Psalms 78:9-16

We need only refer to the history of Israel in the wilderness, to discover to what particular period of the church the prophet in these verses refers. Perhaps, as in several other parts of scripture, Ephraim, as one of the tribes of Israel, is put for the whole. Jeremiah 31:20; Hosea 11:8. But when the Reader hath paid all due respect to this interesting passage, considered as an history, I beg to call his attention to a subject, suggested from it, of an infinitely higher nature. Did the Lord lead Israel through the midst of the Red Sea? Did he go before them in a cloud, and give them drink from the rock? And are we not told by the Holy Ghost, that a sacramental design was in all these things? It is indeed expressly said, in so many words, that believers were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and that that rock which followed them was Christ. And what a sweet thought is it, that, while we read the church's history in this remote and distant period of it, the same, in reality, is going on now; for Christ is still present with his church and people; he goeth before his redeemed, whom he hath brought out of spiritual Egypt in the cloud of his Holy Spirit, and causeth them to have blessed enjoyments of his presence, by his visits and his protection. I pray the Reader to consult the whole of the first eleven verses of 1 Corinthians 10:1, in this place.