voice, and kept my charge, my command- the flocks and the herds. For without water, ments, my statutes, and my laws."* Slight temptations frequently prevail, after trials more formidable have been successfully resisted and overcome. The wise, therefore, will reckon no danger small, no foe contemptible, no condition perfectly secure. The faithful will learn to speak truth, to do good, to trust in the Lord, and fear nothing.

Virtue is not hereditary in families, it descends but in rarer instances; whereas frailty, alas! descends from every father to every son. Virtue is the water in the particular pool; vice the torrent in the river, which sweeps every thing before it. The moderation, honour, and good sense of Abimelech, are the severest imaginable reproof of the disingenuousness of the prophet, and happily prevented the mischief, which Isaac, seeking by improper means to shun, had well nigh occasioned.

"the cattle upon a thousand hills" are a poor, perishing commodity. Envy considers that as gained to itself which is lost to another: and not only delights in destruction, from which it hopes to draw advantage, but enjoys the mischief which it works merely for mischief's sake. Envy will even submit to hurt itself a little, to have the malicious satisfaction of hurting another much. Abimelech himself, more liberal-minded than meaner men, grows at length weary of his guest, feels hurt at his growing prosperity, envies his greatness, and dismisses him with cold civility. "And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us: for thou art much mightier than we."* Grandeur admits not of friendship; and friendship disdains to dwell with profligacy. Of all the men in a nation, the king is most certainly excluded from this blessing; and surely, his lot contains nothing to be once compared with it, or which can supply its want.

Under the protection and friendship of this prince, he has now obtained a settlement in the land; and by the blessing of Heaven Isaac prudently gives way. He withupon his honest industry, he prospers and in- draws the hated object from before the eyes creases in the midst of difficulties. "Isaac of envy, and leaving the city, pitches his sowed in the land, and received in the same tent in the valley of Gerar. Apprehending, year an hundred fold: and the Lord blessed he had a hereditary right to the wells of him. And the man waxed great, and went water which were his father's, and which forward, and grew, until he became very the Philistines had maliciously obstructed, great. For he had possession of flocks, and he digs again for them in the valley. And possession of herds, and great store of ser- from respect to the memory of Abraham, as vants." But we are by no means to imagine, well as to keep alive the remembrance of that worldly success is ever proportioned to the gracious interpositions of the Divine promising means and favourable opportuni- Providence in his behalf, he revives the anties. "The race is not always to the swift, cient names by which the wells were disnor the battle to the strong.' Some men's tinguished. Particularly the name Beersails seem to gather every breath of the sheba, or, the well of the oath, is preserved, wind: they get forward in spite of every the memorial of the covenant ratified upobstacle. Others feel the tempest continu- wards of seventy years before, between the ally blowing in their faces. All things are king of the Philistines and Abraham; and against them, and though they set out with which was known by that name for many the fairest, most flattering prospects, unac- ages afterwards, as one of the extreme bouncountably thwarted and disappointed, they daries of the holy land. But the unrelenting "wax poor, and fall into decay." Let not jealousy of the Philistines pursues him from prosperity, then, be deemed an infallible the city into the field. No sooner has he by proof of wisdom, or worth, or of divine favour. industry procured for his family that importNeither let want of success be always de- ant necessary of life, water, than the herdrived from folly, or vice, or the curse of Hea- men of Gerar, endeavoured by violence to ven; for in this mixed, imperfect, probation-possess themselves of it. Isaac, fond of ary state, "time and chance happen to all men," ,"neither can a man tell "what is good for him all the days of his vain life, which he spendeth as a shadow."

peace, chooses rather to recede from his just right, than to support it by force; and still retires, seeking relief in patience and industry. He finds himself still pursued by the Every temporal advantage has a corres- pride and selfishness of his neighbours; but ponding infelicity. Isaac grew rich and great, at length conquers by yielding. A victory but "the Philistines envied him." And, "who the most certain, the most honourable, and can stand before envy?" That dark, malig- the most satisfactory. And the tranquillity nant passion, prompted his surly, jealous foes and ease of Rehoboth, amply compensate to cut off one source of his wealth, "for all the troubles and vexation of Esekt and Sitthe wells which his father's servants had dig-nah. Finally, to prevent as far as in him ged in the days of Abraham his father, the lay, every ground of quarrel, he fixes his Philistines had stopped them, and filled them residence at a still greater distance from with earth." This was, in effect, to destroy Abimelech. "He went up from thence to * Gen. xxvi. 2-5. Ib. 9-11. Ib. 12-14. § Ib. 15. * Gen. xxvi. 16. f Room. Contention. § Hatred.

Beer-sheba ;" where feeling himself at home, | son; who, in the fortieth year of his own life, after so many removals, he at once pitches that is, the hundreth of his father's, introhis tent for repose, and builds an altar for duced two idolatrous wives at once, into the religion; and the hatred and violence of man holy family. This was two great evils in is lost and forgotten in communion with one. It was being unequally yoked with inGod. fidelity; and carrying on a practice which has ever been and ever will be fatal to domestic peace. The daughter of a Hittite would naturally be disposed to interrupt the religious harmony which prevailed in Isaac's habitation, and two wives at once would, as certainly, be disposed to annoy each other, and to embroil the whole family in their quarrels. Isaac was well acquainted with the solicitude of his pious father on his own account, in the important article, marriage; and was conscious of a similar anxiety respecting the settlement of his sons. We may easily conceive, then, how he felt at this accumulated irregularity and imprudence of Esau. He was wounded there, where as a man, a father, and a servant of the true God, he was most vulnerable. To be neglected, unacknowledged in a matter of the highest moment to his comfort, by that son whom he had cherished with the fondest affection, and on whom he rested his fondest hopes; how mortifying to a father! But besides the holy descent was in danger of being marred by an impure heathenish mixture; and the minds of his grandchildren likely to be perverted from the knowledge and worship of the God of their fathers. Such is the ungracious return which parents often meet with, for all that profusion of tenderness and affection which they lavish upon their offspring; such their reward, for all their wearisome days, and sleepless nights. The ingrates dispose of their affections, their persons, their prospects, their all, in a hasty fit of passion; as if the father who brought them up with so much toil and trouble, as if the mother who bore them had no concern in the matter. The ungrateful, disorderly conduct of their elder son, and no wonder, was grief of mind to Isaac and to Rebekah."

The expression," he called upon the name of the Lord," seems to import, that when his altar was built, it was consecrated to the service of God, with certain extraordinary solemnities; such as sacrifice, and public thanksgiving, at which the whole family assisted, and in which the holy man himself, the priest as well as the prince of his family, joyfully presided. His piety was speedily acknowledged and crowned with the approbation and smiles of his Heavenly Father. For, "the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father, fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and will multiply thy seed, for my servant Abraham's sake."* His meek and placid deportment, together with his increasing power and wealth, and the favour of Heaven so unequivocally declared, have rendered the patriarch so dignified and respectable in the eyes of the world, that the prince, who from an unworthy motive had been induced to treat him with unkindness, and to dismiss him from his capital, now feels himself impelled to court his friendship, and to secure it by a solemn compact. Abimelech considers it as no diminution of his dignity, to leave home, attended with the most honourable of his council, and the supreme in command over his armies, in order to visit the shepherd in his tent. The expostulation of Isaac is simple and natural, and his conduct exhibits a mind free from gall, free from resentment. The reply of Abimelech discloses the true motive of this visit. And we are not surprised to find, that fear has at least as large a share in it as love. The worst of men find it to be their interest to live on good terms with the wise and pious: and good men cleave to each other from affection.

The covenant being amicably renewed, and the oath of God interposed, and, "an oath for confirmation is an end of all strife," the king of Gerar and his retinue return in peace, and leave Isaac to the retirement which he loved, and to that intercourse with Heaven, which he prized infinitely above the friendship of earthly potentates. And now, a delightful calm of eighteen years ensued, of which no traces remain to inform or instruct men, but which from the well known character of this patriarch, we may well suppose were spent in such a manner, as to be had in everlasting remembrance before God.

At this period, his domestic tranquillity was again cruelly disturbed, and, by his favourite

66

a

Whether it was from the vexation occasioned by this event, from disease, from accident, or some natural weakness in the organs of sight, we are not informed, but we find Isaac, in the one hundred and thirty-fifth year of his life,-in a state of total blindness; and he was probably visited with the loss of that precious sense at a much earlier period. But forty-five years, at least, of his earthly pilgrimage were passed in this dark and comfortless state. All men wish to live to old age; but when they have attained their wish, they are apt to repine at the infirmities and the discomforts which are necessarily incident to it. They would be old; but they would not be blind, and palsied, and feeble. They would be old; but they would not be neglected, wearied of, and forsaken. They would be old; but they would not be

practised upon and deceived. But, old age certainly brings on all these, and many more inconveniences; and vain it is to dream of the benefit, without the care. We read but of one, that is Moses himself, whose " eye at the age of one hundred and twenty, was not dim, nor his natural force abated."

This dark period of Isaac's life, containing many interesting and instructive particulars, will furnish matter for a separate discourse. In reviewing the past, we are under the necessity of again admonishing parents on that momentous article.-Impartiality in the distribution of their attention, their tenderness, and their property, among their children.The trifling circumstances of name, of personal likeness, of beauty and deformity, and the like, over which parents had little power, and the children none at all; and which in themselves have neither merit nor demerit, and are the objects of neither just praise nor

blame, have been known to establish distinctions in families, which destroyed their peace and accelerated their ruin. Children unborn have often felt the dire effects of a silly nickname, imposed on a progenitor whom they knew not, and whose relation to them was thereby rendered a curse. Men are often deemed unfortunate, both by themselves and others, where they deserve to be reckoned unwise. They themselves do the mischief, and then wonder how it came about. They spoil their children, and then complain that they are so perverse. I know how difficult it is to bring up youth; how difficult to bear an even hand between child and child, to counteract the bias of favour and affection, to conceal and disguise the strong emotions of the heart. But it is only the more necessary to be prudent, to be vigilant, "to walk circumspectly," and, to ask "wisdom of 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 ofishness 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 of the stranger." He aims his thunder at the head of him who putteth a "stumbling-block in the way of the blind, and planteth a snare for the innocent." And though, in the sovereignty of his power, and the depths of his wisdom, he is sometimes pleased to employ the vices of men to execute his purposes of goodness and mercy, he loves and approves only "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of

which themselves have digged, and bringing backsliders again to himself, by making them to eat the bitter fruit of their own doings.Happy it is for the children of men, if their deviations from the path of rectitude meet their correction in a temporal punishment. But wo to that man, whom justice permits to thrive in his iniquity, and to grow hardened through impunity; whose retribution is deferred, till repentance can produce no change. Chastise me, O Father, as severely as thou wilt. Let me not fall asleep under

* 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 my sin, and purge me thoroughly from it.

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

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 The life of Isaac may be divided into three point, she builds upon it a project of obtainperiods. The first, containing seventy-five ing, by management and address, what she years, from his birth to the death of Abra- despaired of bringing about by the direct road ham; during which, being under parental of entreaty or persuasion. Unhappy it is for government, and of a meek, unaspiring dis- that family, the heads of which entertain opposition, his history is blended with, and in-posite views, and pursue separate interests. cluded in that of his father. The second, One tent could not long contain two rival commencing at his father's death, and end- brothers, whose animosity was kept alive and ing in his one hundred and thirty-seventh encouraged by those whose wisdom and auyear: when it pleased God to visit him with thority should have interposed to suppress it. extreme weakness, or total loss of eye-sight. It is affecting to think how little scrupulous This contains the space of sixty-two years, even good people are, about the means of which may be termed his active period. To accomplishing what their hearts are set upon; it succeeds a heavy period of forty-three how easily the understanding and the conyears, up to the day of his death. During science become the dupe of the affections.— which we see a poor, dark old man, at the The apologists of Rebekah charitably ascribe disposal of others, moving in a narrow sphere; her conduct on this occasion to motives of "knowledge" and comfort “at one entrance, religion. She is supposed to be actuated quite shut out." We behold a man, who, throughout by zeal for supporting the destiwhen "he was young, girded himself, and nation of Heaven, "The elder shall serve the walked whither he would; but now become younger;" a destination which she observed old, stretching forth his hands, and another her husband was eager to subvert. I am not girding him, and carrying him whither he disposed to refuse her, to a certain degree, would not." This portion of his history, ac- the credit of so worthy a principle; for the cordingly, is blended with, and swallowed up piety of her spirit, on other occasions, is unin that of his two sons. questionable. 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.

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 Admitting that Isaac was to blame, for misbent of his natural affection, to his elder and understanding, forgetting or endeavouring to more beloved son. He calls him with accents contradict the oracle which gave the preferof paternal tenderness, and proposes to him ence to Jacob; surely, surely, it belonged to the mingled gratification of pursuing his own the wife of his youth to have employed other favourite amusement, of ministering to his means to undeceive and admonish him. Was fond father's pleasure, and of securing to the deception which she practised upon his himself the great object of his ambition and helplessness and infirmity, the proof she exdesire, the blessing, with all its valuable ef-hibited of the love, honour, and obedience fects. 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; Thus was Isaac deceived, in having Jacob or the shameless, undaunted effrontery of the imposed upon him for Esau. Nor was Reson? But, in thinking of the one, our won-bekah less disappointed. For the blessing der is mingled with respect and esteem; the which she had surreptitiously obtained for other excites resentment and abhorrence. It her favourite, instead of producing the imshows the danger of getting into a wrong mediate benefits expected from it, plunged train. One fraud must be followed up with him into an ocean of distress, exiled him another; one injury must support and justify from his country and his father's house, exanother; and simple falsehood, by an easy posed him, in his turn, to imposition and inprogress, rises up to perjury. Who is not sult; and, but for the care of a superintendshocked, to hear the son of Isaac interposing ing Providence, the success which he had the great and dreadful name of the "LORD earned by the sacrifice of a good conscience, God of his father," not to confirm the truth, must have defeated and destroyed itself. But but to countenance and bear out a wilful and "the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, deliberate lie? What earthly good is worth the thoughts of his heart to all generations." purchasing at such a price? Surely his "His decree may no man reverse." "The tongue faltered when it pronounced those wrath of man worketh not the righteousness solemn, those awful words. 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 will 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 flavour of his venison, he had not been exposed 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."

can exceed the tenderness of Esau's expostulation, when he found the blessing was irrecoverably 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 It is worthy of observation, that though tempest of passion which he is unable to goIsaac, by the spirit of prophesy which was vern. "And Esau said unto his father, Hast in him, foresaw and foretold the future for-thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, tunes 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

* 3 Peter i. 21.

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.