Outlines of Sermons on the Miracles and Parables of the Old Testament, by a London Minister [W. Harris]. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1878 Excerpt: ... VII: The Hail-storm--Exod. ix. 13-26. This miracle and its sequel teach us--I.--That God makes His irresponsible and unintelligent agents the means of instruction and conviction to His moral, responsible creatures. Wise men have always considered that the observation of the laws of nature, which are God's method of working, is a means of education of the human mind. Some of these laws will make themselves observed, whether men will, or whether they will not. The transgression of them brings pain which comes without invitation, and so these abstract servants of God come to be moral teachers. Then there are those visible teachers, to which men are so often referred in the Divine word (Isa. x. 4-26; Ps. xix. 1, &c), and which Pauldeclares are revealers of God to His intelligent creatures. (Rom. i. 20). The Psalmist tells us that the wind and the lightning are Divine Messengers and servants (see Alexander on Ps. civ. 4), and they were strikingly exemplified to be so in this miracle. The war of elements sent upon Egypt was intended and calculated to bring moral truths home to the Egyptian monarch and his people. II.--That moral agents who have refused to be instructed by Divine teaching are kept in the world to be a means of instruction to others. "For this cause I have raised thee up," or "made thee to stand to shew in thee my power," &c. (verse 16). "Thou, considered by thyself alone, art already doomed to condemnation. I establish thee as it were anew, in order to judge thee more completely, and to glorify my name in thee" (Latige's Cofiimentary). There are vessels belonging to our navy which are past repair or improvement, and are therefore unfit for sea. Yet they are retained as light-ships along the coast, that they may be the means of preventing better sh...