ould think, when thus
applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy.

It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was
used of the burdens that were made _heavy_ when first they claimed their
freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their
oppressor (v. 9).

It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh's
heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull;
that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the
animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural
discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make
hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express
Pharaoh's own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of
God, as actually taking place already.

Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion
that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for
him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical
lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The
gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when
first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind
since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the
murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and
afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at.

Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous
excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those
first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of
self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity
with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the
enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit
of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be
of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.

Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the
mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being "condemned already"
cannot now bend his will. "Even as they refused to have God in their
knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind" (Rom. i. 28). "I gave
them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he
shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and
judgments wherein they shou