practised upon and deceived. But, old age blame, have been known to establish distinccertainly brings on all these, and many more | tions in families, which destroyed their peace inconveniences; and vain it is to dream of and accelerated their ruin. Children unborn the benefit, without the care. We read but have often felt the dire effects of a silly nickof one, that is Moses himself, whose "eye at name, imposed on a progenitor whom they the age of one hundred and twenty, was not knew not, and whose relation to them was dim, nor his natural force abated." thereby rendered a curse. Men are often This dark period of Isaac's life, containing deemed unfortunate, both by themselves and many interesting and instructive particulars, others, where they deserve to be reckoned will furnish matter for a separate discourse. unwise. They themselves do the mischief, In reviewing the past, we are under the ne- and then wonder how it came about. They cessity of again admonishing parents on that spoil their children, and then complain that momentous article.-Impartiality in the dis- they are so perverse. I know how difficult it tribution of their attention, their tenderness, is to bring up youth; how difficult to bear an and their property, among their children.- even hand between child and child, to counThe trifling circumstances of name, of per-teract the bias of favour and affection, to consonal likeness, of beauty and deformity, and ceal and disguise the strong emotions of the like, over which parents had little power, the heart. But it is only the more necesand the children none at all; and which in sary to be prudent, to be vigilant, "to walk themselves have neither merit nor demerit, circumspectly," and, to ask "wisdom of and are the objects of neither just praise nor God."

HISTORY OF ISAAC.

LECTURE XXII

And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son. And he said unto him, Behold, here am I. And he said, Behold, now I am old, I know not the day of my death. Now, therefore, take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; and make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son: and Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it.-GENESIS xxvii. 1-5.

THERE is a generous principle in human | good report,"* and the persons who love and nature, which commonly disposes us to take practise them. part with the weakest. We feel an honest It is not the least profitable part of the stuindignation at seeing weakness oppressed by dy of both providence and scripture, to trace might, honesty over-reached by cunning, and the conduct of a righteous God in punishing unsuspecting goodness played upon by self- the offender, though he has subdued the of ishness and knavery. God himself feels the fence into a servant of his own will; chasteninsults offered to the destitute and the help- ing his children by a rod of their own preless; declares himself "the judge of the wi-paring; tumbling the wicked into the pit dow, the protector of the fatherless, the shield which themselves have digged, and bringing of the stranger." He aims his thunder at the backsliders again to himself, by making them head of him who putteth a "stumbling-block to eat the bitter fruit of their own doings.in the way of the blind, and planteth a snare Happy it is for the children of men, if their for the innocent." And though, in the sove-deviations from the path of rectitude meet reignty of his power, and the depths of his their correction in a temporal punishment. wisdom, he is sometimes pleased to employ But wo to that man, whom justice permits the vices of men to execute his purposes of to thrive in his iniquity, and to grow hardengoodness and mercy, he loves and approves ed through impunity; whose retribution is only "whatsoever things are true, whatso- deferred, till repentance can produce no ever things are honest, whatsoever things are change. Chastise me, O Father, as severely just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever as thou wilt. Let me not fall asleep under things are lovely, whatsoever things are of

* Phil. iv. 8.

my transgression, and thy hot displeasure.-|ly principle of grace may consist with much Dispose as thou wilt of my body, my estate, natural weakness. my worldly comfort; but let my soul live before thee. Let me see mỹ sin, and purge me thoroughly from it.

We are now to attempt the illustration of these reflections, from history.

The life of Isaac may be divided into three periods. The first, containing seventy-five years, from his birth to the death of Abraham; during which, being under parental government, and of a meek, unaspiring disposition, his history is blended with, and included in that of his father. The second, commencing at his father's death, and ending in his one hundred and thirty-seventh year: when it pleased God to visit him with extreme weakness, or total loss of eye-sight. This contains the space of sixty-two years, which may be termed his active period. To it succeeds a heavy period of forty-three years, up to the day of his death. During which we see a poor, dark old man, at the disposal of others, moving in a narrow sphere; "knowledge" and comfort "at one entrance, quite shut out." We behold a man, who, when "he was young, girded himself, and walked whither he would; but now become old, stretching forth his hands, and another girding him, and carrying him whither he would not.' This portion of his history, accordingly, is blended with, and swallowed up in that of his two sons.

At the beginning of this period, we find Isaac sensible of his growing infirmities, feeling the approach of death, though ignorant of the day of it, and anxious to convey the double portion, the patriarchal benediction and the covenant promise, according to the bent of his natural affection, to his elder and more beloved son. He calls him with accents of paternal tenderness, and proposes to him the mingled gratification of pursuing his own favourite amusement, of ministering to his fond father's pleasure, and of securing to himself the great object of his ambition and desire, the blessing, with all its valuable ef

fects.

Rebekah, equally attentive to the interest of her younger son, happened to overhear the charge which Isaac gave to Esau, and immediately, with the quickness of a female, determined, at all hazards, to carry a favourite point, she builds upon it a project of obtaining, by management and address, what she despaired of bringing about by the direct road of entreaty or persuasion. Unhappy it is for that family, the heads of which entertain opposite views, and pursue separate interests. One tent could not long contain two rival brothers, whose animosity was kept alive and encouraged by those whose wisdom and authority should have interposed to suppress it. It is affecting to think how little scrupulous even good people are, about the means of accomplishing what their hearts are set upon; how easily the understanding and the conscience become the dupe of the affections.The apologists of Rebekah charitably ascribe her conduct on this occasion to motives of religion. She is supposed to be actuated throughout by zeal for supporting the destination of Heaven, "The elder shall serve the younger;" a destination which she observed her husband was eager to subvert. I am not disposed to refuse her, to a certain degree, the credit of so worthy a principle; for the piety of her spirit, on other occasions, is unquestionable. But I see too much of the woman, of the mother, of the spirit of this world, in her behaviour, to believe that her motives were wholly pure and spiritual. Religion, true religion, never does evil that good may come.

Admitting that Isaac was to blame, for misunderstanding, forgetting or endeavouring to contradict the oracle which gave the preference to Jacob; surely, surely, it belonged to the wife of his youth to have employed other means to undeceive and admonish him. Was the deception which she practised upon his helplessness and infirmity, the proof she exhibited of the love, honour, and obedience which she owed her lord? Was it consistent Behold of what importance it is, that our with genuine piety, to take the work of God propensities be originally good, seeing indul-out of his hands? As if the wisdom of Jehovah gence and habit interweave them with our very constitution, till they become a second nature, and age confirms, instead of eradicating them. We find the two great infirmities of Isaac's character predominant to the last, a disposition to gratify his palate with a particular kind of food, and partiality to his son Esau. Time has not yet blunted the edge of appetite; and the eye of the mind, dim as Having planned her scheme, and overthe bodily organ, overlooks the undutifulness persuaded Jacob to assist in the execution which had pierced a father's heart, by unhal- of it, Rebekah loses not a moment; and Isaac's lowed, inauspicious marriages with the Hit- favourite dish is ready to be served up, long tite; and Isaac discerns in his darling, those before the uncertainty of hunting, and the qualities only in which misguided affection dexterity of Esau could have procured it, had dressed him out. Thus a strong and live-Jacob, arrayed in goodly raiment of his elder

needed the aid of human craft and invention. And, could a mother, not only herself deviate into the crooked paths of dissimulation and falsehood, and become a pattern of deceit, but wickedly attempt to decoy, persuade, constrain her own son, to violate sacred truth? "It is not, and it cannot come to good?"

brother, disguised to the sense of feeling, as would, but as the Spirit of God constrained much as art could disguise him, and furnished him; and thus, Caiaphas predicted the death with the savoury meat which his father loved, of Christ for the sins of the people; but advances with trembling, doubtful steps to "this spake he not of himself; but being his apartment. In the conversation that en-high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesued, which is most to be wondered at-the sus should die for that nation."* honest, unsuspecting simplicity of the father; or the shameless, undaunted effrontery of the son? But, in thinking of the one, our wonder is mingled with respect and esteem; the other excites resentment and abhorrence. It shows the danger of getting into a wrong train. One fraud must be followed up with another; one injury must support and justify another; and simple falsehood, by an easy progress, rises up to perjury. Who is not shocked, to hear the son of Isaac interposing the great and dreadful name of the "LORD God of his father," not to confirm the truth, but to countenance and bear out a wilful and deliberate lie? What earthly good is worth purchasing at such a price? Surely his tongue faltered when it pronounced those solemn, those awful words.

Thus was Isaac deceived, in having Jacob imposed upon him for Esau. Nor was Rebekah less disappointed. For the blessing which she had surreptitiously obtained for her favourite, instead of producing the immediate benefits expected from it, plunged him into an ocean of distress, exiled him from his country and his father's house, exposed him, in his turn, to imposition and insult; and, but for the care of a superintending Providence, the success which he had earned by the sacrifice of a good conscience, must have defeated and destroyed itself. But "the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations."† "His decree may no man reverse. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God;" but the wisdom and righteousness of God, can easily bend the wrath of man to their purpose.

The good old man's suspicions were evidently alarmed, either by the tone of Jacob's voice, or by the hesitating manner in which Jacob has hardly departed with his ill-gothe spoke. And, apprehending he had an in- ten benediction, when Esau arrives in the fallible method of detection, if a fallacy triumph of success and hope; his heart overthere were, he appeals from the testimony flowing with filial tenderness, and panting of his ears, to his feeling. But behold, craft for the promised reward of his labours. The is too deep for honesty. Rebekah and her feelings of both the father and son, when the son have not contrived their plot so ill, as to cheat was discovered, are more easily confail at this stage of the business; and Isaac ceived than described: the shame of being is too good himself to imagine that others over-reached, resentment against the imposcould be so wicked. He suffers himself, tor, the chagrin of disappointed hope, of distherefore, to be at length persuaded; and, appointed ambition; bitter reflection on the refreshed with meat and drink, pronounces folly and danger of resisting the high wil the blessing which he had promised. Had he of Heaven, and on the hard necessity of subnot been blinded, when he saw, with ill-mitting to the irreversible decree. Nothing judged favour to Esau, and seduced by the can exceed the tenderness of Esau's exposflavour of his venison, he had not been ex-tulation, when he found the blessing was irposed to this imposition, in his helpless state. Could Jacob have trusted in God, and waited to be conducted of Providence, he had arrived at his end no less certainly, and with much less dishonour. But "God is true, though every man be found a liar."

It is worthy of observation, that though Isaac, by the spirit of prophesy which was in him, foresaw and foretold the future fortunes of his family; though he could clearly discern objects at the remotest distance, his natural discernment was so small, and even his prophetic knowledge so partial, that he could not distinguish the one branch of his family from the other; and, impelled by a will more powerful than his own, he involuntarily bestowed dominion and precedency where he least intended it. "For the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy. men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."* Thus, Balaam afterwards prophesied, not what he

* 2 Peter i. 21.

recoverably gone from him. The name of his brother; the occasion of its being given him; his conduct since he grew up; the repeated advantage he had taken, of his necessity at one time, of his absence at another, all rush upon his mind at once, and excite a tempest of passion which he is unable to govern. "And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father; and Esau lift up his voice and wept." The ability and the good will of an earthly parent have their limits. He has but one, or at most a second blessing to bestow. What he gives to this child is so much taken away from that other. But the liberality, and the power of our heavenly Father, are unbounded. "In our Father's house there are many mansions." With him "there is bread enough and to spare." Isaac discovers at length, that he has been fighting against God; and while he resents Jacob's subtilty, and the unkindness

* John xi. 51. † Psalm xxxiii. 11. Gen. xxvii. 38.

He cherished her with pious attention while temper, his resignation under affliction, his she lived, and sincerely lamented her in gentle requital of deception and insult, his death; till duty called him to drop the grate- superiority to the world, his composure in the ful and affectionate son, in the loving and prospect of dissolution, and the faith which faithful husband. So long as Abraham lived, triumphed over death and the grave. Let Isaac had no will but the will of his father. the affluent and the prosperous learn of him, The master of a family may learn of him to adorn high rank and ample fortune, by hudomestic piety and devotion, conjugal fide-mility and condescension; and the wretched, lity, prudent foresight, persevering industry. to endure distress with fortitude and resig The selfish and contentious are reproved, nation. Let his faults be forgotten, and his by the example of his moderation, by his infirmities covered; or remembered only patience under unkindness and injustice, by as a reproof and admonition to ourselves. his meek surrender of an undoubted right, And let us be followers together of him, and for the sake of peace. Let the aged con- of all them who "through faith and patience sider him well, and imitate his sweetness of inherit the promises."

HISTORY OF JACOB.

LECTURE XXIII.

And the boys grew; and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison; but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint; therefore his name was called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles, and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way; thus Esau despised his birthright.-GENESIS xxv. 27–34.