High God, such declarations of the covenant relation which the Lord God stands in to his be loved people; and that in these manifestations of Christ, the whole of that covenant is opened unto them, and Christ, the Head and Mediator of that covenant, is set forth to the view of their minds, and represented in symbols and shadows exactly suited to their cases and circumstances. Shem, the son of Noah, is the first person in the book of God, who is pronounced blessed, as having the Lord for his God. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem. By the God of Shem, may be meant Christ, says holy Ainsworth, who came of Shem, according to the flesh: and who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Melchisedeck when he met Abram, addressed him, saying, "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth." The Lord himself said unto him, "I will bless thee:" and it is recorded in Gen. xxiv. 1. "That the Lord had blessed Abram in all things." It was so visible that he and his son Isaac, an heir with him of the same promise of Christ, were the blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth, that Abimelech, the king of Gerar, addressing Isaac, says, "Thou art now the blessed of the Lord." Gen. xxvi. 29. The Lord God had said, and in it had opened the eternal purpose and counsel of his will, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their

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generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and F will be their God.” Gen. xvii. 7, 8. This he had confirmed by an oath, Gen. xxii. 16, 17, 18. On the foundation of all this, the Lord is said to be the God of Abraham; because he had revealed to him that holy covenant in which the Three in Jehovah were engaged before the world was; and by which they decreed the salvation of an innumerable company of sinners, from sin, satan, death, and hell. This covenant Jehovah glories in, and makes a revelation of it to Abraham and Isaac, in the promise of a seed in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed. And this is now confirmed to Jacob by the Lord God; which shews the peculiar care and attention which the Lord God is pleased to exercise towards his people, how he hears their prayers and grants their requests.

Isaac had, if I may so express it, bequeathed to him the promise of the land of Canaan, with a numerous seed, and the blessing of the Messiah, who was to proceed from him and his, according to the flesh; he had invoked the blessing of God Almighty on him, praying him to fulfil his promises, and bestow the principal good contained in them on this his son Jacob. And here at Bethel, in the

vision of a ladder, with the top of it in heaven, and the foot of it on earth, with the angels of God ascending and descending on it, Jacob beholds the Lord standing above it, and with an audible voice addressing him, and confirming all that his father Isaac had bestowed on him, saying, "I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac." Abraham was fallen asleep by death in his body, yet the Lord calls himself, "The Lord God of Abraham." This shews that the patriarchs were acquainted with the existence of departed saints in a state of glory and blessedness. It shews also, that God was not ashamed to be called their God, and also proves that they had, whilst they dwelt here below, the same supports for their faith and hope in God, in life and death, with the assurance and prospects of future glory, that new testament saints have. God had given a pledge to the faith of his people concerning their resurrection from the grave and power of death, in the deliverance of Isaac, and his resurrection, as it were, from death; for he was under the sentence of it, and marvellously delivered from it: so that Abraham is said to have "received him even from the dead." Heb. xi. And here the doctrine of the resurrection of the just is preached by the Lord himself to Jacob: "I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father;" he is with me, blessed beyond all expression and conception in my love. I am

the Lord his God; I have my covenant with him in remembrance. I am all to Isaac by covenant and promise that I was to him. "I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac." Here was a revelation of the essence and personalities in Jehovah, and of their covenant relation to Abraham and Isaac.

When we read, "and behold the Lord stood above it," i. e. the visionary ladder, we are to understand some visible display of divine glory, such as cannot be described, which proved the essence, majesty, and glory of the self-existing Jehovah to be incomprehensible. And I conceive that the Second Person in the Godhead might take a human form as a forerunning shadow of his future incarnation; giving hereby a pledge to the faith of his ancient saints, that he rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and that his delights were with the elect sons of men, and that he would, in the fulness of time, with infinite love and delight, become incarnate, and tabernacle with them. As the Second Person in the Trinity is, in the economy of the covenant, the head and representative of all the elect, and the revealer of that covenant to his church and people, we may consider him here as speaking in the name of his co-equal Father, and co-equal Spirit, and pronouncing himself in the name of the covenant Three, the Lord God of Abraham and of Isaac. For the eternal Three are united by an eternal

act of their immutable will, to the elect, as the Lord their God. And blessed are the people who have the Three in Jehovah for their God! In what is here expressed, every thing is contained to encourage Jacob's faith and hope in God; it was spoken for this purpose, it being a preparation for proclaiming the promise, and applying it to him. "I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac." Observe this, the foundation of all faith and hope in God is founded upon the covenant relation he stands in to us; all his promises are the effects and fruits of his holy covenant. His greatest declaration of grace consists in proclaiming himself to be the Lord our God. It is his own act to reveal himself as a covenant God to his church and people, in his word; and it is he alone that can reveal and make himself known in our hearts as the Lord our God, and when he does, it is wholly by the supernatural inspiration of his Holy Spirit, who by the word reveals Christ to us, and enables us to believe on him for life and salvation. In our believing, he sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, and becomes to us the spirit of adoption, so that we call God, Father, our Father, my Father. I proceed,

Thirdly, to consider the promise given at this time to Jacob, concerning the land of Canaan, and the multiplication of his seed; with a particular recital of the promise of the Messiah,