what the highest archangel could have conceived; none but the greatest intelligence in the universe could have thought of such a way to restore the rebel to favour -so righteous, so kind, so effectual, so like God; it made a new discovery of his attributes to the heavenly hosts. Abel's burnt iv. 4. The lamb slain by Abel, and burnt upon offering. Gen. the altar, is a vivid representation of the Lamb of God, that should be immolated at Calvary on the cross; approaching God through that medium, by faith in the sacrifice of Immanuel, which it portrayed, Abel was accepted, and blessed with the presence of God in his soul, by whom he was taught thus to seek him, as we need no other evidence to prove. Every acceptable worshipper since his time, has found access to the God of holiness in the same way—through the burnt-offering of an innocent victim, and the sprinkling of its blood, until He came who put away sin by offering himself. Noah's ark. Above sixteen hundred years passed away, Gen. vii. during which time the hearts and lives of men, by their fallen origin and Satan's usurped influence over them, became so depraved, that the judgments of God must come upon them; they are thus described, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth" (Gen. vi. 5, 13). Then a type was given of him who would come to save, in the construction of Noah's ark; that as all who entered into it would be secure from the engulfing billows, so all who commit themselves to Christ will be safe for evermore from the waves of Divine indignation for transgressing the law. The ark rested on the mountain of Ararat, having traversed the world of waters until they receded from beneath it, containing in safety all who entered into it, and they only, of all the human race, were preserved. Melchizedek. Heb. vii. 1-3. Four hundred years after the Deluge, Gen. xiv. 18-20; Abraham left his native land at the command of God; then, and on two other occasions, he made the promise to him that one should be born amongst his descendants, so benign in his influence, and so extensive in his dominion, that all the families of the earth should receive blessings in him (Gen. xii. 3). When he was returning from his conquest over the hostile kings, he was further instructed in the dignity of him who should bless the human race-by Melchizedek, who was both king and priest; he came forth to Abraham, refreshed him in his toils, and blessed him. Melchizedek appears abruptly on the sacred page; nothing is mentioned of the beginning of his days, nor are we told of his death; so that all the circumstances related of him depict the benignity, the eternity of the Saviour, and would be thus understood by the Patriarch, who saw the day of Christ afar off, and rejoiced. The offering up Gen. xxii. 1-13; But Abraham was to have another revelation of him, of the most affecting kind, that would connect with it a test of his own obedience to the will of God; the tender father must lay on the altar of burnt-offering his beloved and only son; his own hand must be stretched forth to inflict the death-wound. Abraham was delivered from the completion of so sad an appointment, and his son raised up again as from the dead; "but God so loved the world," that he would not spare his beloved Son, in whom he delighted, but would leave him to endure the pains of a shameful and cruel death. He would be raised again, but not as Isaac, until he had passed through the portals of the tomb. In this manner, the love of the Father in giving the Son, and his resurrection, was foreshown at that early period of the world. Jacob's ladder. 10-15. Jacob, by his own guilt, was forced to Gen. xxviii. become an outcast from his happy home; and, as he pursued his solitary journey, he felt its burden, and that it would exclude him from heaven as much as it had driven him from his father's house. With these sad thoughts he lay down to rest for the night, having stones for his pillow, and the canopy of heaven over his head. He was favoured with a remarkable dream, inspired from on high-a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; angels went to and fro upon it on heavenly errands. The Lord appeared to him above the ladder, and renewed the promise made before three times to Abraham, and once to Isaac, that "in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed." In the estimation of the Creator of the world, the birth of that individual amongst the descendants of Jacob was the only and all-sufficient source of its prosperity. This was the third person to whom it was announced, and the sixth time, although the history of the human race had little more than begun, and at each time there was a special manifestation of the Divine presence. What was intended to teach by the ladder was explained, when Jesus said to Nathanael, "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (John i. 51). An emblem, so simple and so universally known, must delight the hearts of all whose minds stretch upward to the glorious heavens, and long to enter there. Distance shall be no obstruction, nor conscious unworthiness, for Jesus is "the way," and by him the dwellers on earth may ascend to heaven. As Jacob travelled on, he had none of God's word to which he could turn for instruction and comfort; the remembrance of his wonderful vision would give him hope of salvation, raise his mind above earthly concerns, in which he had been so much engrossed, and stimulate him to forsake every sin, and endeavour henceforth to please God in all his ways, that he might be prepared to dwell with him for ever, and amongst the glorious beings he had beheld in his dream. During this Patriarch's eventful life, at a period of deep anxiety, he to whom all things are possible, was man form. 30. God seen in hu- pleased to show himself in human nature, Gen. xxxii. 24- or the appearance of it, so long before his incarnation. We meet with similar instances as we proceed with the Old Testament history, of one, transiently appearing, and sometimes three, in human form, who in the context is called God, the Lord-i.e., Jehovah. These appearances were always on extraordinary occasions, and to persons who lived much in communion with God. It was the mightiest of all the manifestations previous to the Saviour's birth, and strikingly corresponded with the condition he then assumed. In one place we read, "that fingers came forth of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick, upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote" (Dan. v. 5). Dying words of As Jacob's demise approached, he called Jacob regard Judah.-Gen. xlix. 10. ing the tribe of his sons to his dying couch, to unveil, by the spirit of prophecy with which he was favoured, the destinies of each tribe; of Judah, he described the political condition when the Prince of Peace should come to assert his authority and save his people. Although that blessed period did not arrive till nearly seventeen hundred years after the Patriarch's death, the circumstances of the government of Judea, at the time of his advent, were in exact accordance with his prediction; for Herod the Great, who might be called the last king, died while the Saviour was yet an infant. |