salvation;" and to you, communion with your Redeemer, whether in private or in public, in his word or at his table, will be the looked for, longed for, anticipations of an intercourse which shall never fatigue of a communion which shall never end.

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LECTURE III.

GENESIS Xiii. 2.

"AND ABRAM WAS VERY RICH IN CATTLE, IN SILVER, AND IN GOLD."

THE patriarch, whose history we are pursuing, had been but a short time in the land of Canaan, that country which is described as above all other countries in richness and fertility, when the providence of God so ordered it, that there was "a famine," "a grievous famine in the land." This was a new trial to the faith of Abram, and to his dependence upon his God. He had advanced to the very heart of the territory, which had been esteemed worthy of two such remarkable promises, and of two personal

appearances of the great Jehovah; and now that Abram had forsaken all for it, what had he obtained? The grant of a country which could not maintain its own inhabitants? And is this the manner in which the Almighty keeps his promise to the ear, but breaks it to the apprehension? Yes, my brethren, so the natural mind will argue; so the hesitating believer will fear; but as his subsequent conduct proves, so did not Abram either argue or fear. To remain in Canaan was impossible; the natural determination, therefore, would have been to have returned to his own land, where he might feel assured of meeting with the abundance from which he had been called. Was this then the manner in which Abram acted? No, he followed the dictates of divine grace, and rejected the cowardly suggestions of carnal nature. He went boldly forward, turning his back still upon the bounties of the land of his nativity, and passing directly through

the barrenness of Canaan into Egypt, where there was a sufficiency for himself and his numerous retinue.

My brethren, do I speak to any among

you who have been led by the sovereign grace of God, to choose with Mary that good part which shall not be taken away from you; and who have already found that the Christian profession is something more than a name; that if the cross of a crucified Redeemer be indeed faithfully taken up, it will involve you in trials and difficulties of no ordinary nature? Have you experienced this, and do you begin to fear that the promised land upon which you have entered is not that fertile, flowery mead which your imagination had pourtrayed? That you

have commenced upon a course requiring daily and almost hourly self-denials: the restraints of the natural will, the subjection of the natural temper, the coercion of the natural inclinations? That where you expected to be "satisfied

with good things," there are seasons,but, blessed be God, they are neither long nor numerous, although to the truest believer not wholly unknown,when even the food of the good land, the best of all lands, appears to fail you; and when, though there be "bread enough and to spare" in your Father's house, you fear lest you should perish from hunger? These are intended to be to you what the famine of Canaan was to Abram, trials of your faith, tests of your consistency, and perseverance, and dependence upon God. At such seasons do the natural feelings of our fallen nature ever tempt you to return? Do they suggest to you, This is, after all, a barren course upon which I have ventured; its joys are few, its trials numerous; its restrictions grievous: would that I had been content to remain among the people of the world, where there was a far greater abundance of enjoyment, infinitely more of pleasure, and less of