sight shall no man living
be justified." But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins
even here. Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the
worse form of a heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the
dying out of spiritual faculty. Pharaoh was to experience both, the
hardening of his heart and the ruin of his fortunes.

It is added, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you
for a God." This is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has
resolved to vindicate the right, but of affection. God is about to adopt
Israel to Himself, and the same favour which belonged to rare
individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as
the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a
parent and a family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last
to a world-wide philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind
awakened to believe that Abraham might be the friend of God, and then
that His oath might be confirmed unto the children, and then that He
could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at last that God loved
the world.

It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He
cares for us. He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in
return, to be our God.

Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of
certain specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden
clasp, to draw together the almighty Heart and the hearts of these
downtrodden slaves. Something within Him desires their little human
love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said again, "My son, give
Me thine heart." And so, when He carried to the uttermost these
unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension,
and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens
under her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from
definite services received, the wild hope of some spark of real
affection in the bosom of the Eternal and Mysterious One. It is not man,
amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation, who conceives the
notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is God
Himself Who says, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to
you a God."

Nor is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine
covenant and pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even
as the first dis