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conciles the mind to what was in prospect | oath; which being interposed, they both sit insupportable, and, at first, galling and dis- down secure and happy; Abimelech rests tressful. Hagar, in resentment probably of satisfied that Abraham will do nothing to disthe treatment she had met with, in order to turb his family or government, or injure his widen the breach, and to bar the way to re-person; Abraham, that Abimelech will not conciliation, forms a marriage for her son encroach on the rights of private property, or with a woman of her own country: from invade those of conscience. which we may conclude that they went back headlong into idolatry.

that though his head was soon to be laid low, his Isaac would in due time repose under their shade. How contemptible is the spirit which considers self only in all that it does! How I honour the man who lives to the end of life; nay, strives to prolong existence, and succeeds in the attempt, by engaging in pursuits through which posterity is to be benefited !

This transaction seems to have brought our patriarch to a resting place. He is not The vexation arising from this domestic himself to be a potentate in the earth, but a dissension has scarcely subsided, when Abra- great prince courts his alliance, and forms a ham finds himself embroiled with his host league with him. The possession of Canaan and protector, the king of Gerar. The ser- is postponed, but Isaac is born. The son of vants of Abimelech take violent possession the bond woman is banished, but the son of of a well of water which the servants of the free woman lives in his house, grows, Abraham had digged, and the quarrel is taken and prospers, and increases in stature, and up by the principals themselves. Such is in favour with God and man. We see the human nature: such is human life. From good man now in the serenity of a vigorous, the beginning to this day, miserable mortals placid old age, enjoying all that this world have been contending and striving, and shed- can bestow on a virtuous mind, united to a ding each other's blood about a well of water, wholesome constitution; unimpaired by inor some such ground of dissension. The temperance or disease, failing only by the whole world is a possession too small for am- gradual imperceptible decays of nature; bition and avarice, and selfishness considers capable of enjoying life to the last. I behold that as taken from us which another enjoys. the venerable man planting his oaks in BeerHappily, moderation and good sense prevent-sheba, solacing himself with the thought, ed this offence from coming to an open rupture. When men are disposed to peace, punctilio is easily overlooked; but where there is a disposition to quarrel, it is easy to magnify the most petty neglect into an affront, and to make an unmeaning look the occasion of a breach. The convention between Abraham and Abimelech is ratified in the most solemn manner, by the making, that is, the cutting or dividing of a covenant, according to the form observed on a much more important occasion, and which has been described in a former Lecture: namely, The ratification of the covenant between God and Abraham. But why should covenants, promises, oaths, be necessary in the commerce of human life? Alas! because men are false, treacherous, and perfidious. The awful manners and customs of times that are past, only serve to convince us, that in every age the corruption of man has been so great upon the earth, that ordinary obligations will not bind; that without the sanctions of religion, the sense of honour, regard to the rights of mankind, and the supposed rectitude of human nature, are feeble and inefficacious. No other argument is necessary to prove that our nature is depraved, and that religion is necessary to man, than the necessity to which men have been reduced, in every age and nation, to secure and preserve the interests of truth and justice, by explicit compacts, and solemn appeals to the Deity: by making "an oath for confirmation an end of all strife." Abraham dreads Abimelech as not having the fear of God before his eyes. Abimelech stands in awe of Abraham as under the special protection of Heaven: they agree in one thing, in revering the sanctity of a solemn

We will now leave him in this happy tranquillity of life; and may his trees quickly rise to shelter his aged head from the sultry heat of the noon-tide sun; and be his Isaac a comfort greater than ever parent knew; and let the tide of benevolence from his honest heart, roll back to its source, increased with overflowing fulness from the ocean of everlasting love. But the grove which he planted was not merely an amusement for old age, or an embellishment of his habitation, it was dedicated to God, and destined as a seat of devotion; there "he called on the name of the Lord."

We bid him adieu then at this pleasant resting place of life, rejoicing in the past, and calmly waiting the hour of dismission from all his trials and sorrows. But I dread this treacherous tranquillity. Bodes it not an approaching storm? The event will show. I shall not anticipate, but hasten to conclude this Lecture, with inviting you to a participation in that divine friendship which Abraham enjoyed, and from which none are excluded; for "the secret of the Lord is with all them that fear him, and he showeth to them his holy covenant." What is the birth of an Isaac compared to the manifestation of God in the flesh? "To us a Son is born, to us a Saviour is given," and "in him all the families of the earth are

cast the care of their helpless offspring on the Father of the fatherless and the Judge of the widow. Did one hasty ill-advised step involve the patriarch in such acute and lasting distress? Ponder, then, O man, the paths of thy feet, and beware of doing evil, in expectation that good may come of it.

blessed." Let the history of Abraham teach and virtuous parents take encouragement to us how vain it is to expect unmixed happiness in a world of vanity; and to dread the approach of calamity when we possess uncommon ease. Let us adore and admire the wonder-working hand of God, which unseen directs, controls, subdues all creatures, and all events, to its own purposes. Let us trust in the Lord and do good, and love, and speak, and practise truth. When we see the father of the faithful failing and faltering, let none be highminded but fear, and "let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." Did Providence take Ishmael the outcast, the wild man under its protection? Let poor

By casting your eyes upon the sacred page, you will see what is to form the sub[ject of the next discourse. It is a topic well known, and which has been frequently handled, but it is one of those that will ever please and ever instruct. May God bless what has been spoken. Amen.

HISTORY OF ABRAHAM.

LECTURE XVII.

By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called; accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead: from whence also he received him in a figure.-HEBREWS xi. 17-19.

once awaken and interest our feelings; fire the imagination; seize, restrain, exercise, improve the understanding, and powerfully tend to affect and influence the conduct. As a scene in private life, we contemplate it again and again, with new and increasing admiration and delight; as entering into, and connected with the great, the divine plan of providence and redemption, we regard it with religious veneration.

THE parts of history which please and in- | peculiar happy portions of history which at struct us most, are those which exhibit to us illustrious persons in trying situations, holding fast their integrity, conducting themselves with wisdom, and overcoming great difficulty by patience and fortitude, and trust in God. The passages of our own lives which we recollect with the greatest satisfaction, and which we find ourselves most disposed to relate to others, are those which, while they passed, were involved in the greatest danger and distress. The memory Most men, during the bustling period of of past joys is generally insipid and disgust- human life, amuse themselves with prospects ing, but the recollection of the perils which of retreat and tranquillity in its close. And we have escaped, the obstacles which we so most probably did Abraham. He had arhave surmounted, the miseries which we rived, through much tribulation, at that pehave endured and overcome, is in truth the riod when nature wishes for, and expects to chief ingredient in the happiness of our more find repose. All that a wise and good man tranquil days, and the consolation which a could reasonably propose to himself, he had, life of fatigue, exertion, and calamity, pro- through the blessing of Heaven, happily atvides for the inactivity, feebleness, and re- tained. Religion crowned his multiplied tirement of old age. No man thinks of call- temporal comforts, and opened the celestial ing to his own remembrance, or of describing paradise to his view. Isaac, the joy of his to another, the festivity of an entertainment, joy, the essence of all his other felicities, is a month after it is over; but the horrors of born, has grown up, is become amiable, and a battle or a shipwreck, are thought and wise, and good. His eyes have seen the talked of with delight, as long as we are salvation of God, and he is ready to depart capable of thinking or speaking. What a in peace whenever the summons comes. But feast was Abraham preparing for his remain-ah, how vain to think of rest till the scene ing years by the sacrifice he tendered upon Mount Moriah! What a subject of useful meditation, what an example of praise-worthy conduct, has he furnished to mankind to the end of the world! this is one of the

be closed indeed, and death have sealed the weary eyes forever! All the trials which Abraham had hitherto endured, are merely superficial wounds, compared to the keen stroke of that two-edged sword which now

pierced him, even "to the dividing asunder | with so much clearness and certainty, as left of soul and spirit, and of the joints and mar-him no possibility of doubting from whom it row." To suffer banishment from his coun- came. And it again leads us to reflect on the try and friends at the age of seventy-five irresistible power which God possesses and years; to be driven by famine from the land exercises over our bodies and minds, whereof promise into a distant country; to have by he can communicate himself to us in a the companion of his youth, and the affec- thousand ways, of which we are able to form tionate partner of all his fortunes, repeatedly no conception, and against which we should forced from him; to have his domestic quiet in vain attempt to arm ourselves. It appears disturbed, and his life embittered by female to have been in the night season: probably, jealousy and resentment; to be reduced to when, as on a former occasion, "God had the necessity of expelling his elder son from caused a deep sleep, and a horror of great his house, with the slender provision of a darkness to fall upon him." little bread and water: these, taken either separately or in connexion, and compared with the usual afflictions to which man is exposed, present us, it must be allowed, with a lot of great severity and hardship, but they are lost in the severity of the greater wo yet behind. For "it came to pass after these things," in addition to all foregoing evils, and apparently to the defeating of the great designs planned by God himself, and in part executed, "that God tried Abraham" in this manner: "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."*

We mean not to go into the unnecessary criticism which has been employed with perhaps a good intention, to vindicate the divine conduct on this occasion. Surely the infinitely wise God is equal to his own defence. He has transmitted to us this part of his procedure without rendering a reason, without making an apology; and it is presumption, not piety, which shows on every occasion, an eagerness to reason in his behalf. Is it not sufficient at present to say, that men are very incompetent judges of the divine conduct; that a view of the detached parts cannot enable us to form a just and adequate conception of the whole; and that without knowing the ultimate end and design, we must of necessity have a very imperfect idea of the means and instruments employed?

It were easy to declaim on the horrid idea of demanding a human sacrifice, and of employing the hand of a father in a service so unnatural; on the mischief which might arise from an example so dreadful! on the manifest contradiction between this mandate and other laws, both general and special; and perhaps it were as easy to refute all such declamation, and to prove it nugatory and absurd. But let any man, learned or unlearned, read the story throughout, and if he is not both pleased and instructed, he must either be stupid or fastidious in a very high degree.

In what manner the command of Heaven was communicated to Abraham, we are not informed. It was unquestionably conveyed

• Genesis xxii. 2.

What a knell to the fond paternal heart! Every word in the oracle seems calculated to awaken some painful feeling, and to increase the difficulty of compliance. A person of humanity like Abraham might naturally be supposed to revolt from the idea of a human sacrifice, had the meanest slave of his household been demanded, and had the choice of a victim been left to himself. What then must have been the emotions of his soul from the moment its darling object was mentioned by the voice of God, till the mandate was completed. "Take now thy son;" this must have at once produced eagerness of attention in a mind ever awake and alive to the welfare and prosperity of Isaac. The tender manner in which God is pleased to describe that favourite child, would undoubtedly excite the most pleasing hope of some new mark of the divine regard to him; "take now thy son, thy only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest," and invest him with all the honours of the promise, put him in possession of his destined inheritance? Ah, no! Turn him out a wanderer after his brother Ishmael, with a loaf of bread, and a bottle of water for his portion? That had been severe; but more dreadful still, "and offer him for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

Abraham hesitates not, argues not. He who before staggered not at the promise, staggers not now at the precept through unbelief. As a proof of his being in earnest, he rises immediately, while it was yet early; he makes all needful preparation for this heavy journey and costly sacrifice, with the utmost serenity and cheerfulness; he communicates to no one the order given him, lest the wickedness of others might have shaken his own firmness, or interrupted his progress. Having saddled his ass, for it was in this simple style that the great men of the East, in these better days of the world, used to travel; having summoned two of his young men to attend and assist in the preparation, having called Isaac, and cleft the wood for the burnt offering, they proceed together from Beersheba for the land of Moriah.

Josephus represents Isaac at this time as in his twenty-fifth year, and describes him,

with much appearance of truth, as a young and son on this occasion, striking and paman of singular accomplishments, both of thetic indeed, but far inferior to the beautiful body and of mind. The trial was, without simplicity of Moses. Having built an aldoubt, greatly increased to Abraham by the tar, having laid the wood in order upon it, delay, and the distance of the place of sacri- and made all other necessary preparation, fice. Had the oracle demanded an instant the unhappy father is thus represented as offering, the immediate impression of the communicating to the devoted victim the heavenly vision would account for the sud- will of the Most High: "O my son, begged denness and despatch of the execution. But of God in a thousand prayers, and at length leisure is afforded for reflection; parental unexpectedly obtained; ever since you were affection has time to strengthen itself; the born, with what tenderness and solicitude powerful pleadings of nature must in their have I brought you up! proposing to myself turn be heard; the oppression of grief, of no higher felicity than to see you become a fatigue, of old age; the sight, the society, man, and to leave you the heir of my possesthe conversation of Isaac, combine their sions. But the God who bestowed you upon operation to make him relent, and return. me, demands you again. Prepare then to But though nature knows faith, such as Abra- yield the sacrifice with alacrity. I give you ham's knows not what it is to relent. With up to Him, who at all seasons, and in all steady steps, and unshaken resolution, he ad- situations, has pursued us with loving kindvances to the fatal spot, now first distinguish-ness and tender mercy. You came into the ed by the choice of God, for the scene of this wonderful sacrifice; distinguished in the sequel, as the seat of empire and of religion among Abraham's chosen race; and finally, distinguished most of all by a sacrifice infinitely more valuable and important, and of which this of Isaac was but a shadow.

world under the necessity of dying; and the manner of your death is to be singular and illustrious, presented in sacrifice by your own father to the great Father of all: who, we may presume, considers it as unfit and unbecoming, that you should depart out of this life by disease, in war, or by any other Being arrived at the foot of the mountain, of the usual calamities to which human nawhich was pointed out by some sensible to- ture is subject: but who waits to receive ken, the servants are left behind, and Abra- your spirit, as it leaves the body, amidst the ham, armed with the fire and the knife, and prayers and vows of your affectionate parent, Isaac bearing the wood destined to comsume that he may place it in perfect blessedness the victim, ascend together. And now, had with himself. There, you shall still be the his faith been capable of failing, could his consolation and support of my old age, not inpurpose have changed, the question which deed by your presence and conversation, but Isaac, in the simplicity of his heart, proposed, bequeathing me, when you depart, the premust have triumphed over his resolution, sence and the blessing of the Almighty." and decreed the victory to flesh and blood. Isaac, the worthy offspring of such a father, "And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, cheerfully complies, and piously answers— and said, My father: and he said, Here am "I should be unworthy of life, were I capaI, my son and he said, Behold the fire and ble of showing reluctance to obey the will the wood: but where is the Lamb for a burnt of my father and my God. It were enough offering? And Abraham said, My son, God for me that my earthly parent alone called will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offer-me to the altar, how much more when my ing: so they went both of them together."* heavenly Father redemands his own." The heart that feels not this is lost to sensibility. Every endeavour to illustrate or enforce it, were idle as an attempt to perfume the rose, to paint the tulip into richer tints, or to burnish the sun into a brighter lustre. At length with weary steps they arrive at the place which God had told him of. The mighty secret, which had hitherto laboured in the anxious paternal breast, must at last be disclosed, and "the lamb for the burnt offering" must be produced. It is not the sacrifice of a bullock or a sheep, which are able to make no resistance; nor of a child unconscious of its situation; but of a man, whose consent must be obtained; and who, either by entreaty, by argument, by speed, or by force, might have delivered himself. The Jewish historian presents us with the dialogue which passed between the father

*Gen. xxii. 7, 8.

He accordingly submits to be bound, and to be laid as a victim upon the wood. And now behold a sight from which nature shrinks back, and stands confounded;-a father lifting up his hand armed with a deadly weapon, to slay his only son, he is already made the sacrifice; for with God, intentions are acts; and he receives his Isaac a second time from the hand that gave him at first. The voice of God is again heard. It is ever welcome to the ear of faith: welcome when it announces heavy tidings, welcome when it demands an Isaac ; and O, how welcome when it brings glad tidings of great joy; when it says, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.*

* Gen. xxii. 12.

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Abraham prophesied without being conscious of it, when he said, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt of fering:" for lo, behind "him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son."* We know but in part, and we prophesy in part, but God sees the end from the beginning; he is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he."t

With what different feelings does the patriarch descend from the mountain! His Isaac lives, and yet his sacrifice is offered. He came to yield his dearest earthly delight at the call of God, and he goes away enriched with new blessings and fresh promises. Who ever sacrificed to God and was a loser! "Who ever hardened himself against God and prospered?"

with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."* From the tendered sacrifice of Isaac arose new prospects and new promises to his family; from the death of Christ sprung up the hope of "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away," to all them that believe. The substituted sacrifice was of God's appointment, providing an acceptance, both in the figurative and the real history, and by both we are instructed, that when men have the wisdom to submit to, and follow God their Maker, they may safely commit the issue of all to him.

To view the history of Abraham in detached parts, is to involve ourselves in difficulty and distress,-to read patiently to the end, is the road to light, and peace, and joy. The prejudiced Jew, and the self-conceited Greek, look at the cross and pronounce it foolishness, or fall over it as a stumbling

It is impossible that any one can be so inattentive as not to observe, through the whole of this wonderful history, the mystery of re-block; but to them that believe, who wait the demption shadowed forth? Is the divine conduct, in this trial of Abraham, dark and inexplicable to human reason? Angels desire to look into the plan of gospel salvation, and are unable to comprehend it. Was Abraham ready at God's command to offer up his only son for a burnt offering? "God himself so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God had pity upon an afflicted, earthly father, and a devoted child, and sent his angel to deliver him: but God "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." Isaac was ready to be slain, Jesus was actually put to death. Isaac cheerfully submitted to the will of Heaven, and offered his throat to the sacrificing knife; and of Jesus it is written in the sacred volume," Lo, I come, I delight to do thy will, O God, thy law is within my heart;" "he gave himself for us, a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour unto God."

issue, who look to the end, "Jesus Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Presumptuous men will take upon them to judge of a plan which is not yet executed, and will apply to the narrow and erroneous scale of their own reason and understanding, the infinite and eternal designs of the only wise God. When the fabric of creation was completed, God pronounced all to be very good, and then "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy;" when the plan of redemption is executed, then, and not till then, let men or angels presume to judge of the fitness or unfitness of it. Determine nothing before the time. The Lord, and the day of the Lord, is at hand.

In meditating on this history, may it not be asked-Who among you is with Abraham sacrificing, I do not say, his lawful joys, but his sinful lusts? Who among you is rising up early, and, with a resolute hand, slaying his sloth, his pride, his avarice, his lust, his malignity, before the altar of God? Who

God thanksgiving:" to contemplate the glories of nature; to adore and admire the wonders of Providence; to look into the mystery of redemption, and to meditate with new and increasing delight on that love of Christ which passeth knowledge?

Isaac having first typified the Saviour, passes into a type of the elect sinner, bound and stretched upon the altar, in trembling appre-among you is rising betimes to "offer unto hension of the fatal blow. He is reprieved by a voice from heaven; and thus, when there was no eye to pity, nor hand to save our sinful devoted race, a voice is heard from the most excellent glory, "deliver from going down to the pit, I have found out a ransom.' "I have laid help on one who is mighty to save." Behold the ram caught in the thicket, conducted and detained of Providence, and substituted as a sacrifice in the room of Isaac, and think of him of whom it is written, "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and

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The little good which we do, we wish to be seen of all men; not like Abraham, who would have his devotion neither witnessed nor interrupted by any one. But glory pursues true goodness, notwithstanding its own modesty and humility. Why should I suffer myself to be teazed and vexed with the cavils of an unbeliever? Let him start ten thousand objections, if he will, to the frame of na* Isaiah liii. 5, 6.

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