When the adversary finds that he cannot destroy the people of God with the fury of a Nero, he tries, with far more success, the caresses of a Constantine. The erstwhile roaring lion assumes the role of a minister of light: Pharaoh, finding violence of no effect with the Israelites, tries diplomacy. Herodot as says that the ancient Egyptians used to capture crocodiles by putting clay into their eyes: the simplicity and the effectiveness of this method are very ingenious. It is the way in which the king of Egypt now endeavors to deal with the Hebrew Ruler. To be sure there is the initial difficulty that the crocodile may object to the proposed treatment, as Moses did in the manner we shall now consider—
Pharaoh's first attempt at throwing the clay was rather coarse and crude: he said, “Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." This is the low unworthy suggestion which is usually made to blind every awakened soul. “If you are determined to be religions, well, be it so; but don't cut yourself off from the rest of the race. Here are plenty of places of worship, objects of worship, and methods of worship, to suit every possible, and impossible, disposition. Choose one of them and do not, with more than pharisaic self-sufficiency, separate from them all and condemn them all.” Pharaoh does not now seek to hinder them from worshipping their own God as long as He is placed on a level with Amun-Ra, Thoth, and Osiris; and once thus placed on a level with the Sun, the Intellect, and the Hidden Life, His glory is sure presently to be reduced to the level of Anubis, Pasht, or Scarabcens the Jackal, Cat and Beetle; or Seb the Earth-goose, or even Seth—the Devil. If however one will only be content with a God, for instance, a little more to be reverenced than the sacred beetle, and a little less than the holy bull, why then there are all the appliances of worship that Egypt can afford at his disposal.
And such appliances! Where else could such grandeur and solemnity in religion be found? It is adorned all the way down from the Second Cataract to the Delta with the most magnificent temples the world has ever seen. The Karnak was approached by an avenue nearly two miles long of vast granite sphinxes, the temple itself huge enough to hold thirty modern churches, its central hall large enough to contain a couple of modern cathedrals. Where has there ever been a more imposing and gorgeous ceremonial; a more venerable and learned priesthood; a more majestic ritual? Apparently Egypt was the place of all others to be religious in, especially now when it she wed itself so tolerant (or latitudinarian?) as to admit a new deity.
But toleration springs from principle; latitudinarianism from policy: and there is as much difference between them as between zeal and bigotry. Bigotry will inflict suffering for a Cause; zeal will endure it. “The bigot's mind is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it the more it contracts:” but the zealous mind is like a flower, which the light expands and colors. The tolerant man is often zealous; while the latitudinarian is often bigoted. In Christendom latitudinarianism ends, as its name ends, in Arianism.
The test of Pharaoh's first proposal is constantly arising in a large and historic sense. The first disciples of Christ had to turn their backs on the glorious temple of Solomon when the spiritual Egypt had captured it and made it a place of idols. God was no longer to be found there when His Son had been dishonored: they elected to worship in the caves and dens of the earth; “Heaven, Lord, is there where'er Thou art.” Later on there came a time when the spiritual Egypt proposed to the people of God that they should mingle their worship with the revived Babylonish idolatry; but there were found not a few who had the fidelity to prefer the bleak mountain sides and caverns of Scotland, or the Vaudois valleys to the magnificence of a St. Peter's Cathedral; as those who preceded them had preferred the catacombs to Jerusalem's temple, or the “waste howling wilderness” to the Karnak of Thebes. The same principle and choice arise in the history of every converted soul: which will you have, a sensuous religion without God, or God without sensuous religion? You cannot have both, though Pharaoh proposes that you should—but that is only his clay; coarse and crude it is too—simple mud.
His second attempt is much more adroit; the clay of better quality, more plastic and adhesive. He says, “I will let you go.........only ye shall not go very far away.” Now that seems a fair enough proposal. Why should one travel farther than is needful? and who is to determine the precise distance? All distance is relative. Reasoning thus the soul will find itself settled in a new Haran, on a kind of border land of spiritual life, a land of earthly worship and fleshly associations; a land of doubt and danger. it is a poor condition when a man shall say, “How near can I live to the world without being involved in its judgments?” “Is it wrong to do this?” “It cannot be much harm to do that.” When he says—not “May I,” but “Must I do such a thing for the Lord?” it is a poor condition and a dangerous position: like walking on the edge of a precipice to see how near you can go without falling in. An eccentric man engaging a coachman asked some of the candidates how near they could drive to the edge of an adjacent cliff. Some of them said they could go within the breadth of a threepenny bit. At last came one who said he would go as far away from it as ever he could: this one was instantly engaged.
To these two Machiavellian propositions the Seer, “firm to resolve, stubborn to endure,” makes answer with that calm dignity which gives far more evidence of an inflexible purpose than all the tempestuous wrath which has been shown against him. “We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as He shall command us." That is the shortest distance that must separate Israel from Egypt: three days—death and resurrection. “Three days' journey” carried them to the other side of the Red Sea—that Red Sea where God's righteousness is vindicated; where Justice strikes and Mercy saves. It is the type of the Cross, where in an infinitely larger sense judgment was executed and salvation was accomplished; and which ends for the disciple the course of Egypt, and begins that of the wilderness. In that Cross the world is crucified to him and he to it.