when the soul is faint and the heart is heavy, say to you as he did of old to Abram, "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art;" cease to dwell upon your present disquietudes and losses; cease to "sorrow as men without hope;" "look from the place" where sin has tainted every comfort, and sorrow has darkened every prospect, and let the eye of faith cast its bright glance of hope and joy to the inheritance which is prepared for you. "For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it;" as surely is it for thee if thou art an obedient believer in the Lord Jesus, as if purchased for thee alone; as certainly shall it be kept for thee, and thou for it, as if thine absence alone would mar the happiness of its ten thousand times ten thousand happy inmates.

In the darkest hour, therefore, of this world's most trying vicissitudes, dwell with humble hope upon the prospects of this blessed, this glorious inheritance; it is indeed an enlivening and an elevating theme, one which, more than any other, tends to comfort the heart when broken, and to cheer the spirit when sorrowful. Consider those who are already there, who have all passed through the same trials, been subject to the same infirmities, and bowed beneath the same sorrows as yourself.

The thoughts of that glorious inheritance, of "the recompense of the reward;" of Him, whom having not seen, they loved, and with whom they longed to be for ever dwelling; of that blissful country where Jesus reigns, and where sin and sorrow, and death and trial, are alike unknownwere the thoughts which gladdened their hearts and dried their tears while engaged in the same pilgrimage as yourselves. Let them also be the thoughts to cheer your labors and silence your regrets. Survey" the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it;" for if you are indeed a believing and obeying servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, although the poorest, the lowest, and the most undeserving, to thee will God assuredly give it. Reflect how immediate the hour of your actual possession of this rich inheritance may behow near it must be; and may "the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing;" with all comfort and consolation now in the prospect, and with all certainty of happiness hereafter in the fruition, of that blissful country in which those "who die in the Lord shall rest from their labours," and rejoice in his immediate presence from everlasting to everlasting.

LECTURE V.

GENESIS XIV. 18.

"And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the most high God: and he blessed him."

THE next incident in which we find Abram engaged, differs remarkably from all that have preceded it. The patriarch was pre-eminently a man of peace, willing, as we have seen, to sacrifice every worldly advantage, rather than interrupt that harmony which he knew to be so essential to the honour of his religious profession, and so entirely in accordance with the will of his God. On the present occasion, however, we find him assuming the character of the warrior, placing himself at the head of a numerous body of his servants, and waging a short but successful conflict with the princes of the warlike tribes among whom he sojourned.

We are informed by the inspired historian, that four of the neighbouring princes had made an inroad upon the cities of the plain, in one of which, even in the accursed Sodom, Lot, the nephew of

Abram, had now taken up his permanent abode; and having conquered the kings of those cities, they carried away as captives Lot and his family, and all his goods. We may just remark in passing, how speedily the evil fruits of Lot's separation from Abram became apparent: he left this man of God, fearful lest his wealth should be diminished by the want of an abundant pasturage; and the very next mention that is made of him is, that he has lost every thing which he so highly valued and so dearly purchased, and is himself an exile and a prisoner.

"Be sure your sin will find you out," was as completely verified in the history of Lot, as in that of Jacob. The original act of duplicity in the latter was, as we observed while pursuing his history, returned upon him by the duplicity of others in almost every important incident and every near relationship of life. The original act of covetousness in the former seems to have been equally visited upon Lot throughout the whole of his eventful and disastrous career; every trial appearing to be so appointed by the hand of God, as to touch him in this most tender point, until in the last stages of his career, from the possession of flocks and herds, so that the land was not able to bear him, we find him a poverty-stricken outcast, far from the fertile plains

which had been so much the object of his ambition, closing his days in a cavern of the mountains. May we never be tempted to forget, my brethren, that the word of God has declared that "they who hasten to be rich fall into temptation and a snare," for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth, but in that blessed state of mind which teaches us to "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness," content with the smallest portion, and the narrowest prospects here on earth, if we be but "rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom."

"No sooner, however, was the calamity in which Lot was involved communicated to Abram, than we read that "he armed his trained servants born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobab, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods, and the women also and the people." This is the only instance recorded throughout the life of Abram of his engaging in any warlike expedition. Much as we dislike the name of war, and utterly unchristian and un