the good of mankind. See in this case why did God destroy the crops
of Egypt--even the first-born of Egypt? Merely for the pleasure of
destroying? God forbid. It was to deliver the poor Israelites from
their cruel taskmasters; to force these Egyptians by terrible
lessons, since they were deaf to the voice of justice and humanity--
to force them, I say--to have mercy on their fellow-creatures, and
let the oppressed go free. Therefore God was, even in Egypt, a God
of love, who desired the good of man, who would do justice for those
who were unjustly treated, even though it cost his love a pang; for
none can believe that God is pleased at having to punish, pleased at
having to destroy the works of his own hands, or the creatures which
he has made. No; the Lord was a God of love even when he sent his
sore plagues on Egypt, and therefore we may believe what the Bible
tells us, that that same Lord showed, as on this day, a still
greater proof of his love, when, as on this day, he entered into
Jerusalem, meek and lowly, sitting on an ass, and going, as he well
knew, to certain death. Before the week was over he would be
betrayed, mocked, scourged, crucified by the very people whom he
came to save; and yet he did it, he endured it. Instead of pouring
out on them, as on the Egyptians of old, the cup of wrath and
misery, he put out his hand, took the cup of wrath and misery to
himself, and drank it to its very dregs. Was not that, too, a
miracle? Ay, a greater miracle than all the plagues of Egypt. They
were physical miracles; this a moral miracle. They were miracles of
nature; this of grace. They were miracles of the Lord's power;
these of the Lord's love. Think of that miracle of miracles which
was worked in this Passion Week--the miracle of the Lord Jehovah
stooping to die for sinful man, and say after that there is anything
too hard for the Lord.