The neighbouring nations feel, with Egypt, the rod of God's anger; but every neighbouring nation is not blessed with a Joseph, capable of foreseeing the evil, and of applying the remedy. Canaan, in common with others, is visited with the general calamity: and Jacob, who lived there, Jacob, the heir of the promise, is ready to perish with his family for lack of food. But he ill understands the promises, and the power of God, who, under the pressure of any affliction, trusts to a miracle for relief, when honest and lawful means are in his power. by the addition of thirteen years; his new name, his dress, language and manners; his high station and his stately demeanour, have effectually disguised their brother from their knowledge; and Providence, determined to bate them not a single iota of the humiliation predicted by the dreams, prostrates their "ten sheaves before the sheaf of Joseph," levels the ten proud spirits at their unknown brother's feet. Want makes men wonderfully submissive and complying: and they who fight against God will sooner or later find themselves dreadfully overmatched. After an interval of more than thirteen Unknown by them, they stand well known years, we revisit poor Jacob's melancholy and confessed to him. At sight of them, habitation, and find him what he was from natural affection resumes its empire in his the beginning, "a man of sorrows and ac- heart, and the tide which had long forgotten quainted with grief." Behold a wound to flow, now rushes impetuously from its which time could not cure, festering in his source. He beholds ten; but where are the bosom. Behold him sinking into the grave two, more beloved and endeared than all the under a load which reason could not allevi- rest? It is impossible to conceive, much ate, nor religion itself totally remove. His more to describe, the emotions of Joseph's family indeed, greatly increased by a multi- soul on hearing tidings of his father's family: plicity of grandchildren; but that great bles- to learn that his dear, his tender parent was sing embittered and converted into a curse, still in the land of the living; surviving, so by the dreadful pressure of famine. What long, misery so dreadful; that his dear dismal condition! Children crying for brother, his own mother's son, was alive bread, and none to give them; the wretched with him also, and in health. The sovereignparents looking at their perishing offspring, ty of Egypt, I am persuaded, never yielded and then at one another in silent astonish-him satisfaction half so sincere. ment and despair. Conscience, which had probably slept quietly in better days, would now, no doubt, awaken the bitter memory of guilt long past, and which they had endeavoured to forget. The sight of their own children ready to die of hunger, could not but revive the dreadful recollection of the time, when, in cold blood, they resolved to starve a brother, an innocent brother to death. In Jacob himself, we behold a moving and instructive picture of every child of God, and of that church whereof he was then the living head and representative, "troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." He "heard there was corn in Egypt." He had silver and gold in abundance. Despondency was only adding to the evil; he therefore rouses his astonished sons from their lethargy and dejection, and proposes a journey into Egypt to buy food. There is no necessity so cogent as that of eating. It eagerly catches therefore at every prospect of relief, believes things incredible, attempts things impossible. The ten elder sons of Jacob, therefore, set out for the land of Egypt on this errand, and into Egypt they came. On making the necessary inquiries respecting the purchase of corn, they are directed, as all buyers, both natives and foreigners were, to Joseph; without whom "no man lifted up his hand or his foot in all the land." The change produced in a youth of seventeen, 1 The singularity of his situation evidently suggested to Joseph the experiment which he now resolved to make of the temper and character of his brothers; and particularly of their disposition in an hour of trial, toward their father and Benjamin. I cannot suppose him for a moment actuated by sentiments of revenge. Had he been under the influence of such a passion, the means of gratification were certainly most amply in his power. But the whole tenor of his conduct shows that he was governed by a very different spirit; his severity is altogether affected, the better to carry on the design which he had formed; and the peculiarity of his behaviour towards some of the brothers, is to be ascribed to some peculiar circumstances in the history of the family, which the sacred penman has not thought proper to record. Some rigid critics, however, while they acquit Joseph of cruelty and revenge, severely accuse him of impiety and profanity in swearing, and swearing repeatedly, "by the life of Pharaoh," and that to a charge which he well knew not to be founded in fact. It is not our design to undertake a justification of Joseph in every particular. What character can stand throughout the test of a rigid examination? Sacred history exhibits men just as they are, not what they ought in all respects to be. Dark spots are most easily discerned in the whitest garments, and oul blemishes in the fairest reputations. But let no sanctity of character presume to shelter the slightest deviation from the path o' God's commandment. No; the smallest sin, While Joseph, the better to conceal himself, talks and acts like a true Egyptian, God employs his affected sternness and severity to awaken the slumbering consciences of his brothers, and to show the sons of Jacob to themselves. Treated as spies, roughly spoken to, their most solemn protestations disregarded, put in prison and bound-their treatment of Joseph in the evil day which put him in their power, rushes upon their memory, in all its guilt and horror, and they mutually upbraid and reproach each other with their barbarity, "saying one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us and we would not hear: therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child, and ye would not hear? Therefore, behold, also, his blood is required."* This mutual and self-accusation excites in the tender heart of Joseph, emotions which he is unable to conceal. Hearing himself mentioned with so much tenderness and regret, by persons once so cruel, and in a language which he had been long unaccustomed to hear, the pretended Egyptian becomes in spite of himself, a real Israelite; his bosom swells, his visage warms, the tear starts to his eye. To prevent a premature discovery, ne is constrained to retire and recompose himself. He returns and renews the conversation, and again assuming the lord of Egypt, sets nine at liberty, binds Simeon before their eyes, and commits him to close confinement, as a hostage for their return, together with Benjamin their brother. He then dismisses them loaded with corn for their families, and provision for the way having secretly given orders to his steward, in making up the bags of corn, to deposit each man's money in the mouth of his respective sack. This was not discovered till they were considerably advanced on their journey homeward; when one, undoing his sack to give his ass provender, observed his money in his sack's mouth. Upon their arrival in Canaan, the same thing is found to have happened to them all. Comparing this singularly strange circumstance with the est of their eventful journey to Egypt, they discern the hand of God in it, and observing such an unaccountable mixture of flattering and of mortifying events, they remain, upon the whole, perplexed and confounded. When the mind is sore, and the, conscience seriously alarmed, dispensations of every complexion, both mercy and judgment, are viewed with a fearful eye. When we know we are de* Gen. xlii. 21, 32. serving of punishment, every thing becomes a punishment to us, either felt or feared. And now again, the unhappy father, reckoning his long expected sons, as they arrive, finds their number short by one. "Simeon too is not ;" and the account given of his absence, instead of pouring balm into the wound, is "as vinegar upon nitre." "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not," and Benjamin is demanded. To recover what he has lost, he must risk still more. Simeon is not what he should be, but his kind forgiving father cannot think of giving him up, worthless as he is. To lose a pious, promising child by death, is painful: but the death of a thoughtless, graceless profligate, to a parent of piety and sensibility, is much worse. We see the distressed old man putting off, and still putting off the evil day. He has more than one reason for sparing the corn which had been brought from such a distance, and procured at such a risk. Before a fresh supply can be obtained, and Simeon restored, "the son of his right hand" must be surrendered. Benjamin must be taken away; and the thought of this plants a dagger in his heart. But the famine continues, necessity presses, and a second pilgrimage must be undertaken. The account of it, however, must for the present, be deferred. The history swells upon us, and we shall rather entreat your patient attention to another Lecture on the subject, than hasten over a story so much calculated, at once to please and to instruct. But behold a greater than Joseph is here. Behold Jesus, "for the suffering of death," "highly exalted," distinguished by "a name that is above every name,' ""that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."* "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." "The Father himself judgeth no man: but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent him." "I am the bread of life that came down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven: If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."} "He that cometh unto me shall never hunger: and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me: and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."|| "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and will come again, and receive you unto my. milk without money, and without price."* seit, that where I am, there ye may be "It hath pleased the Father, that in him also." “In those days, and in that time, should all fulness dwell:"+"and of his ful- saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall ness have all ye received, and grace for come, they, and the children of Judah tograce." "My flesh is meat indeed, and my gether, going, and weeping: they shall go, blood is drink indeed." "Your fathers and seek the Lord their God. They shall found corn in Egypt." "Your fathers did eat ask the way to Zion with their faces thithermanna in the wilderness and are dead, but ward, saying, Come and let us join ourselves he that eateth of this bread shall live forever." to the Lord, in a perpetual covenant that "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my shall not be forgotten." "Ye are they blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him which have continued with me in my tempt up the last day." "Look unto me, and be ations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am as my Father hath appointed unto me: that God, and there is none else."|| "Blessed ye may eat and drink at my table in my are they that shall eat bread in the kingdom kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the of God." "Many shall come from the east twelve tribes of Israel." "Eat, O friends, and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of hea-"He that cometh unto me I will in no wise ven."¶ 66 In my Father's house are many cast out." "These things have I spoken mansions; if it were not so, I would have unto you, that in me ye might have peace: told you; I go to prepare a place for you. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but And if I go and prepare a place for you, I be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." * Isaiah lv. 1. John vi. 55. Isaiah xlv. 22. † Col. i. 19. T Matth. viii. 11. HISTORY OF JOSEPH. LECTURE XXXII And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live And his brethren could not answer him: for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph saith unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray yon: and they came near; and he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me hither before you to preserve life.-GENESIS xlv. 3—5. THE productions of human power and skill afford but an imperfect and short-lived pleasure. The delight of the artist himself is over long before his work is completed, and the wonder of the spectator lasts only till he is let into the secret, and admitted behind the scenes. It is not so with the works of God. When the mighty fabric of the universe was finished, God surveyed his work with perfect complacency and satisfaction, for "behold it was all very good." And such, to this day, it appears in the eye of every beholder. No frequency of contemplation, no closeness of inspection, no keenness of investigation, or success in discovery, ever bring on weariness or disgust. The eye is eternally delighted with the magnificence and splendour of the azure vault, with the verdure and variety of the fertile earth. The music of the grove never fails to charm the listening ear; the perfume breathed from "the flower, and the shrub, and the tree," never palls upon the sense. The same may, with truth, be said of the word of God. What human composition so exquisite as always to please? What human composition have we patience to turn over a tenth or a twentieth time? The stores of human wisdom are quickly exhausted; the eye speedily reaches forward to the end of created perfection. But though the charm of novelty may have passed away, though memory may have stored itself with the very words, and the heart have felt the inpression a thousand and a thousand times, yet the beauty, the force, the excellency, the importance of scripture composition remain in undiminished lustre. That sun in the firmament of grace, which has irradiated, cheered, and blessed ages and generations past, is also our light and our glory, and shal, with unimpaired strength, with unconfined liberality, diffuse light, and life, and joy to the final consummation of all things. strangers. The men were not more distressed at the harshness of the treatment which they met with at first, than they are perplexed and confounded at the excessive kindness and hospitality of their present reception; for an ill conscience is ever timid and suspicious. Against the time of Joseph's arrival they make ready their present, and being admitted into his presence, they again prostrate themselves to the earth before him. In vain do men set themselves to counteract the decrees of Heaven. After the customary salutations, with a mixture of anxiety and hope, he inquires If serious minds be disposed to think thus of scripture in general, all persons of sensibility and taste will, I am persuaded, agree in forming such a judgment of the history of Joseph in particular. The unlettered man and the scholar; the child and the grown man; the ingenious and the simple; the believer and the infidel; Greek and Jew, have in all ages admired, delighted in, and edified by a story, which, clothed with all the graces of eloquence, exhibits the most uncommon, surprising, affecting, and import-after the life and welfare of their father, and, ant events; and conveys the purest and sublimest lessons of piety and morality. The famine continued to rage with unrelenting severity in Egypt and the countries adjacent, and dire indeed must have been the pressure of that calamity, which compelled a father, tender and affectionate like Jacob, after losing two sons by a stroke heavier than that of death, to part with his youngest, darling hope, at the risk of never seeing him more. How horrid that plague which can force a fond mother to devour her own child for food! Let this awful reflection in a year of scarcity, and at a season of waste and luxury,* check profusion, awaken our compassion to the poor and wretched, and emper our joy. The old man yields up his Benjamin, as if his own body were dismembering limb by limb. "If it must be so now" "take your brother, and arise, go again unto the man. And God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved."+ to his inexpressible satisfaction, learns that he was alive and in health. But the sight of Benjamin awakens too many tender recollections to be resisted, too many fond ideas to be suppressed. The premature loss of their common parent, the partial affection of their kind father, the present anxiety and distress of the venerable man, his own strange eventful history, Benjamin's tender youth, his distance from home, his separation from paternal care and protection, his exposedness to dangers which had almost proved fatal to himself; all, all rush upon his mind at once, and excite emotions too powerful to be concealed. He is obliged to retire in order to throw a veil over those feelings which must have betrayed him; and gives vent to his heart in secret. Having recomposed himself, he returns to the company, and, resuming the Egyptian, commands the entertainment to be served up. Three tables are set out, one for himself apart, as the governor of the country; another for his guests, by themselves: and a third for the Egyptians of his household, or such as might be invited on the occasion. For the Egyptians, either from religious scruples, or political pride and aversion, abhorred a communication with other nations in convivial or sacred entertainments. With double money in their hands, then, with a present consisting of the choicest productions of Canaan, for the Governor of Egypt, and with the heart and soul of their aged father in their custody, they set out on a second pilgrimage to buy food. What is a And here was presented a fresh source of land producing "balm, honey, spices, myrrh, wonder to the sons of Jacob. By Joseph's dinuts, and almonds," compared to a land of rection, they are arranged at table in the excorn! What worthless things are gold and act order of their birth, without inquiry or silver compared to bread. If our own coun- information. This, in connexion with the try be less fertile in the wine and oil, the account which it behoved them to have heard drugs and perfumes, the gems and gold of concerning such an extraordinary person, other regions, it is more abundantly pro- must have conveyed to them an idea of a saductive of the staff and protection of life-gacity altogether preternatural. Nor would the "finest of the wheat," the oak more firm and durable than cedar, and iron more precious than rubies. their surprise be diminished by the distinguished mark of respect shown to their young est brother; for the mess sent from the governor's table to him, was "five times" the quantity of any of the rest; and it was thus that in ancient times, among eastern nations, superior deference and esteem were expressed. However, the increasing festivity of the banquet gradually dissipated all their terrors. "They drank and were merry." The Hebrew word unquestionably insinuates that they drank to excess. It is natural for men | concerning our family. We acquainted you, to rush from one extreme to another, and it is not improbable that Joseph threw this temptation in their way, in order to obtain a more thorough insight into their temper and character, by observing them attentively, in a situation when the heart overflows, and he tongue conceals and disguises nothing. Whatever be in this, he is preparing a trial for them more severe than any which they had as yet experienced, and which in some measure compensated the anguish they had occasioned to their father, when they impressed him with the belief of his son's death. Loaded with civilities, provided with a supply of corn for their starving families, Simeon restored, Benjamin not detained; they set out on their journey to Canaan, with a merry heart, talking one to another of the strange things which had come to pass. But scarcely are they got clear of the city, when they are pursued and overtaken by Joseph's steward, charging them with theft, and commanding them instantly to return to his master to answer for it. that we had a father heavily laden with years, but still more heavily with misfortunes; a father, whose whole life had been one continued struggle with adversity. We added, that we had a brother peculiarly dear to him, as the children born towards the end of their life, generally are to old men, and who is the only one remaining of his mother: his brother having come, in early youth, to a most tragical end. You commanded us, as the proof of our veracity and innocence, to bring that brother unto you, and your command was delivered with such threatenings, that the terror of them accompanied us all the way back to our country, and embittered the remainder of our journey. We reported every thing minutely to our father, as you directed us. Resolutely and long, he refused to entrust us with the care of that child. Love suggested a thousand causes of apprehension upon his account. He loaded us with the bitterest reproaches for having declared that we had another brother. Subdued by the famine, he at length reluctantly consented; and putting his beloved son, this unhappy youth, into our hands, conjured us by every dear, every awful name, to guard with tenderness his precious life, and as we would not see him expire before our eyes in anguish and despair, to bring him back in safety. He parted with him as with a limb torn from his own body; and in an agony of grief inexpressible, deplored the dreadful necessity which separated him from a son, on whom all the happiness of his life depended. How then can we appear before a father of such delicate sensibility? With what eyes shall we dare to look upon him, unless we carry back with us this Judah, who had been the most urgent with son of his right hand, this staff of his old age, his father to send Benjamin, and had solemn- whom, alas, you have condemned to slavery? ly pledged himself for his safe return, feels The good old man will expire in horrors himself now called forth: and, in a strain of dreadful to nature, as soon as he shall find the most pathetic eloquence that ever flowed that his son is not with us. Our enemies will from an aching heart, attempts not to extenu- insult over us under these misfortunes, and ate or exculpate, but to raise compassion, and treat us as the most infamous of parricides. I to obtain mercy. The piece is of exquisite must appear to the world, and to myself, as beauty and elegance, and, being in every the perpetrator of that most horrid of crimes, one's hands, may be re-perused at your lei- the murder of a father; for it was I who most sure. The Jewish writers take delight in urgently pressed my father to yield. I endwelling upon, and expanding it. Philo, in gaged, by the most solemn promises, and the particular, in his treatise entitled, "Joseph," most sacred pledges, to bring the child back. has given a paraphrase of this speech of Ju-Me he entrusted with the sacred deposit, and dah, which possesses wonderful elegance and propriety of expression, and force of thought. Some of you, perhaps, may not be displeased with having an opportunity of comparing the diffusive laboured eloquence of the paraphrast, with the energetic simplicity of the sacred text. The former puts into Judah's mouth the following address. With terror and astonishment, though in the confidence of innocence, they deny the charge, and reason upon the improbability of it. Search is made among their stuff for the goods alleged to be stolen; ten are acquitted with honour, and they are just beginning to exult in the detected falsehood of such a scandalous imputation, when, to their utter confusion, Joseph's cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Overwhelmed with shame and terror, they are again conducted to his presence.The crime is proved. To deny it were vain, to excuse it nugatory and absurd; and to account for it, it is impossible. "When we appeared, sir, before you the first time, we answered without reserve, and according to the strictest truth, all the questions which you were pleased to put to us of my hand he will require it. Have pity, I beseech you, on the deplorable condition of an old man, stript of his last comfort, and whose misery will be aggravated by reflecting that he foresaw its approach, and yet wanted resolution to prevent it. If your just indignation must needs have a sacrifice, here I am ready, at the price of my liberty, or of my life, to expiate this young man's guilt, and to purchase his release? Grant this request, not so much for the sake of the youth himself, as of his absent father, who never |