2. God's grant of things to any is the best of titles, and most sure against all pretences and impeachments; Judges xi, 24, "We will possess what the Lord our God gives us to possess."

3. Possession belongs to an inheritance enjoyed. This God gave to Abraham in his posterity, with a mighty hand and stretched out arm; and he divided it unto them by lot.

4. An inheritance is capable of a limited season. So was it with this inheritance; for although it is called an everlasting inheritance, yet it was so only because it was typical of that heavenly inheritance which is properly eternal; and because as to right and title it was to be continued to the end of that limited perpetuity which God granted to the church state in that land; that is, to the coming of the promised seed, in whom all nations should be blessed; which the call and faith of Abraham principally regarded. Many incursions were made upon it, but they who made them were punished for their usurpation; yet when the grant of it to them expired, and those wicked tenants of God's vineyard forfeited their right to it by their unbelief, and murdering the true heir; God disinherited them, dispossessed them, and left them neither right nor interest in this inheritance as at this day. It is no more the inheritance of Abraham; but in Christ he is become heir of the world, and his spiritual posterity enjoy all the privileges of it. Nor have the present Jews any more title to the land of Canaan, than to any other country in the world. Nor shall their title be renewed upon their conversion to God; for their right was limited to that time wherein it was typical of the heavenly inheritance; that now ceasing for ever, there can be no special title to it revived.

§8. Hence we may infer,

1. That it is faith alone gives the soul the satisfaction in future rewards, in the midst of present difficulties and distresses. So it did to Abraham, who, in the whole course of his pilgrimage, attained nothing of this promised inheritance. And,

2. The assurance given us by divine promises, is sufficient to encourage us to the most difficult course of obedience.

VERSE 9.

By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

$1-3. Exposition of the words. $4. The matter contained in them. §5. (I.) The internal principle of Abraham's pilgrimage. §6. (II.) The external part of it. $7. (III.) Observations.

$1. HAVING

LAVING declared the foundation of Abraham's faith, and given the first signal instance of it, he proceeds to declare his progress in its exercise:

(Пapwnnoɛv) he sojourned; the original word (πaposxεw, commoror) signifies to abide as a stranger. Luke xxiv, 18; Eù μovov Tapоineis "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem?" A sojourner there for a season, not an inhabitant in the place? Wherefore he abode as a stranger, not as a free denison of the place; not as an inheritor, for he had no inheritance, not a foot breadth in that place, Acts vii, 5. Not as a constant inhabitant or house dweller, but as a stranger that moved up and down as he had occasion. "In the land of promise;" (ei tyy yyy for ev Ty, ) in the land; see Acts vii, 6, "The land (Es nv upeis vuv naloinɛile) wherein you now dwell." And from the use of the Hebrew particle () the Greek preposition (E) is frequently put for the other (v) in the New Testament, and the reverse. Wherefore not the removal of Abraham in that land which he had mentioned in the foregoing verse, but

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his abode as a stranger, a foreigner, a pilgrim in it, is intended; and this was the land (тys etayyɛrias) of promise; that is, which God had newly promised to give him, and wherein all the other promises were to be accomplished.

He sojourned in this place (ws aλλolpιav) as in a strange land. He built no house in it, purchased no inheritance but only a burying place; he entered, indeed, into leagues of peace and amity with some, Gen. xiv, 13; but it was not as one that had any thing of his own in the land. He reckoned that land at present no more his own than any other land in the world, no more than Egypt was the land of his posterity when they sojourned there, which God had said, was not theirs, Gen. xv, 13.

§2. The manner of his sojourning in this land was that (ev oxyvais nalomnoas) he dwelt in tabernacles. It was no unusual thing in those days, and in those parts of the world, for whole nations to dwell in such habitations. Why Abraham was satisfied with this kind of life, the apostle declares in the next verse; and he is said to dwell in tabernacles, or tents, because the largeness of his family required more than one, Gen. xxiv, 67; xxxi, 33; and with respect to their moveable conditions in these tents, God in an especial manner, was said to be their dwelling place, Psal. xc, 1.

$3. "With Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." It is evident that Abraham lived until Jacob was sixteen or eighteen years old; and therefore may be said to live with him, as to the time they both lived; but there is no need to confine it to the same time; the sameness of condition only seems to be intended; for as Abraham was a sojourner in the land of Canaan without any inheritance or possession, living in tents; so it was also with Isaac and Jacob,

and with them alone; Jacob was the last of his posterity who lived as a sojourner in Canaan; all those after him lived in Egypt, and came not into Canaan until they took possession of it for themselves.

And they were (των συγκληρονομων της επαγγελίας της avlys) heirs with him of the same promise; for not only did they inherit the promise as made to Abraham, but God distinctly renewed the same promise to them both; Gen. xxvi, 24; xxviii, 13-15. So were they heirs with him of the very same promise, Psal. cv, 9—

11.

$4. The sense of the words being declared, we may yet farther consider the matter contained in them, We have here an account of the life of Abraham after his call; as to the internal principle of it, being a life of faith; and as to the external manner of it, being a pilgrimage. "By faith he sojourned."

§5. (I.) As to the internal principle, it was a life of faith.

1. It had respect to things spiritual and eternal; for its foundation and object, he had the promise of the blessed seed, and the spiritual blessing of all nations in him; which was a confirmation of the first fundamental promise of the church concerning the "seed of the woman that was to break the serpent's head." And God entered expressly into covenant with him, confirming it with the seal of circumcision, wherein he obliged himself to be his God, his God Almighty, and all-sufficient, for his temporal and eternal good. To suppose that Abraham saw nothing in this promise and covenant but things confined to this life-nothing of spiritual grace, nothing of eternal reward or gloryis so contrary to the analogy of faith, and to express testimony; so destructive of all the foundations of religion, so unworthy of the nature and properties of

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God; rendering Abraham's title "the Father of the faithful," and his example in believing so useless, that it is a wonder men of any tolerable sobriety should indulge to such an imagination.

2. It was a life of faith with respect to things demporal also; for as he was a sojourner in a strange land, without friends, or relations, not incorporated in any political society, or dwelling in any city, he was exposed to danger, oppression, and violence, as is usual in such cases; besides, those amongst whom he sojourned were for the most part wicked and evil men, such as, being fallen into idolatry, were apt to be provoked against him for his profession of faith in the most High God. Hence, on some occurrences of his life, that might give them advantage, it is observed, as a matter of danger, "the Canaanite and the Perizzite dweit then in the land," Gen. xiii, 7; and xii, 6; chap. xx, 2; moreover, he had sundry particular trials wherein he apprehended that his life was in imminent danger, Gen. xii, 11—13; xx, 2; but in all these dangers, being helpless in himself, he lived in the continual exercise of faith and trust in God, his power, all-sufficiency, and faithfulness. Hereof his whole history is full of instances, and his faith in them is frequently celebrated.

In things of both sorts, spiritual and temporal, he lived by faith, in a constant resignation of himself to the sovereign will and pleasure of God, when he saw no way or means for the accomplishment of the promise; so it was with respect to the long season that he lived without a child, and under the command he had to offer him for a sacrifice, when he had received him; on all these accounts he was the father, the example of believers in all generations.

§6. (II.) For the external part or manner of his life, it was a pilgrimage, a sojourning. Two things