that, humanly speaking, he was not able to oppose the enemy. They prepared themselves to make a descent at the Texel. The attempt failed after an extraordinary manner. On the evening before, the flood lasted twelve whole hours, whereas it is usually but six 1, which the seamen looked upon as a prodigy. This flood was followed by such a violent storm, as quite disordered the enemy's fleet, and obliged them to quit with respect those coasts which Providence so wonderfully defended 2."

The last instance of this nature is described with great power by Alison 3. The rising of the river Urumea would have prevented, by its rapid rising, the fall of the city of St. Sebastian, and the further advance of the British troops, if the experiment of Colonel Dickson, and the exploding of a mine, had not enabled the British to storm the fort, before the tide was at its height. None of these instances, however, bear the least resemblance to the narrative of the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.

The place at which Moses is supposed to have taken advantage of an exceedingly low tide, which was made still lower by the Etesian winds, contrary to all known experience, blowing strongly against it, is thought to have been the long and narrow inlet, near the top of the gulf of Suez. This inlet is about four miles long, and, on an average, about one mile in breadth 4. "The town of Suez is at its mouth, and the alleged place of passage is placed by some quite near to it, but by others, about a mile above. The tides rise between five and six feet. But although this be the average height to which the tide rises, the waters sometimes rise ten or twelve feet during tempests, when the south wind blows. When the tide is at the lowest, the gravelly beach on each side is left dry to a vast extent, and although the middle, or lowest part of the bed, is never without water, it is then fordable, and in some places may be passed dry-foot. Now the theory is, that Moses, who had long fed his flocks on the borders of the sea, was well acquainted with these facts, and availed himself of them. He led the Israelites across when the tide was low, knowing that the tide would return upon the Egyptians if they ventured to pursue,although some allow the further benefit of one of those tempests caused by the south wind 5."

Dr. Robinson, to whose map I refer the student, adopts this theory. - From his own actual survey of the country, he concludes that the Israelites crossed at Rås' Atâkah, near Suez, and not at the mouth of Wady Tawarik, the supposed Pi-hahiroth. He ascribes their power of passing to the effect of the east wind and the ebb tide, and assigns the three or four hours before the morning watch, that is, about two in the morning, for the completion of their transit. He supposes that the column of the Israelites would occupy about two miles of space, in ranks of one thousand each-that the distance over which they had to pass would be about three or four miles, and that this fact alone is an argument against the Israelites passing lower down, to the south of Râs' Atâkah, at the mouth of Wady Tawârik, for the sea, at that part, is nearly twelve miles across. Robinson further considers, that this view of their passage satisfies the conditions of the case; and as the passage was effected by the extraordinary coincidence of natural means, it may still be deemed miraculous; and "the deliverance of the Israelites was equally great, and the arm of Jehovah alike glorious." I use Dr. Robinson's own expressions on this supposition, as on the supposition that the Israelites passed over the sea at the mouth of the Wady Tawârik, where the sea is twelve miles in breadth, according to the measurement of Niebuhr.

Dr.

I refer chiefly to Dr. Robinson, as being the last writer on this subject. The objections that present themselves to his theory, seem to be unanswerable. They may be thus enumerated. 1. The object of the command to the Israelites, that they turn out of the usual course into the wilderness, on the side of Egypt, instead of going round by the head of the Gulf of Suez, into the wilderness of Arabia, is expressly declared to have been, that God shall be honoured by some visible manifestation of His power. I cannot but believe that this honour denoted the miraculous completion of the miraculous series of great events, by which, and not by any ordinary or natural circumstances, God had brought the former plagues on Egypt, and slain the first-born. Those miracles appealed more especially to Egypt. Another and a greater miracle was to be wrought to prove to all the surrounding nations generally, the superiority of the God of Israel. A great contest had been long going on between the true God and all false gods; and the true God, who had demonstrated Himself to be the Lord of the elements, the air, the thunder, the river, the land, and over life and death, would still prove Himself the Lord of the re

1 Biblical Researches in Palestine, &c., vol. i. p. 81-86.

maining element, the sea, by the suspension of its laws, and exhibit himself as the destroyer of His enemies, and as the deliverer of His people. The Egyptians, no doubt, like the eastern tribes from which many of them probably were descended 1, believed in the Creator, the Preserver, and Destroyer, under the triad corresponding to Brahma, Vishnu, and Sceva. The object of this last miracle was to give the climax, as it were, to all the former, by demonstrating that these three characters end only in Jehovah, as the Creator of the earth and the world, the Preserver of Israel, and the Destroyer of Egypt; and this great object could not have been effected by any event whatever, which, by any human reasoning, could be resolved into a series of coincidences, or of natural events. It could not, therefore, have been effected by a low tide, and a fortunately accidental wind. A prophecy had been solemnly spoken; and though some prophecies are and have been effected by what are called natural means, or overruled coincidences, in each of which, and therefore in all together, none but a Christian discerns a miracle; yet the union of miracle with prophecy, as I shall show in Note 7 to this Section, is always to be expected; and the present occasion, more than any other in the whole of the Old Testament history, justifies the anticipation of undeniably miraculous interference, to certify the fulfilment of the prophecy.

2. On Dr. Robinson's hypothesis, which, as I have said, is that of Geddes, of the Deists of England, and of the Neologians of Germany (though Dr. Robinson is a Christian), the whole narrative of the pillar and the cloud is an useless intervention, and may be rejected, as Toland and his followers do reject it, as a fable.

3. The passage near Suez would not justify the expression" They are entangled in the land; the wilderness hath shut them in." A reference to the map will show that they were perplexed, confused 2, entangled in the land, or that the wilderness had so shut them in with its mountains 3, that they could not escape. The ranks of Israel could not have been prevented from escaping in great numbers, though many might have been destroyed, if they had been attacked near Suez.

4. The Egyptians needed not to have attacked them in this position, they might have gone round the head of the gulf, and outflanked them.

5. Dr. Robinson supposes that the gulf above Suez, was anciently both wider and deeper, and Lord Valentia discovers proofs that the channel, in this part, extended far to the north, and was both wide and deep. If these opinions be correct, the supposition that the water was at one hour so shallow that Israel passed, and in another, so deep that the Egyptians were drowned, without a miracle, becomes untenable; and they might as easily pass lower down, as at Suez.

I pass by other objections drawn from the account of Eusebius, the language of the New Testament, and the testimony of the Church, to the third theory.

The passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, can only be accounted for on the supposition generally, and almost uniformly believed, that the Creator suspended His own laws, and miraculously divided the sea, to permit them to pass through the sea, from Egypt to Arabia.

In considering the objections to the first and second theories, we have anticipated the arguments which uphold the common and only scriptural opinion. The chief upholder, before Dr. Robinson, of the notion that the Israelites took advantage only of an ebbing and low tide, is Niebuhr ', whose whole argument is reviewed and demonstrated, by the most unanswerable reasoning, to be untenable by Bryant 2. I must be contented with a brief abstract of the arguments which support the miraculous transit to the south of Suez and Râs' Atákah.

The first argument on which the belief in the miraculous transit may be said to rest, is the literal interpretation of the whole narrative, as it is received by the reader who peruses either the Hebrew original, the allusions to the passage of the Red Sea in the New Testament, or by the reader of the English translation, who has read nothing of the objections of Deists, Neologians, travellers, or speculators. The previous miracles in Egypt, the continued contest between the Egyptian king and the leader of Israel, and the dogged resolution of the sovereign to recover the services of his slaves, would all lead the receiver of the common history to anticipate a miraculous termination to a miraculous history. -This expectation, too, would be strengthened by the recollection, that all these events took place, not merely to expedite the escape of the Israelites, but to form a part of that chain of evidence which was granted to convince man of his immortality; and to prove to him that the government of the world, by the providence of God, is all subordinate, or subservient, to the preservation of His Church,

1 P. 356, 357.

2 In the additions to his Observations on the Plagues of Egypt, London, 8vo, 1810, p. 323-355.

on one regular plan, of which miracles form a portion; and that the system of God's dispensations towards man, may be compared to a great epic, of which God is the author, the soul the hero, earth the theatre, and the angels spectators, and readers, and students, and admirers 1. I do not say that this expectation demonstrates the miraculous nature of the passage of the Red Sea, but it renders the miracle more probable.

The second argument is, that the miraculous passage alone explains easily, and at once, all the phenomena. It renders intelligent and appropriate, both the preceding history, the circumstances attending it, the lofty language of Miriam and the people, which immediately followed it, the recorded effects upon the surrounding nations, which ultimately succeeded, the language of the New Testament, and the predicted gratitude of the Church, when it shall be delivered from the power of sin and the grave. The salvation of man is uniformly assigned to the extraordinary, and not to the ordinary, power of God.

The third argument is taken from the survey of the country. Dr. Robinson has observed, that the gulf above Suez was anciently both deeper and wider, and that it is still deemed dangerous for caravans to cross the ford above Suez. If this were so, the miracle of the division of the waters might have been as great above as below Suez, and there would be no necessity for the hypothesis of the low tide; the breadth of the waters, even at the low tide, would, in that case, render the channel impassable. But let us consider the country as described by modern travellers 3.

Dr. Robinson's map is better than Niebuhr's, but neither of these give so clear an idea of the country as do the maps in the large London Atlas, compared with the slight sketch published in Mr. Faber's Hora Mosaicæ. If the sketch in this last map is correct, the present state of the country would prove that the Israelites were so completely entangled in the land, that nothing but a miracle, or an extraordinary interposition of their divine guide, utterly unimputable to natural causes, could have saved them. The reader who inspects these maps will perceive that the immense host was in a complete cul de sac, or if he has no opportunity of comparing the maps, and will form, in his own mind, the idea of a large square tract of country; he will find, that on the north, behind Israel, was the army of the Egyptians; on the west were the impassable

mounts; on the south, an inlet of the sea; on the east, the Red Sea.-They were journeying to Sinai, on the other side of the Red Sea. They could not pass to the north, without destruction from Egypt. They could not climb the mountains, for the Egyptians were close upon them, and the children would have been destroyed by the soldiery, even if many of the men had escaped. If they passed over the inlet of the sea, communicating with the valley of Bedea, the mouth of which corresponds to the encampment before Pi-hahiroth, or the mouth of Hiroth, they would wander from Sinai to the south, out of their way; and the Egyptians, unless Israel was delivered even there by a miracle, could have soon overtaken them, and no way whatever was left for them to go on to Sinai but through the Red Sea. They could not, they did not, expect the ensuing miracle. They saw their danger. They prayed, hopelessly prayed, for deliverance; and at the moment only of their greatest despair they obtained it, in the manner which alone can justify the narrative in the Exodus. I do not dwell on the argu ments derived by Bryant from Eusebius, that they passed at a particular spot, called Al Kolsum; for not only are there no traces either of Migdol, Baal-zephon, or any town near the ancient inlet, supposed to be Pi-hahiroth; but the recollection of the immense numbers of the Israelites, and the consequent length of their encampment, would prove that so large a space of ground would be occupied by them, that we could not say the whole twelve tribes passed at any particular spot. Their van, or more properly, the advanced guard of their columns, would have rested at Pi-hahiroth, the rear would have been at a great distance down the valley, between the Red Sea and the mountains, pressed upon by the chariots and soldiery of Pharaoh. The pillar of cloud and fire passed from Hiroth to the rear, between Egypt and Israel; and then the whole column, headed by their leaders, changed their front from facing the Red Sea, and, at the commanded signal, began to descend into the waters, which divided before them, as the literal narrative affirms 1.

The fourth argument, which ought ever to have great weight with the Christian, but on which I shall not further insist, is the general tradition of the Jewish and Christian Churches; resting upon the literal interpretation of Scripture, and upon that analogy of evidence which unites prophecy with miracle, as the united demonstration of divine interposition. I can as easily believe that there was no Creator, as that there was no providence; and there is no philosophy in the ar

1 For the best account of this inlet and the valley of Bedea, and the identity of the mouth of that inlet and of the valley of Bedea with Pi-hahiroth, see Bryant's Remarks on Niebuhr, p. 326, ut supra.

bitrary conclusion, that because the Creator now acts with apparent uniformity, He has never acted otherwise. He must have interfered to create. He may even now interfere to preserve. That He has so interfered, and that one of His most wonderful interpositions was the supernatural division of the Red Sea, may, from what has been now advanced, be regarded as undeniable.

NOTE 4. The appearance of the angel Jehovah at the Red Sea, is the earnest of the manifestation of Christ in His glorified human nature, then He shall come to judge the living and the dead. Exod. xiv. 24.

From thence, from heaven, I believe that Jesus Christ shall come to judge the living and the dead. "We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge." This is the profession of faith which is as certainly held by the Universal Church of Christ, as the existence of God, or of the Messiah whom He has sent ; and the question unavoidably presents itselfHas there been any proof, pledge, or earnest, that the Saviour and Judge of the world has already been manifested in the manner related so often and so solemnly by Himself, and by His last-chosen Apostle? Has He ever been seen in glory! Has He ever descended from heaven, to be beheld in the clouds above the earth, as if He were enabled to summon the dead from their graves, and to divide between the righteous and the wicked?-There have been many such appearances, which have been already considered; but one of the chief is that, here mentioned, when the difference was made between the Egyptian and the Israelite; when the same supernatural mass of seeming or real cloud and fire was darkness to Egypt and light to Israel; and there appeared in the midst of the moving mass the Jehovah of the patriarchs, of the Jews, and of the Christians-I interpret literally the expres sion, with our translators, "Jehovah looked forth." He was seen from the cloud and fire, as He was seen at the transfiguration, as He was seen by St. Paul, and as He will be seen at the last day. There was an appearance as of a man, but the form was not distinctly visible. The subject is too extensive to be considered further in this place. The German Neologian would represent the whole narrative to be only a poetical exaggeration; but when the Most High God, the God of Christianity, reveals His glory, the loftiest poetry becomes as inadequate to describe His majesty, as the dullest line of the dullest Gazette.

: On the nature of the cloud and fire, see Neale on the Dispensations, p. 177, &c. On the identity of the manifested Jehovah with the Being who appeared to the Patriarchal, the Levitical, and the Christian Churches, at sundry times and in divers manners, see Faber's Hora Mosaicæ, vol. ii. sect. i. ch. ii. p. 46-135, where the subject is most fully and admirably discussed.

The language of one of the most beautiful of our minor modern poems, expresses the literal meaning of the Hebrew, "The Lord hath looked out from his pillar of glory." But all language, even that of inspiration itself, fails to describe the full effect of the manifestation of Jehovah at the Red Sea to the Egyptians; or the sadness, the despair, the remorse, and the horror which shall be the lot of so many when the dead shall be raised, and the same God of the one covenant, whether in its Patriarchal, Levitical, or Christian forms, shall be visible to the changing living and the waking dead; and when millions, too late repentant, shall as fearfully and as certainly cry in vain to be delivered from the wrath of the Lamb of God, as the discomfited Egyptians repented in vain; when Jehovah looked forth upon them, and troubled them, and they perished in the returning of the sea to its strength.-"The things concerning me," said Christ, "have an end." But before that end shall be, and the kingdom of the Mediator cease, death and sin must die, and the Church be gathered, and its enemies perish, as Israel was delivered, and the Egyptians destroyed.

NOTE 5. The Song of Triumph over Egypt at the Red Sea, is typical of the Song of Triumph by the Universal Church in the future world, over sin, death, and evil. Exod. xv. 1, &c.; Rev. xv. 2, &c.

No man can understand the Scriptures who does not regard them as the commencement only of that series of manifestations of Deity, which shall be continued throughout his immortality to the soul. As the school-boy begins at school the attainment of that knowledge which is ever increasing in his afterlife; so does the Christian begin, in the present life of discipline and education for the future state, that knowledge which is essential to his perpetually progressing improvement in the world to come. Hence it is, that as Christ spoke familiarly of the invisible state from which He descended; other parts of Scripture also contain allusions to the developments of the future world; and the facts of the Word of God become types, or emblems of events, and states of mind, which can only be fully comprehended when we are admitted, after death, into the better inheritance which the Saviour of man has promised to all believers.-The triumph of Israel over Egypt is one of these facts. The future final triumph of the Church and of the soul, is expressly represented to us in the book of Revelation, as analogous to the conquest of the Israelites over the Egyptians. The chariots and horsemen of Egypt are said to have perished early in the morning. The Israelites, therefore, about that time, had arrived in safety on the shore of Arabia; the last ranks stood upon, or at, or near, or close to the margin of the sea. The pillar of fire

shone upon the waters, and as it closed the rear of the Israelites, it would seem as if it was blended with the waves over which it moved. The fire would have appeared as if it mingled with the water, as the sun rising from the ocean causes the eastern horizon to seem one blended mass of glory, in which the green sea and the blue sky mix together as one bright substance; and thus the Israelites rested in the morning after their passage through the sea, and beheld the waves return to their course, fill up the channel through which they had passed, and overwhelm the Egyptians. Just such is the typical representation of the triumph of the Church of God, and of the soul of the Christian, over a worse enemy than the temporal Egypt. The Church is represented in the book of Revelation (xv. 2), in the precise situation of the Israelites after they had been delivered from Egypt. "I saw, as it were, a sea of glass;" a sea on which not only the first beams of the rising sun, after the morning watch, were shining, but on which the glory of God shone from the fire which manifested His presence, and which blended with the surface of that sea. "And I saw them which had gotten the victory over the beast and his image, over his mark, and the number of his name;" over the corruptions of the world and of the Church, the beast, and the evil one, stand in their gathered ranks, upon, at, near, or close to the margin of that sea; and they sang the song of triumph over death, sin, and Satan, as Miriam and the Israelites sang their song of triumph over Egypt. The subject of their ode was the same in spirit as the song of Miriam and the temporal Israel; and though its primary application must be referred to the triumph of the Gospel upon earth, the Christian will rejoice in the thought that the triumph of his soul over sin, death, the grave, and the hell of the unrepentant which follows the grave; may be expressed in the language of the Scriptures which he so constantly studies, whether the song of Moses or the song of the Christian believer. The one and the same conquest which Christ grants to His followers, is called "the song of Moses and of the Lamb," as if to commend to the heart the one Word of God; which expresses in every age the one victory through the power and aid of the one great Saviour, through whom alone we can hope for present conquest and future rejoicing.

NOTE 6. On the suspension of the laws of nature at the passage of the Red Sea. Exod. xv. 8.

"Now I am sure you lie," was the answer of an ignorant barbarian prince to an European traveller, who assured him "that the rivers of Europe, in the winter season, sometimes became so hard that passengers might walk upon them, as upon dry land."-The

barbarian made experience, not testimony, his criterion of truth. Just as sensible is the deist who calls himself a philosopher, and makes his limited experience the test of the truth of God's actions. The expression in Exod. xv. 8, "the depths were congealed," must not be considered as the exaggeration of poetry, but as an accurate description. If the waters were divided, the waters must have been prevented by a divine power from flowing in their regular course. The expres sion employed to describe this phenomenon must be, that they were either frozen or petrified; or this before us, that they were rendered solid, or from being liquid, became firm. The Hebrew word is and signifies, to thicken as wine, which is liquid, thickens on its lees.' The primary meaning is found in Job x. 11; and as the book of Job was probably put together about, or a little before, this time by Moses, in Midian, the use of the word in Job gives the more correct meaning. It is applied in Job to denote the consolidation, or compacting together of the child in the womb. Dr. Lee, in his note on the passage, gives the meaning 'to condense, to put together, to make up, or compact;' and the word therefore means, not that the waters of the Red Sea were petrified, as rock, or frozen, as ice, but that they were coagulated together, or restrained from falling. On the philosophical proof of miracle, derived from a contemplation of what are called the laws of nature, see the next note.

NOTE 7. On the union of miracle with prophecy throughout Scripture, and the uniform preceding of miracle to prophecy. Exod. xv.

14-18.

It is always useful to point out the analogy which exists between the dispensations of the Deity, considered as the God of nature, and those of the same Deity, considered as the God of Revelation. The strictest analogy may be discovered between His actions in this respect -that miracle, or an extraordinary interference of His Providence, may be always said to precede the more uniform and continuous manifestations of that Providence.-I see before me, for instance, twelve lovely flowers, varying in beauty and fragrance, form and colour, issuing from one small spot of black, shapeless earth. The uniformity of their continuing to be the same flowers, year after year, may be called the law of nature. But as the flowers could not make themselves, there must have been a period when this law of nature did not exist; and when the Deity must have interfered to have created at the beginning the seeds of each, or the first perfect plants severally producing each. That is, the miraculous interference must have preceded the regular interference which preserves the flowers from age to age. And the