the rational fears of Pharaoh. He
had only provided against a terror-stricken submission, as wholly
immoral and valueless, as the ceasing to resist of one who has swooned
through fright. Now, to give such an one a stimulant and thus to enable
him to exercise his volition, would be different from inciting him to
rebel.

The seventh plague, then, is ushered in by an expostulation more
earnest, resolute and minatory than attended any of the previous ones.
And this is the more necessary because human life is now for the first
time at stake. First the king is solemnly reminded that Jehovah, Whom he
no longer can refuse to know, is the God of the Hebrews, has a claim
upon their services, and demands them. In oppressing the nation,
therefore, Pharaoh usurped what belonged to the Lord. Now, this is the
eternal charter of the rights of all humanity. Whoever encroaches on the
just sphere of the free action of his neighbour deprives him, to exactly
the same extent, of the power to glorify God by a free obedience. The
heart glorifies God by submission to so hard a lot, but the co-operation
of the "whole body and soul and spirit" does not visibly bear testimony
to the regulating power of grace. The oppressor may contend (like some
slave-owners) that he guides his human property better than it would
guide itself. But one assertion he cannot make: namely, that God is
receiving the loyal homage of a life spontaneously devoted; that a man
and not a machine is glorifying God in this body and spirit which are
God's. For the body is but a chattel. This is why the Christian doctrine
of the religious equality of all men in Christ carries with it the
political assertion of the equal secular rights of the whole human race.
I must not transfer to myself the solemn duty of my neighbour to offer
up to God the sacrifice not only of his chastened spirit but also of his
obedient life.

And these words were also a lifelong admonition to every Israelite. He
held his liberties from God. He was not free to be violent and wanton,
and to say "I am delivered to commit all these abominations." The
dignities of life were bound up with its responsibilities.

Well, it is not otherwise to-day. As truly as Moses, the champions of
our British liberties were earnest and God-fearing men. Not for leave to
revel, to accumulate enormous fortunes, and to excite by their luxuries
the envy and rage of neglected brothers, while possessing more enormous
powers to bless