stream, which the peasant could dry up with | remaining pledge of his Rachel's love, dethe sole of his foot. The past is infinitely manded and forced to be given up. What less perspicuous to the eye of human under- sorrow was ever like this sorrow? "This is standing, than the future is to divine intelli- the man who hath seen affliction by the rod gence. God "seeth the end from the begin- of his wrath." And does all a partial mother's ning, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I fondness; do all a father's blessings, wishes, will fulfil all my pleasure." The periods and prayers; do all the promises and predicwhich make the most brilliant figure in the tions of Heaven issue in this? "If in this page of history, were periods of anxiety and life only there were hope," who so miserable trouble to the men and the nations who then as God's dearest children? Whose lot is so figured on the scene. A life of many inci- much to be deplored as that of the son of dents is a life of much distress. When the Isaac? writer has got a great deal to relate, the person whose life is recorded has had a great deal to suffer. Much more is written of Jacob than of any other of the patriarchs. Alas! it is only saying that his miseries were much more numerous and severe. In a life shorter than his father's by thirty-three years, calamity so crowded upon calamity, that it seems extended to the utmost stretch of even antediluvian longevity. What hour of his mature age is free from pain and sorrow? Not one! In what region does he find repose? No where. Canaan, Haran, Egypt, are to him almost equally inclement. As a son, a servant, an husband, a father; in youth, in manhood, in old age; he is unremittingly afflicted. And no sooner is one difficulty surmounted, one wo past, than another and a greater overtakes him. Formerly he had youthful blood and spirits to encounter and to endure the ills of life. Hope still cheered the heart, and scattered the cloud. But now, behold the hoary head sinking with sorrow to the grave; the spirit oppressed, overwhelmed, with a sea of trouble. Keen recollection summons up the ghosts of former afflictions, and past joys recur only to remind him that they are gone for ever; and black despair obscures, excludes the prospect of good to come. What heart is not wrung, at hearing a poor old iman closing the bitter recapitulation of his misfortunes, in the words I have read, “All, all these things are against me?" Perhaps the life of no other man affords a like instance of accumulated distress. The mournful detail of this evening will present, collected within the compass of not many months, a series of the heaviest afflictions that ever man endured; and all springing up out of objects, in which the heart naturally seeks and expects to find delight. An only daughter dishonoured-his eldest hope stained with incest-Simeon and Levi polluted with innocent blood-Judah joined in marriage to a woman of Canaan, and a father by his own daughter-in-law-Joseph torn in pieces by wild beasts his beloved Rachel lost in childbirth-his venerable father removed from him in the course of naturethe miserable wreck and remains of his family ready to perish with famine-Simeon a prisoner in Egypt,—and Benjamin, the only Jacob, after an absence of more than twenty years, has returned to the land of his nativity. A guardian Providence has protected and delivered him from his avowed enemies, from Laban, and from Esau: but the most dangerous enemies of his repose are still nearer to him, they "are those of his own house." He has purchased an estate, he has spread his tent, he has erected his altar; "his mountain stands strong," what can move him? From what slight beginnings, do great events arise! Dinah the daughter of Jacob, prompted by female vanity, curiosity, or some other motive equally deserving blame, ventures, unattended, beyond the verge of the paternal superintendence and protection, and falls into danger and shame. She went out, says the scripture, "to see the daughters of the land." Josephus affirms, that she was attracted by the celebration of a great public festival, according to the manners of the country. Her youth, innocence, and inexperience inspire confidence; novelty awakens curiosity; beauty tempts, opportu nity favours, and virtue is lost. From the first transgression, down to this day, female disgrace and ruin have begun in the gratification of an immoderate desire to see, and to know, some new thing; from an inclination to exhibit themselves, and to observe others. One daughter of Israel is much more likely to be corrupted by communication with many daughters of Canaan than they are to be improved by the conversation of that one. There is much wisdom, my fair friends, in keeping far, very far within your bounds. There is danger, great danger, in advancing to the utmost limit of liberty and virtue. For, the extreme boundary of virtue is also the extreme boundary of vice; and she who goes every length she lawfully may, is but half a step from going farther than she ought, or perhaps than she intended. Desire is commonly extinguished by gratification; but it is also sometimes inflamed by it. And so it was with Shechem. The first disorder of his passion and its effects, are not more to his shame, than the reparation which he intended and attempted, is to his honour. Indeed, if we except the leading step in this transaction, the whole proceeding on the part of the young prince is noble and generous to a high degree; and loudly reproves and strikingly exposes the cool, the cruel, remorseless seducers of a Christian age, and of a civilized country. "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in IsThe unhappy father receives the news of rael."* We no where meet with an instance his daughter's dishonour with silent sorrow. of more savage, indiscriminating barbarity. And how often does he wish in the sequel, For the offence of one, a whole nation is that he had forever buried his grief in his mercilessly cut off, and rapine closes the own heart? Hamor readily adopts the views scene of blood. For they plundered the city, of his son, disdains not the alliance of a shep- and carried off the wretched women captive herd, courts Dinah, though humbled, with whose husbands they had murdered. Horrid, all the respect due to a princess, and all the infernal passion! And how was Dinah's munificence becoming one who was himself honour repaired by this? And these simple, a sovereign. Those who are fathers, who easy, believing men, these harmless, unof have daughters for whom they feel, or for fending women, what had they done? whom they fear, will judge of Jacob's satis-Daughters of Canaan, dearly have ye bought faction at this proposal. To have the wound the favour of a visit from Jacob's daughter. which had been made in the fond paternal Idle and unhallowed was the opening of the heart, instantly closed up; the stain cast scene, and dreadful has the conclusion been. upon his name, wiped clean away; his dar-I should not have been surprised to hear of ling child's peace and reputation restored; a confederacy among all the neighbouring an honourable alliance formed with a weal-states, to exterminate such a band of robbers thy, virtuous, and generous prince; a whole people proselyted from idols to the God of Israel. How many sources of exquisite satisfaction! Is the black cloud over Jacob's head going for once to descend in refreshing drops, is it going for once to burst, and disperse itself into calmness and serenity? Alas, alas! the tempest is only gathering thicker around him; and dreadful must the discharge of it be. I shudder as I proceed. and murderers from the face of the earth. Jacob is justly alarmed with the apprehension of this, and, warned of God, removes from the neighbourhood of Shechem to Bethel; a spot that brought to his recollection, calmer, happier days-when he was flying indeed from his country, without wealth, without a friend; but free also from the anxiety, vexation, and care, which an increased family and abounding wealth have brought Simeon and Levi, two brothers german of upon him. How much better is it to go childDinah, and who, on that account, think them-less, than have children to be the grief and selves peculiarly concerned in the vindica- plague of a man's heart? tion of their sister's honour, affect to receive Shechem's overtures with complacency.They have no scruples but what arise from religion. Let these be removed, and the way is cleared at once. Deep, designing, dissembling villains! The ordinance of God is in their mouths, the malice of the devil lies brooding in their hearts. They recommend a sacrament, and they are preparing a sacrifice, a horrid human sacrifice, of many victims. Being arrived at Bethel, where he had been blessed with the visions of the Almighty on his way to Padan-aram, he deems it a proper time and place to purge his family of every vestige of idolatry. It is no easy matter to live in an idolatrous, or irreligious country, without losing a sense of religion, or acquiring a wrong one. This is one of the great evils which attend travelling into distant lands. Our young men who reside long abroad, whatever else they bring back There is not a more singular fact in all to their native country, generally drop by history, than the ready compliance of the the way the pious principles which were inwhole inhabitants of Shechem with the pro- stilled into them in their youth. Some very posal of changing their religion, and of re- nearly related to Jacob, I am afraid, had a ceiving, at so late a period in life, the pain-violent hankering after the gods beyond the ful sign of circumcision. Great must have flood. Why else did Rachel steal away the been the authority which Hamor had over images which were her father's? However them, or great the affection which they bore that may be, Jacob now disposes of them in him. Unhappy man! he practised a little a proper manner, and buries every shred that deceit in stating the case to his people, but could minister to idolatry, under the oak that was himself much more grossly deceived. was by Shechem. The conduct of Jacob's And I greatly question whether he had pre- sons had, of necessity, awakened a hostile vailed, had not the temptation of Jacob's cat- spirit in the country against him, which, had tle and other substance, been held out as a it not been providentially restrained, must motive to obtain their consent. Comply how-have proved fatal to him. But "the terror ever they did and it proved fatal to them. of God was upon the cities that were round For on the third day, the two sons of Jacob about them, and they did not pursue after the already mentioned attended probably by a sons of Jacob."+ band of their friends and servants, rushed upon them and put them all to the sword. About this time, a breach was made in the ↑ Gen. xxxv. 5. *Gen. xlix. 7. family by the death of Deborah, Rebekah's nurse; the threatening and fore-runner of a much heavier stroke. For, just after they had left Bethel, as he was on his way finally to join his father with all his family, with a heart exulting, no doubt, in the prospect of presenting to his venerable parents the wives and children which God had given him; Rachel, his much-loved Rachel, is suddenly taken in labour by the way side, and dies, after bearing another son. Unhappy woman! She falls a victim to what she had coveted so earnestly. "Give me children else I die," in her haste, in the bitterness of her heart, she exclaimed She obtains her wish, and it proves fatai to her. God, a righteous God, gives her children, and she dies. Resentment at her vehemence and impatience is lost in sorrow for her loss. The history does not expand itself here, but simply relates the fact. Some causes are injured, not assisted, by a multiplicity of words. The feelings of the patriarch on this occasion are rather to be conceived than described. Rachel early, constantly, tenderly loved; earned with long and severe servitude; endeared by knowledge and habit, and rendered more important and valuable by fruitfulness, could not be lost without pain. It was natural for the dying mother to think of perpetuating the memory of her mortal anguish, by giving the son whom she brought into life at the expense of her own, the name of Ben-oni, "the son of my sorrow." It was wise and pious in the surviving father, to preserve rather the memory of the benefit received, than of the loss sustained; and by the name of Benjamin, "the son of my right hand," to mark and record submission to, and trust in Providence, rather than seek to perpetuate his grief, by retaining the maternal appellation, which seemed to murmur at and to reflect upon the dispensations of the Almighty. Dying in childbirth, it was found necessary to bury her with greater expedition than the removal of the corpse to the cave of Machpelah permitted; though there the precious dust of Sarah and of Abraham reposed. And, as it is happily ordered by nature, Jacob amuses, soothes, and spends his grief, which might otherwise have oppressed and spent him, in erecting a monument to Rachel's memory. Thus, what the heart in the first paroxysms of its anguish, intends as the means of rendering grief lasting or continual, gradually, imperceptibly, and most graciously extinguishes it altogether. While this wound was still bleeding, the patriarch's heart is pierced through with another stroke, if not so acute, perhaps more overwhelming. Reuben, his eldest hope, raised and distinguished by Providence, placed in the foremost rank among many brethren, degrades and dishonours himself by the commission of a crime which modesty blushes to think of, and "such as is not so much as named among the Gentiles;" a crime which blended the guilt and shame of another with his own; which could not make the usual apologies of surprise, temptation, or passion for itself. But let us hasten from it. We can sit and weep awhile upon the grave of Rachel; but from the incestuous couch of Reuben, imagination flies away with horror and disgust. What a dreadfully licentious, irregular, and disorderly family, is the family of pious Jacob! Each of his sons is worse and more wicked than another. Accursed Laban, I see thy infernal avarice at the bottom of all this disorder and wickedness! It was that which first introduced a multiplicity of wives into Jacob's bosom. It was that which created and kept up jarring interests in his family; and gave birth to those unhallowed, disgraceful, head-strong passions, which disturbed his peace, pierced his heart, and dishonoured his name. An affliction more in the order of nature, and whose certain and gradual approach must have prepared the heart to meet it, at length overtakes him. After an absence of more than twenty years, he rejoins his aged father, now in his one hundred and sixtythird year, at Arbah, afterwards called Hebron, "the city where Abraham and Isaac sojourned." It does not appear whether Rebekah yet lived, or not. If she did, what must have been her feelings at embracing her long-lost, darling son; and at finding him so abundantly increased in children and in wealth? Pure and perfect is the delight of a grandmother, as she caresses the young ones of a beloved child, the heirs and representatives of the husband of her youth, the supporters of his name, prospects, and dignity. In presenting his family to his father, Jacob must have been agitated by various and mixed emotions. It was natural for the old man to inquire minutely into the events of his son's life, during the tedious years of their separation; into the character and qualities of his grandchildren; into the state of Jacob's worldÏy circumstances; much more, into the state of his mind as a believer, and the heir of the promise. The answer to these parental inquiries must of necessity have awaked in the bosom of the wretched sufferer ten thousand melancholy and painful sensations; and torn open afresh those wounds which the lenient hand of time had begun to close up. The hardships endured in Padan-aram; the severity, churlishness, and deceit of Laban, would rise again to view. And almost every child, as he presented them one by one to his sire, must have suggested some mortifying and distressful circumstance to wring his heart. Dinah, not in the bloom and dignity of virgin innocence, but humbled and dishonoured, robbed of that which makes youth lovely, and age respected-Simeon and Levi, her brothers, polluted with innocent blood, and Reuben, his "first-born, his might, and the beginning of his strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power," stained with incest-Judah, his fourth son, who had begun to build up a family of his own, but it was by a Canaanitish woman,* whose progeny involved him in complicated guilt, and covered him with shame-Joseph and Benjamin, fair as the opening blossoms of the vernal rose, and precious as the purple fluid which visited his sad heart-But alas! the highly valued stock which had shot forth these two lovely branches, is prematurely cut down and withered. His beloved Rachel is no more; and he is deprived of even the poor consolation of reflecting, that her sacred dust slept in the same tomb with that of his venerable ancestors. But to have the privilege of pouring his sorrows into the bosom of a father, was the alleviation if not the cure of them. And he, who by meditation, and faith, and prayer, had overcome the world, and lived so long in heaven, was well qualified for administering the vivifying cordial to the fainting soul, to apply the sovereign balm to the aching heart of a son, who had been a still greater sufferer than himself. which glow and shine upon the page of inspiration! with what delight and success should we then speak, and with what pleasure and profit should ye then lend a listening ear! The story of Jacob, as it proceeds, teaches many useful lessons for the conduct of life; and opens many sources of religious instruction. Who would not rather be honest, unsuspecting, believing Jacob, than dark, designing, selfish Laban? And yet, who does not see the necessity of blending the wisdom of the serpent, with the harmlessness of the dove? We mourn to think on the prevalence of those fiery and ungovernable passions which separate, and scatter, and alienate those whom God and nature designed to live together, and to love one another; and which robs human life of many instances of felicity which might have been in it. Why should Isaac and Jacob have lived twenty years asunder, to their mutual discomfort and distress? The vile spirit of this evil world arose; the spirit of pride, emulation, ambition, avarice, fear, revenge, drove Jacob into a miserable exile; and left his father a forlorn, forsaken, anxious blind old man. Happy that poverty, which permits the parent and his child to cherish each other, till the cold hand of death chill the heart. Happy the obscurity which excludes envy; and forces not a man to be an enemy to his own brother! But the calamities of neither the father nor the son are as yet come to a period; and they have still to interchange sorrows for a loss more bitter and oppressive than any which they have yet endured. For, in little more than six years from their re-union; We have seen in the patriarch, a man like while Isaac, now one hundred and seventy ourselves, "bruised and put to grief;" the years old, was patiently looking for his dis-image of "one greater man," "a man of sormission from this scene of trouble, and preparing to enter the harbour of eternal resthe is driven back upon the tempestuous ocean, and doomed to toil and grieve ten years more of a weary life, deploring an affliction which admitted of no consolation, and which at length brought his white head with sorrow to the grave. At this period it was, that Joseph, beautiful and young, Joseph, the delight of God and man, Joseph, the memorial of Rachel, the pride of Jacob, the prop of Isaac's old age, disappeared, and was heard of no more, till many years after his venerable grandsire slept in the dust. Jacob, sinking himself into the dust, under the pressure of a burthen which nature was unable to sustain, is at length called to perform the last sad office of filial affection, and to lay his hand upon the already extinguished orbs of his honoured father; willing, and longing, I am persuaded, to have descended with him into the grave. But not the least eventful part of his history is yet to come. It will henceforward be blended with that of Joseph, which now solicits our attention. O could we but bring to the study and display of it, a small portion of that native simplicity, that divine eloquence, that celestial energy, * Gen. xxxviii. 2. 18. 24, 25, 26. rows and acquainted with grief," whose and the children thou hast given me," the parental eye shall discern in them "neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing." Our Father in Heaven ever lives, "exalted that he may show mercy;" our "Redeemer liveth," "he is risen again, he is even at the right hand of God, he also maketh intercession for us." HISTORY OF JACOB AND JOSEPH. LECTURE XXIX. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.-GENESIS xxxvii. 3, 4. THE history of mankind exhibits an unceasing contention between the folly and wickedness of man, and the wisdom and goodness of God. Men are continually striving to outdo, to mortify, and to hurt one another; but a gracious Providence, by opposing spirit to spirit, interest to interest, force to force, preserves the balance, and supports the fabric. His sovereign power and matchless skill, produce exquisite harmony from the confused, the contending, discordant tones of human passions. He controls and subdues a diversity, which threatened disorder, separation, and destruction, into a variety which pleases, which unites, which cements and preserves mankind. And a more consolatory, a more composing, a more satisfying view of the divine Providence we cannot indulge ourselves in, than this merciful superintendence which it condescends to take of the affairs of men, and of every thing that affects their virtue or their happiness. The disorders which prevail in the natural world, under the subduing hand of heaven, range themselves into order and peace. The convulsions which shake and disturb the moral world, directed, checked, and counterbalanced by a power much mightier than themselves, subside into tranquillity, through the very agitation and violence they had acquired. Surely, O Lord, the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain." When the tumult is over, and the noise ceases, religion rears up her head, and says, in the words of Joseph to his brethren, "but as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."* We are now come to a passage of the sacred history of uncommon beauty and importance. Whether we consider the simplicity and grace of the narration, the affecting circumstances of the story, the interesting and instructive views of the human heart which it unfolds, the many plain and useful * Gen. 1. 20. 66 lessons which it teaches; or the mighty consequences, both near and remote, which resulted to the family of Jacob, to the Egyptian monarchy, and to the human race, from incidents, at first insignificant and seemingly contemptible, but gradually swelling into magnitude, embracing circle after circle, extending from period to period, till at length all time and space are occupied by them. Isaac was now as good as dead; calmly looking forward to his latter end; alive only to sentiments of piety and of pain. And Jacob was, through much difficulty and distress, at last settled in the land wherein his father was a stranger; increased in wealth, rich in children, rich in piety, but advanced in years, and loaded with affliction. Jacob's family, the salt of the earth, was itself in a very putrid and corrupted state; and the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel were themselves very bad men. The unhappy father endeavours to soothe the anguish arising from the ill behaviour of his grownup sons, by the pleasing prospects which the more amiable qualities of his younger children opened to him. The sacred historian introduces to us the favourite character of Joseph with wonderful art and skill. From the very first moment we become interested in him. He is the long expected son of beauteous Rachel his mother was dead-he had now attained his seventeenth year-and he was the darling object of his father's affection. Jacob's affection, however, has not blinded him so far, as to bring up even his favourite in idleness. Little does that man consult either the credit or the comfort of his son, who breeds him to no useful employment: for indolence is the nurse of vice, the parent of shame, the source of misery. Unfortunately for him, however, Joseph is associated in employment with persons whose conversation was not likely to improve his morals, and whose dispositions toward him did not promise much to promote his happiness; "the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the |