such infatuation does not often appear in the history of human sinning. In his own sphere many a poor sinner is just as madly infatuated as Pharaoh and his people were――is altogether as senseless, as void of wisdom, as reckless of the hot thunderbolts of the Almighty! It is an awfully sad fact, a most humiliating confession as to the manner of human sinning; but it is only too true! There is no need of assuming any direct supernatural divine interposition to produce it. Nothing more seems necessary to complete the argument from the history of the case unless it be to suggest that when we have accounted for the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart satisfactorily on the one principle――the well-known proclivities and activities of a proud, stubborn human heart, it is entirely unphilosophical to bring in another principle, viz. the miraculous, immediate, direct action of Almighty Power. When we have proved the former power adequate to produce all the results, we have virtually precluded the latter. There can be no reason whatever for assuming a joint, co-ordinate action of both the natural laws of the human mind and of the supernatural power of God. If the former suffices, the latter is uncalled for. Miracles are never to be assumed where non-miraculous agency is fully adequate. If it be still argued that the very words declare, “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart,” the answer is: God is said to do what he foresees will be done by others and done under such arrangements of his providence as make it possible and morally certain that they will do it. Joseph said to his brethren (Gen. 45: 5, 7, 8), “Be not angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life. So now it was not you that sent me hither but God.” Yet it is simply impious to put the sin of selling Joseph into Egypt over upon God. God did it only in the same sense in which he hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He had a purpose to subserve by means of the sin of Joseph’s brethren; and he did no doubt permit such circumstances to occur in his providence as made that sin possible and as resulted in their sinning and in the remote consequences which God anticipated. It is of no particular use for us to find fault with the way in which the Scriptures speak of God’s hand in the existence of sin. There is no special mystery about it. It certainly does not involve the least moral obliquity on God’s part; and it is therefore every way prudent and wise to interpret such language in harmony with the common sense of the case and with the well-known character of God. * * * * *