Page:Sermons by Richard Fuller.djvu/22

12  Reuben's scheme to save his life and restore him to his father, of the arrival of the Ishmaelite merchants, of Judah's proposition to sell him to them, and of the cruel and unnatural traffic. There never was a transaction in which human passions— envy, hatred, revenge, cupidity — were more confessedly the sole ruling cause and motive from first to last. "And the patriarchs," said Stephen, "moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt." Yet the result, from beginning to end, is ascribed to God's purpose and decree. " And Joseph said unto his brethren, Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God." And the Psalmist utters the same declaration. " He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold as a servant, whose feet they hurt with fetters, he was laid in irons until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. "Take, next, the fatal obduracy of Pharaoh. In the book of Genesis it is repeatedly said that "Pharaoh hardened his heart and sinned yet the more," but in the same chapters it is declared that "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh." And in the Epistle to the Romans it is written, "For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout the earth."

In the first book of Kings, the people appeal to Rehoboam, to abate a portion of the burden under which they groaned. That monarch seeks the counsel, first of the old men, the former companions of his father, and then of the young men who had grown up with him. Wilfully rejecting the sage advice of the elders, he adopts the tyrannical measures recommended by the passions of his youthful associates. The consequence is, the revolt of the ten tribes. Here was an arbitrary decree of a despot, instigated by an evil heart and evil counsellors; yet the whole is attributed directly to God's decree. "The king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the Lord, that he might perform his saying, which the Lord spake by Abijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the Son of Nebat."