, and of retaining still any bosom sin, or earthly gain, or worldly vanity, which He requires you to part with. God will not have a divided heart or a partial obedience. You cannot have two masters you cannot serve God and Mammon: you cannot be servants of sin and servants of righteousness: if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you: you must neither go only a little way from sin, nor follow the Lord afar off. Then give yourselves wholly and unreservedly to him.

Let every thing go from you which he would not have you to keep. Sacrifice to him the whole "lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." Oh! do not act deceitfully with him, and most deceivingly to yourselves, by a vain attempt to serve Christ and Belial, God and the world. God will not, cannot, be served so. There must be in you no desire to retain for your own sinful use and pleasure whatever he requires you to give up. The sacrifice must be made or you are not accepted: the world, the flesh, the devil, must be renounced, or you are not a child of God and heir of his kingdom.

SERMON X.

PHARAOH'S HEART HARDENED.

EXODUS IX. 12.

And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had spoken unto Moses.

BEFORE I enter upon the awful subject which this text brings before us, I must pursue the history through two more plagues recorded in the preceding verses. In them we find that notwithstanding the rebellion and insolence which Pharaoh had already manifested, God sent his servant Moses to him again to demand the liberation of his people, and to threaten him with more judgments if he should refuse to let them go.

The first plague threatened here, four having already preceded, is that of a murrain among all the cattle of Egypt, with an

intimation that a difference should again be made between them and the cattle of the children of Israel, and that the plague should come on the morrow. The warning was disregarded. The Lord did that thing on the morrow. All the cattle of Egypt died; while of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one: and when Pharaoh sent to see whether the Israelites had indeed been exempted, "behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead." We wonder how he could stand out against evidence so plain, and a judgment so discriminating, and to him and his people so severe. But what do we read? We read "The heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go." There are those still to whom judgments and mercies are equally of no avail; and on such especially as have long done violence to their consciences, the most awakening providences seldom make any suitable impression. And while one scripture tells us, "Let favour be shewn to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness," another assures us that judgments are equally fruitless;

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Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."

But when God contends, he will prevail. If lesser judgments do not produce the effect of submission, heavier shall be inflicted.More severe, and apparently even still more sudden, was therefore the next plague. It was "a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast," proceeding from "the ashes of the furnace" which Moses, as he had been commanded, had “ sprinkled up towards heaven." Here was a painful and loathsome disease on the bodies of the Egyptians themselves. And not more distressing, as we may suppose, was the case of Job, when being smitten" with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown he took a potshred to scrape himself withal," than were now the sufferings of Pharaoh, and his courtiers, and his people, under the infliction of this botch of Egypt. The magicians also were afflicted with it, and appeared as feeble and unable to contend with or escape from God, as any of the people. Before, they were baffled; but

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