With Abraham God established the political covenants which secured to him and his family the possession of Canaan, and all the temporal and spiritual blessings of a transitory and preparatory economy; Jesus is the Mediator of a better covenant, established upon better promises; even the covenant of redemption, whereby the kingdom of heaven, and eternal life, are made sure to all his spiritual seed; for thus it is written of him, "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy throne to all generations;" and "according to his abundant mercy he hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." In Abraham we venerate the natural head of a great family, raised up, multiplied, preserved and distinguished by the hand of Providence to this day. Of Christ, "the whole family of heaven," and all the families of the earth “are named," "and he is before all things and by him all things consist." Abraham stands forth the typical representative, father, and pattern of believers; Christ is "the head of the body, the church," | the real source of a spiritual and divine life to all them who believe. Abraham's intercession in behalf of Sodom, and Christ's lamentation over Jerusalem, are a beautiful and striking counterpart to each other. The sacrifices which Abraham and Christ respectively offered up unto God, wonderfully illustrate and explain one another. But in the midst of so many marks of resemblance, who does not by a glance discern as many characters of dissimilitude; and an infinite superiority claimed by Him who " in all things must have the pre-eminence?" Who shall declare his generation, who saith of himself "before Abraham was, I am?" Abraham was a man of like passions with us, and even the father of the faithful stumbled and fell; Jesus was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," and the prince of this world himself, when he came, found nothing in him. Abraham was ready to offer up Isaac: Christ actually offered himself "a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour unto God." The faith of Abraham could not redeem him from death; the power of Christ triumphed over the grave. The first covenants, being of a temporary nature, having fulfilled their design, are passed away. The New Testament in the blood of Christ being for everlasting, continues in full force, and shall last while sun and moon endure, nay, when "all these things shall be dissolved." Being arrived at one of the great epochs in the history of the world, we shall just for moment look back, and mark the link which | connected this period with the flood, and even with the antediluvian world; giving you only names and dates for the sake of brevity SHEM the second son of Noah, and father of Arphaxad and of all the children of Heber, to whom the family jewel, that is, the promise of the Messiah, was committed, who saw two of the great calamities of the world and outlived them, the deluge, and the con fusion of languages, and who lived no doubt to see and rejoice in Abraham and Isaac as the heirs of the promise, Shem, I say, is the great link of these two eras of the world, For, he lived before the flood ninety-eight years, and after it five hundred and two; of consequence he died only twenty-five years before Abraham. His life accordingly may be calculated thus, with regard to the great persons and events with which he was con nected. Before the flood, he lived ninetyeight years. After the birth of his own son Arphaxad, five hundred. After the death of Arphaxad, sixty-one. After the death of Noah, one hundred and fifty-two. After the confusion of tongues, three hundred and for- · ty-eight. After the death of Sarah, thirteen. Before the birth of Jacob, ten. Before the birth of Moses, two hundred and seventy-five. When Abraham was one hundred and fifty years old, Isaac fifty, and before the descent into Egypt, one hundred and forty. The chronology of Abraham's life, according to the scripture account, stands thus. He died in the one hundred and seventy-fifth year of his age, and of the world, two thousand one hundred and eighty-three. Before the birth of Christ, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one. After he discomfited and slew Chederlaomer, and the other kings, ninetyone. After the intended sacrifice of Isaac, fifty. After the death of Sarah, thirty-eight. After his marriage with Keturah, thirty-five. After the death of Shem, twenty-five. Before the descent into Egypt, one hundred and fifteen. When Isaac was seventy-five years old; Esau and Jacob, fifteen; Ishmael, eightynine, and Heber his great grandfather, from whom the name of Hebrew comes, four hundred and sixty. "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise," and when he gave up the ghost, was buried in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, by his sons Isaac and Ishmael. And thus, my dear friends, we have, through the help of God, finished the first part of the plan of these Lectures. And the season of interruption and separation being now come, permit me, with a heart overflowing with affection and gratitude, to return you my sincere thanks for your regular attendance and patient attention. You were invited hither with much humility and diffidence; you have come hither with much alacrity and steadiness, and you must not depart hence, without bearing along with you the grateful acknowledgments of the Lecturer. He has the consolation of believing, that as neither he, nor his undertaking, are the creatures of party, or of human system, nor aim at any interests but those of virtue, good sense, and religion; so they have been encouraged by wise and good men of various sects and denominations. He humbly hopes he has interfered with the happiness, fame, or usefulness of no good man whatever. If he has led any one to read the Bible more carefully, to trace the connexion betwixt the Old and New Testament characters, institutions, and events more accurately; to trace the ways of Providence more closely; or to feel the powers of a world to come sensibly, verily he has his reward. But he affects not fastidiously to undervalue some considerations of inferior importance; he dwells with secret delight on the disinterested attachment and generous services of his private friends; his heart glows at the public marks of regard he has received; and the temporal emolument arising from his labours, he receives with much thankfulness to you, and to that kind Providence, which is pleased to smile upon another effort to rear up a numerous family. May the kindness you have shown the preacher, return a thou sand fold upon your own heads. The God of love be with you all. Amen. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 1 LECTURE XIX. Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? And they returned and said, Like as the Lord of Hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.-ZECHARIAH, i. 5, 6. is taught to consider himself, his life, his actions, as of importance, that we may exert ourselves to the last, and "do with our might whatsoever our hands findeth to do." Though our fathers are no more, and the prophets do not live for ever, yet the words and statutes which God commanded his servants the pro phets, "took hold of our fathers, and they returned and said, Like as the Lord of Hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us." This leads us, in a direct road, to make a just estimate of the lives and actions of other men; and to consider seriously how we ought to order our own conversation, how we ought to spend our own days and years. REFLECTIONS upon the shortness of human | mercifully hid from our eyes; and every man life, and the uncertainty of sublunary enjoyments, naturally present themselves, in the various changes which we daily observe, and daily feel. But alas, our reflections are too superficial and transitory, to produce habitual superiority to the world, uniform submission to the will of God, and efficacious impressions of eternity. Wasting and decaying every hour, we form and prosecute schemes of futurity, as if "our strength were the strength of stones, and our bones brass." Reasoning and reflecting as men, we live and act as children; and pursue the bauble of the moment, as if it were "the pearl of great price." When the drama of human life is ended, and the curtain drops, lo, it has shrunk to a measure so small, and contains events of so little importance, that it is difficult to render a reason why man should have existed at all; and we are constrained to cry out with the Psalmist, "Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity; surely every man walketh in a vain show; surely they are disquieted in vain." But my text greatly relieves this apparent insignificancy of our fleeting existence in this world, by conveying to us this important idea, that the Divine Providence is carrying on its great and wise designs, by feeble, short-lived and even worthless instruments. And the date of our latter end is wisely and Psalm xxxix. 6, 7. In the preceding course of these Lectures we endeavoured, beginning at Adam, and ending with Abraham, historically to delineate, and practically to improve, the lives of those venerable men, by whom the world was first peopled, instructed, and governed: and who, in their persons, by their actions, or the events which befel them, successively typified, or foretold to their contemporaries, the great Saviour and Deliverer of the human race, during a period of more than two thousand years. By entering into the spirit of the prophet Zechariah, in the words now read, we shall be enabled to review that pe riod with profit and delight. And this re INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. view shall serve to introduce the history of 66 [LECT. XIX. fice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service."* hand of a brother; but immortal by his faith and piety, qualities not liable to the stroke of death. excellent and an acceptable sacrifice. In "By faith he offered to God" an In Adam, we behold at once our natural a respect to the great Lamb of atonement, presenting the firstlings of his flock, he had first father, and our federal head: from whom, and thereby, "being dead, he yet speaketh." as men, our existence is derived, and by Prematurely taken away, but not for a crime; whose conduct our character has been deeply affected, and our state in some respects de- Messiah, the Prince, cut off, but not for a victim to malice and envy, he typified termined. "Our father Adam, where is he?" himself," crucified and slain in the prime of He fulfilled his day, he accomplished the life, by the impious hands of his nearest kinpurposes of the eternal mind, he then fell dred. And, living under the influence of the asleep, and is now seen no more. But, how- same principle, we too shall become immorever remote the date of his formation, and of tal, shall "endure as seeing him, who is inhis death; however distant from us the re-visible, and present our bodies a living sacri gion in which he lived, however apparently unconnected with us in interest, in fame, or fortune, we are, we know, we feel ourselves deeply involved in what he was, in what he did. In Adam we all died; we all forfeited a natural, and lost a spiritual and divine life: and, in Adam, we received the promises which have since been fulfilled, and to him first were opened prospects, which the course of Providence has realized, even the restoration of our fallen nature, by one "greater man," who has regained for us seats more blissful than those from which by transgression he fell; namely, the "seed of the woman, who has bruised the serpent's head." Our first father, where is he? Lost indeed to us, but not to God. All traces of him, excepting those only which perpetuate the memory of his guilt and its woful consequences, are effaced and forgotten; but his station before God remains unchanged, his importance undiminished. Dead to us, he lives to Him, with whom "a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years." Can we meditate upon the first man who was created upon the earth, without rising in our thoughts to Him who created him out of the dust of the ground, and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life? And who has of one blood formed all nations of men to inhabit upon the face of the whole earth." Can we think of our father after the flesh; and not connect with him the idea of our Father who is in heaven? Is not the painful recollection of him in whom all died, happily relieved and done away by reflecting on the glorious second Adam, in whom an elect world is made alive? And O, how is the loss of an earthly paradise compensated by the promise of "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;" that paradise of God, in the midst of which grows the tree of life, always blossoming, always bearing fruit, and exempted from the dangerous neighbourhood of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Our brother Abel, where is he? Cut off in the bloom of life; fallen, fallen by the exit of the patriarch Enoch, life and immor. In the life, and more particularly in the tality were more clearly brought to light. Hitherto, men had terminated their earthly course by descending into the grave and seeing corruption. But, when we come to inquire concerning Enoch, "where is he?" The scriptures reply, "By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God." "He was settle, not on the gloomy mansions of the not, for God took him." Our thoughts here dead, "the house appointed for all living,' but on the regions of eternal day, irradiated with the glory, and beautified with the presence of God. We rise in faith and hope to that bright world from which Christ descended, and to which, having finished his work, and achieved his victory, he afterwards reascended, leading captivity captive. And all contemplate with joy that same mansion of who are partakers of the same precious faith, everlasting rest, "prepared for them from the foundation of the world," and "ready to be revealed in the last time," when the body shall be redeemed from the power of the grave, and the Saviour, lifted up on high, shall "draw all men unto him." In Enoch, "walking with God," and passing immediately, soul and body, from earth to heaven, the world that then was, saw, in a figure, Him that was to come, whose meat and drink it was to do the will of his heavenly Father, and who has opened a passage, through the very gates of death, into the heavenly world, and that not for himself only, but for all who believe on his name, and who love his appearing. Enoch, our father, where is he? There, O my soul! there, O my christian friend, where, through the grace that is in Christ Jesus, we have everlasting consolation, in the good hope of arriving also. is thy victory! Thanks be to God, who death, where is thy sting! O grave, where Rom. xii, 1. ↑ Heb. xi 5. giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ | ten. Let him who is rearing a mansion of our Lord."* one thousand feet by five hundred, meditate on one of six by two, and learn to die. The ark which Noah prepared for the saving of his house, where is it? It fulfilled its destination, it escaped the wreck of worlds, it preserved, and rendered up, its precious deposit, then fell into decay. It exists but in description, it has no form but what fancy has bestowed upon it in a picture, or upon a coin. But its fame, its use, its end, its antitype, are immortal. That magnificent vessel, not the contrivance of man, but the appointment of God; constructed according to the pattern, formed and prescribed by infinite wisdom; preserved in the wild uproar of conflicting elements, by the almighty power of God;-resting at length on solid ground, and unloading its precious treasure without the loss of a single life-are so many successive, distinct, pleasing, and instructive views of the plan formed, followed, and, in due time, perfected, of man's deliverance from sin, and death, and hell, by the Lord Jesus Christ; who thus speaks of his redeemed, and of himself, in his last solemn address to his Heavenly Father, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost;"* and in another place, "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all: and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."+ Advancing to the times of Noah, we behold the world first deluged with an overflowing flood of sin, and then with an inundation of waters. The measure of human iniquity full, and the vials of divine wrath filled, in order to punish it, up to the brim, and poured out upon an impious generation, to its utter extinction and ruin. Nevertheless, a remnant is saved, and mercy rejoices in the midst of judgment. Animated by the same principle which inspired his venerable ancestors, that principle which gave value to Abel's sacrifice, which strengthened Enoch to walk with God, and through which he was translated without tasting of death, Noah "prepared an ark for the saving of his house." The history and method of redemption, by the Lord Jesus Christ, are so clearly prefigured in every part of this wonderful event, that he who runs may read them. Noah, "a just man, and perfect in his generations;" Noah, who "walked with God," and was "a preacher of righteousness;" Noah, who, "warned of God of things not seen as yet, and moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house," is evidently in all these characters and actions, a type of the Holy and Just One, whom the world despised and rejected; a type of "the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and hath declared him" unto men; a type of the great "teacher sent from God," to warn a guilty devoted race to flee from the wrath to come, and to conduct them to a place of safety: a The emblems of the raven, the dove, the type of him, who, chosen of God, and moved rainbow, the altar, the sacrifice, and others by pity and affection, prepared a present re- which enter into the history of this patriarch, fuge, and an everlasting habitation, for pe-are beautiful and significant illustrations of rishing sinners. Of Noah, his pious pro- the same interesting, all-important subject. phetic father, when he imposed his name, And the whole taken together, satisfyingly exultingly exclaimed, "This same shall com- demonstrate, that if "death reigned from fort us concerning our work and toil of our Adam to Noah," and the "offence abounded," hands, because of the ground which the Lord yet "grace did much more abound ;" and that hath cursed:" and, in the blessed Redeem- out of the ruins of human apostacy, guilt er of mankind, all his pious, believing chil- and misery, the hand of Heaven was gradren, enjoy the prospect of a period, and a dually rearing that glorious fabric of salvaworld, wherein "there shall be no more tion, which, when completed, an enraptured curse;" and on whom the eternal Father by universe shall contemplate with astonishment the tongue of an angel, imposed the name of and delight. "This is the day which the Jesus, because he should "save his people Lord hath made: this is the Lord's doing; it from their sins." Noah, our father, where is is marvellous in our eyes." The sight of the he? where is the man who was Enoch's con- world restored, renewed, and blessed to Noah, temporary, who conversed with the sages of the second father of the human race, leads the old world, who saw the globe one vast us forward, borne on the wings of promise, ocean, whom all the waters of a deluge could to the still more magnificent prospect of the not drown, who received a grant of the whole restitution of all things;" to the day when renewed earth for an inheritance? All these he who sitteth upon the throne shall say, successive changes led but to the grave, and" Behold I make all things new ;” when, acwe see him no more. "All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died." Let the possessor of a continent think of this, and check his pride. Let florid, vigorous youth, think of three score years and † Gen. v. 99, L * 1 Cor. xv. 55. 57. cording to his word, a new, more splendid, and more durable system of the universe shall arise under the plastic hand of the great Author and Finisher of the Christian faith, from the wreck of worlds consumed by fire; John xvii. 12. † John x. 28, 29. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. when Jesus shall bring all his ransomed ones Sailing down the current of sacred history, -All the world before them, where to choose We behold Abram, at God's command, [LECT. XIL in his bosom," resting from all his own troubles; and cherishing the poor, the outcast, the afflicted, the tormented; enjoying "the and waiting for the adoption, to wit, the reend of his faith, the salvation of his soul," demption of his body; to face, whom once he beheld afar off, and as in a glass darkly." beholding him face in meridian glory? What bright day dazzles Who is this that breaks in upon us at once the wondering eye, preceded by no dawn, succeeded by no evening? It is Melchizethat priest of the most high God, whose dec, that "king of righteousness and peace," generation none can declare, whose nature and person none is able to describe. Is he but as one of the prophets, or is he the Lord of the prophets himself, pronouncing the blessing which he alone can confer; celebrating in an early age, that eucharist, which should be the memorial of his office and glorious achievement, till time expire? In him, whatever he were, a type, or the son of God revealed; a shadow, or the substance; in him we behold the great leading object of Providence disclosed to our view; that priesthood which is unchangeable, that kingdom which shall never be destroyed, that Prince of peace, who has reconciled guilty men unto God, that righteousness through which we have access with humble confidence to the throne of grace. that day." "Abraham rejoiced to see tiently for the promised seed; it cheered his It strengthened him to wait pawanderings from place to place; it fortified his heart to the sacrifice of his Isaac; it laid his hoary head with hope in the dust. ground through which we have travelled; a Having from this eminence surveyed the delightful landscape, terminating in the distant hills of Eden, and watered by the fair river of PROMISE, meandering through its whole vast extent-we look forward, in hope and desire, to the happy plains where Isaac the nations which Joseph saved by his wispitched his tent, and Jacob fed his flocks; to dom, and ruled by his power. And, in our intended progress, Eternal Spirit of Wisdom! vouchsafe thou to be our instructer and our guide: point out to us the objects which deserve our notice: enlighten thou our eyes, guard our hearts, direct the paths of our feet. What we know not, that do thou teach us, what we do know, help us wisely to improve. Following thee, "the crooked shall become straight before us, and the rough places plain. The sun shall not smite us by day, nor the moon by night. We shall go from strength to strength," after them who "inherit the promises, till every one of us also, in Zion, appeareth before God." But, Abraham our father, whither is he also gone? Even the faith which surrendered an Isaac at God's command, and which has forever preserved his name from death, could not rescue his body from the power of the grave. It sleeps and is dissolved in the cave which was purchased from Ephron the Hittite. He had not a principle of life in himself, nor the power of communicating it, to either his natural or spiritual posterity. But the "words and the statutes, which God commanded him and his other servants the prophets, took hold of them," and continue to lay hold of us. In the midst of all this mortality and change, one thing is immutable and eternal, the word, the purpose, the decree of the Most High. "Heaven and earth may pass away, but it shall not pass away.' Have you ground of pride and joy, my Our father Abraham, where is he? Behold tion of your forefathers? Were they wise "friends, in the acknowledgment or recollechim in yonder world of bliss, with "Lazarus and good; blessed in themselves, and a bless |