Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/70

 the grave, but, the riches of a pure heart will stand in time and through the countless ages of eternity for God is their great ensurance, for the mid-wives feared God: the mid-wives were rewarded, not for their lies, which was a venial sin, but for their fear of God and their humanity; but this reward was only temporal, in building them houses, that is, in establishing and enriching these families. Moses, in the Egyptian tongue, signifies one taken or saved out of the water, and after he was grown up he went to his brethren and saw their afflictions, rod an Egyptian striking one of his Hebrew brethren, and when he looked about this way and that way and saw no one there, he slew the Egyptian. This he did by a particular inspiration of God, as a prelude to his delivering the people from their oppression and bondage. See Acts 7 c. 24 v. But such particular and extraordinary examples are not to be imitated. See Exo. 3 c. 2 v. And the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, that, is, an angel representing God and speaking in his name, I am that I am, being itself eternal, self-existent, independent, infinite, without beginning, end or change, and the source of all other beings. Thus we see that Moses was qualified for the great task of the delivery of the children of Israel, notwithstanding that God hardened the heart of Pharoah not by being the efficient cause of his sin, but by withdrawing from him, for his just punishment, the dew of grace that might have softened his heart, and so suffering him to grow harder and harder, not by being the efficient cause of his hardness of heart, but by permitiitg it, and by withdrawing grace from him in punishment of his malice, which alone was the proper cause of his being hardened. See 2d Tim. 3 c. 8 v. "Now as Jaunes and Jambres withstood Moses, so doth these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds" &c. But now I say, pray ye to the Lord; by this it appears that though magicians, by the help of the devil, could bring frogs yet they could rot take them away, God being pleased to abridge in this the power of Satan; so we see they could not afterwards produce the less insects, and in this restraint of the power of the devil, were found to acknowledge the finger of God; By this we see that Pharoah was himself the efficient cause of his heart being hardened, and not God. See