been Moses, wouldn't you have been disposed to reply, "My God! cry to thee?' what else can I do? Where else must hope come from, if not from Thee? To whom else can we look? Why, Lord, look at these Israelites! Dost Thou not see the spears of Pharaoh's host? Dost thou not hear the sound of the horses' hoofs? But a few moments more, and there will be a general massacre here! What else can we do but cry to Thee?"

Then God gives directions. "Command those trembling people, who are all gathered pell-mell, like a flock of sheep,command them that they go forward." But the Red Sea is before them, how can they do that? Still the command comes from God-" Go forward!" In mute obedience, that mighty multitude begins to advance. The feet of the first advance guard touch the mighty waters, and as they touch the first wave of the Red Sea the rod of Moses is stretched out, and look, the mighty waves begin to heave with a strange commotion, another moment and the waters gather up on either side, as if a mightier than any human arm were stretching across the vasty deep, and under the pressure of that Omnipotent hand, the waters stood aside, and made a way for God's people to pass over. They touch the tide, and the waters draw back on either side from them, and as they do so, Israel " goes forward!”

My dear friends, what would unbelief and reason have done under these circumstances? Remember there was "a strong east wind blowing." Unbelief would have said, "It is only an extraordinary phenomenon resulting from the east wind; if we go there, we enter into certain death. We dare not go into the very centre of the deep. Better for us to die by the sword of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, than to venture into the very bosom of the sea." But that is not what the Israelites did say. They were driven to a great strait, and they found their only safety was simple obedience. Not to hesitate or reason, but to go on, and do what God told them. Like little children, they would trust in the Lord God. The hosts march forward. On they go. One, two, three, then the vast multitude after them-the whole host of God going right down into the waters of judgment!

Now think of them all in the sea, every man of Israel, every woman of Israel, every child of Israel, in the sea; and God has only just to speak one word, and the whole family of

Israel shall be extirpated to a man, not one left! But they are going on in safety. While they are going on, a very strange thing takes place, "the pillar of cloud"-the sign of God's presence-which had hitherto been going before them, wheels round, and goes behind them, and stands as a rear guard between them and Pharaoh's army. And as the Israelites journey forward, the mystic light streams down over them, and illumines their path through the waters, while on the other side, the cloud overshadows Pharaoh and his host, and they cannot see their way, because of the horrible gloom in which they are enveloped!

It is time we should turn away from the picture, and get to the reality. What is it? Here, in this church to-night, there stands a poor, trembling sinner, with the devil behind him, and God's judgment in front of him. He looks up into God's face, and says, "O God! Thou art so holy, and so just, and so true; " and he looks behind him, and says, “O that devil! he has got such a power over me, he has degraded my body, he has mastered my will, he has debased my whole being, he has ruined my manhood, he has reduced me to his own image." There stands the poor sinner trembling. What is the next thing he does? He begins to pray-just as some of you have been praying.

Now, dear friends, I am not going to say a word against prayer. It is a blessed thing at all times. But I want to tell you something. You will never find peace with God by mere prayer. No man ever yet prayed himself into peace. God has not said, "Pray, and be saved,"-has He? Very well. Then you wont get saved that way. Moses might have cried unto God, and gone on praying, until he had dropped down dead, that would not have saved him from the peril. What would? God said to him, "Go forward." My friends, God says to you, "Go forward!" "Good God! where am I to go to? Thou seest before me the waters of Thy judgments: they look as if they were going to swallow me up.' But they wont do you know why? The paschal blood has been shed, and the paschal blood has been sprinkled, and underneath the shelter of that blood there is nothing but safety. The waters cannot swallow up the blood-besprinkled band. You and your God are friends now. You need not think He is an enemy. Thy God is reconciled! His smile is resting on thee! His love is glowing towards thee! He has not a

word of judgment to say concerning thee! Therefore, although judgment is spread out in all its vastness and glory before thee, venture forth. "What, into the mercy?" -nay, but into the justice of God!

I very often hear people say, "I trust in the mercy of God." I want to tell you candidly, I do not. I venture to say I dare not trust in the mere mercy of God. Do you trust in the mercy of God? Have you nothing more than that to trust in? The mercy of God is limited by another attribute, and that is the justice of God. God is a Judge as well as a Father. If one of us stood before the tribunal of an earthly judge, he might be the kindest man in Europe, but if we had committed murder-though tears of mercy streamed down his cheek as he puts his black cap on,-there is only one single thing he can do, he must unmistakeably pronounce the sentence of death! I do not trust simply in the mercy of God. I do not trust in the mere possibility of that mercy being extended to me. I know mercy and love are underneath all His counsels. But I have found something that makes me feel far safer than any belief in mercy would make me. Do you know what it is? I am able to trust in the justice of God. How can you do that? Aren't you a sinner? Of course I am. Very well, as a sinner you are under condemnation. Of course I am. But there is one who has taken my condemnation for me. He was innocent: He consented to be guilty. The Everlasting God Himself agreed to take my place and to pay my debt. God's law has no claim against me now. It had a claim against me; but because Christ undertook to settle the claim, and paid the penalty that was due to my soul, God's eternal equity and moral holiness is bound to accept His finished work, in the place of all I have done or left undone, and is completely satisfied in the expiation of my Saviour. Do you see it? St. John says, "If we confess our sins, He is " -what? Merciful! He is that, glory be to His name! but He is something more than that, He is not only merciful, "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

I have something to tell you, dear awakened soul. If God Almighty were to reject one single soul—(be he the worst man in Brighton)—that comes to Him in the name of Jesus, and pleading that precious blood, if He were to cause the waters of Divine judgment to overwhelm that soul with Divine

retribution, at that moment God Almighty would have ceased to be just!

Thus Israel ventures into the water. What does the water do for him? Drown him? No. "The water is a wall to him on the right hand, and on the left." Pharaoh cannot get at Israel. Why? Because his chariots and horses are not swift enough? No. They would soon have overtaken Israel! Why cannot he get at him? Because Israel is surrounded by God's justice. Dear soul, you are just venturing out of yourself into Jesus's sepulchre, as it were, you are going down into the waters of death with Jesus, why cannot Satan get at you ? You feel as if he will, you say you will go on your way tomorrow, and lose all you have felt to-day. You will not do so if you go into these waters of judgment, the waters will be a wall to you. God's judgment will be on every side. Satan may say, "I will overtake." You turn round and say, "Satan, you cannot overtake me." Why not? Pharaoh thought he was going to deal hardly with the poor, cowering Israelites; but when he drew near, he found he had to deal with Israel's God. Think of that. The devil is, it may be, expecting to make ruin of your new-found life. "Ah! poor, weak sinner, you will be back again next week." "You are very pious to-night! But I will have you back yet,-back, at his old sin ;-back, to his own companions in a week;-back, to her empty frivolity in a few days!"

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The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them." But there is "a pillar of fire and cloud" between Israel and Pharaoh and from that there is a voice which says, "You shall not overtake, though you may pursue; you may talk about 'dividing the spoil,' the spoil is already divided. It belongs to Me; it is My property; I have ransomed them from death, I have redeemed them from the grave. O death! I will be thy plagues; O grave! I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from Mine eyes."

Thus the ransomed sinner is able to look back upon Satan, with a sense of holy security, and say, "There he is; but he has lost his power. Up to that time, I was his lawful captive; his chain was round my neck. Before, he could drag me wherever he liked; but now, I am free. The waters of God's judgments are a wall to me on the right hand and on the left."

I now hasten to a conclusion. I have only a few more words to say. Satan presses on; but the very waters of judgment which saved the Israelites were the means of destroying the vast host of Egypt. He goes down into the same waters. There the mighty curling billows begin to rise. The rod of Moses is stretched out, and in another moment the cry of terror, the voice of agony, and Pharaoh and his horsemen have "sunk like a stone" in the depth of the sea.

"Now is the judgment of this world," said our blessed Lord: "now is the prince of this world cast out." Satan drives the poor, trembling sinner right on into the law of God: suddenly he finds, because the paschal blood has been shed and sprinkled, the law of God becomes the very sepulchre in which his squadrons are entombed. The power of Satan is broken by the very means by which he intended to destroy. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

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Dear friends, here is our privilege to-night. It is to see ourselves "buried with Christ," the sentence of the law carried out upon the Person of Christ for us. Our privilege is to see ourselves "raised up with Christ" into a new life. And as we take our stand on the other side of the Red Sea, it is our blessed privilege to burst forth into the sound of praise. What shall we say to-night? I have prayed hard for it ?" Stuff and nonsense, we would not say anything of that kind. What shall we say? I have made a good resolution and I intend to keep it?' Nothing of the sort. What shall we say? "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like Thee?" I have made resolutions thousands of times, and always broken them; but now Thou hast laid hold of me, and brought me through the waters of judgment, and justified me in Thy sight, Thou hast broken the power of the adversary, and done what all the philosophers and social reformers and philanthropists, that could have been found ready to undertake the cause of perishing humanity in the wide world, could not have done," who is like unto Thee?" Why what is there so wonderful about God? "Thou art glorious in holiness." Yes, He takes hold of Thee, a poor sinner, and me, a poor sinner, and He saves us; and yet He continues "holy" still! "Glorious in holiness." Do I want to know how "holy" God is? I wont look up into the holy places,―