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.

The life of Isaac may be divided into three periods. The first, containing seventy-five years, from his birth to the death of Abraham; during which, being under parental government, and of a meek, unaspiring disposition, his history is blended with, and included in that of his father. The second, commencing at his father's death, and ending in his one hundred and thirty-seventh year: when it pleased God to visit him with extreme weakness, or total loss of eye-sight. This contains the space of sixty-two years, which may be termed his active period. To it succeeds a heavy period of forty-three years, up to the day of his death. During which we see a poor, dark old man, at the disposal of others, moving in a narrow sphere; "knowledge" and comfort "at one entrance, quite shut out." We behold a man, who, when he was young, girded himself, and walked whither he would; but now become old, stretching forth his hands, and another girding him, and carrying him whither he would not." This portion of his history, accordingly, is blended with, and swallowed up in that of his two sons.

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 bent of his natural affection, to his elder and more beloved son. He calls him with accents of paternal tenderness, and proposes to him the mingled gratification of pursuing his own favourite amusement, of ministering to his fond father's pleasure, and of securing to himself the great object of his ambition and desire, the blessing, with all its valuable effects.

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 point, she builds upon it a project of obtaining, by management and address, what she despaired of bringing about by the direct road of entreaty or persuasion. Unhappy it is for that family, the heads of which entertain opposite views, and pursue separate interests. One tent could not long contain two rival brothers, whose animosity was kept alive and encouraged by those whose wisdom and authority should have interposed to suppress it. It is affecting to think how little scrupulous even good people are, about the means of accomplishing what their hearts are set upon; how easily the understanding and the conscience become the dupe of the affections.The apologists of Rebekah charitably ascribe her conduct on this occasion to motives of religion. She is supposed to be actuated throughout by zeal for supporting the destination of Heaven, "The elder shall serve the younger;" a destination which she observed her husband was eager to subvert. I am not disposed to refuse her, to a certain degree, the credit of so worthy a principle; for the piety of her spirit, on other occasions, is unquestionable. But I see too much of the wo man, 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.

Admitting that Isaac was to blame, for misunderstanding, forgetting or endeavouring to contradict the oracle which gave the preference to Jacob; surely, surely, it belonged to the wife of his youth to have employed other means to undeceive and admonish him. Was the deception which she practised upon his helplessness and infirmity, the proof she exhibited of the love, honour, and obedience 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 Mowed, 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. bad 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 I 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 Je sued, which is most to be wondered at-the sus should die for that nation."* honest, unsuspecting simplicity of the father; or the shameless, undaunted effrontery of the son? But, in thinking of the one, our wonder is mingled with respect and esteem; the other excites resentment and abhorrence. It shows the danger of getting into a wrong train. One fraud must be followed up with another; one injury must support and justify another; and simple falsehood, by an easy progress, rises up to perjury. Who is not shocked, to hear the son of Isaac interposing the great and dreadful name of the "LORD God of his father," not to confirm the truth, but to countenance and bear out a wilful and deliberate lie? What earthly good is worth purchasing at such a price? Surely his tongue faltered when it pronounced those solemn, those awful words.

Thus was Isaac deceived, in having Jacob imposed upon him for Esau. Nor was Rebekah less disappointed. For the blessing which she had surreptitiously obtained for her favourite, instead of producing the immediate benefits expected from it, plunged him into an ocean of distress, exiled him from his country and his father's house, exposed him, in his turn, to imposition and insult; and, but for the care of a superintending Providence, the success which he had earned by the sacrifice of a good conscience, must have defeated and destroyed itself. But "the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations."t "His decree may no man reverse." "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness 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 wil 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 can exceed the tenderness of Esau's exposflavour of his venison, he had not been ex-tulation, when he found the blessing was ir posed 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."

It is worthy of observation, that though Isaac, by the spirit of prophesy which was in him, foresaw and foretold the future fortunes 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

* 2 Peter i. 21,

recoverably 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 tempest of passion which he is unable to govern. "And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, 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 hea venly 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.

of Rebekah, he acknowledges and submits to the high will of Heaven. The blessing which he had pronounced unwittingly, and which he finds to be irrevocable, he now deliberately and cheerfully confirms.

length, settle on him whom he loved less. But, to part with the heir of the promise, at the age of one hundred and forty years, to send him away into a far country-was it not to part with him for ever? The fervour And now, behold the little spark of dis- of his farewell benediction, pathetically excord between the brethren blown up into a presses his despair of meeting him again, flame, which threatens destruction to the "God Almighty bless thee, and make thee whole family. And, dreadful to think, Esau fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest looks forward, with desire to the death of his be a multitude of people: and give thee the old, kind father, that he might prosecute re- blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed venge against his brother unto blood. Hither- with thee; that thou mayest inherit the to we have seen in Esau an object of com- land wherein thou art a stranger, which passion: we now view him with detestation; God gave to Abraham."* These are the and we find the righteous judgment of God last words, this the last action of Isaac's life, prosecuting this murderous disposition in his upon record. But his latter end was at a posterity to their utter ruin. "For thy vio- greater distance than he or than Esau aplence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall prehended. He survived this event forty cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for years. He lived to lose in communion with ever."* "As I live, saith the Lord God, I God, the disorder and dispersion of his will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall family. He lived to shelter and to bless by pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, his prayers, him whom the paternal roof even blood shall pursue thee. Thus I will could shelter and protect no longer. He make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off lived to be refreshed with the good tidings from it him that passeth out and him that of the success of the blessing, and the happy returneth." "Thus saith the Lord, For increase of Jacob's family. He lived to three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I "see him" again "in his touch," and to emwill not turn away the punishment thereof; brace his grandchildren. This period of his because he did pursue his brother with the life is a mere blank to posterity. But if we sword, and did cast off all pity, and his an- are ever admitted to read in "the book of ger did tear perpetually, and kept his wrath God's remembrance," O how will these forty for ever. But I will send a fire upon Te-years of silence and oblivion arise and shine! man, which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah." Rebekah too, now that "a sword pierces through her own soul," ready "to fose both her children in one day," too late discerns how imprudently she has acted, and is glad to purchase the safety of her favourite at the price of his banishment. So uneasily do those possessions sit upon us which we have acquired by improper means. The threatening words of his elder son, must have speedily reached the ears of the aged patriarch also. And he has the inexpressible mortification of learning that the ungrateful wretch whom he had cherished in his bosom, and to whom his fondness would have given every thing, was enjoying the prospect of his approaching death, because it would afford a safer opportunity of practising his meditated revenge. This indeed was the bitterness of death, to "feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. And, thus severely the unwise attachment of both the parents punished itself, by the effect which it produced.

To prevent the dreadful mischief which hung over his hoary head, all his prospects concerning Esau, being now blighted by the heathenish alliances which he had formed, by his diabolical character, and by the rejection of Heaven, he gladly consents to the dismission of Jacob: and all his hopes, at • Obad. verse 10. † Ezek. xxxv. 6, 7. ↑ Amos i. 11, 12.

At last, old and full of days, Isaac drops into the grave. "The days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years, and Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered unto his people."+ "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" Time, and a better spirit and the death of a father, have happily extinguished resentment between the brothers. Esau thinks no more of slaying Jacob. They mingle tears, as did Isaac and Ishmael, over their parent's tomb, and their angry passions sleep in the dust with him.

Thus lived and died Isaac, the son of Abraham, a man of contemplation, piety, and peace. A man of few and slight infirmities; of many and eminent virtues. A man, whom Providence tried with multiplied and severe afflictions; and whom faith strengthened to bear them with patience and fortitude. His story comes home to the breast and bosom of every man. His excellencies are such as all may, by due cultivation, acquire; his virtue such as all may imitate. His faults are those, to which even good men are liable, and which they are the more concerned to avoid, or to amend.

To young men, we would hold him up as a pattern of filial tenderness and submission. Isaac possessed in an eminent degree, that most amiable quality of ingenuous youth, dutiful respect to the mother who bare him. ↑ Gen. xxxv. 28, 29

* Gen. xxviii, 3, 4.

He cherished her with pious attention while temper, his resignation under affliction, his she lived, and sincerely lamented her in gentle requital of deception and insult, his death; till duty called him to drop the grate- superiority to the world, his composure in the ful and affectionate son, in the loving and prospect of dissolution, and the faith which faithful husband. So long as Abraham lived, triumphed over death and the grave. Let Isaac had no will but the will of his father. the affluent and the prosperous learn of him, The master of a family may learn of him to adorn high rank and ample fortune, by hudomestic piety and devotion, conjugal fide-mility and condescension; and the wretched, lity, prudent foresight, persevering industry. to endure distress with fortitude and resig The selfish and contentious are reproved, nation. Let his faults be forgotten, and his by the example of his moderation, by his infirmities covered; or remembered only patience under unkindness and injustice, by as a reproof and admonition to ourselves. his meek surrender of an undoubted right, And let us be followers together of him, and for the sake of peace. Let the aged con- of all them who "through faith and patience sider him well, and imitate his sweetness of inherit the promises."

HISTORY OF JACOB.

LECTURE XXIII.

And the boys grew; and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison; but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint; therefore his name was called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles, and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way; thus Esau despised his birthright. GENESIS XXV. 27-34.

of his conduct. Events unimportant, inci- | hands; but if we presume to take the whole dental, contingent in the eyes of men, are or any part of the work of God upon ouroften matters of deep design, of mighty and selves, it is both with sin and with danger lasting consequence with God. The natural 'His counsel indeed shall stand," but the disposition of the two brothers early disco- offender shall pay the price of his rashness. vered itself. Esau betakes himself to the It is a dreadful thing to get into a course and active and laborious sports of the field. habit of acting amiss. When once we have Jacob, formed for social and domestic life, got a favourite object in view, how every abides at home in the tents, attending to fa- thing is made to bend to it! The birthright, mily affairs, cultivating filial affections, and the birthright was the darling object of Jaliving in the exercise of filial duties. The cob's fondest wishes; and, as if the decree Chaldee Paraphrast gives a translation of the and the prediction of heaven had not been words of Moses, rendered in our version, security sufficient for the attainment of it, he "dwelling in tents," considerably different seeks to confirm it to himself by a deed of in sense, "He was a minister in the house sale with his brother, and the interposition of teaching," understanding by the word tents of a solemn oath; and finally, is eager to or tabernacles, the place appointed for divine have the bargain ratified by the solemn beneworship. diction of his father's prophetic lips. "He The first action of Jacob's life, which we that believeth shall not make haste." But find recorded by the sacred historian, is by alas! I see in Jacob an earnestness to obtain no means calculated to give us a favourable his end, that borders on diffidence and susimpression of his heart. The young men picion; and indeed, whom or what can that were now in their twenty-fifth year. The man trust, who has not confidence in his elder entirely devoted to his favourite pur- Maker? The vile scene of imposition and suit: the younger, ever on the watch to ob- fraud practised upon his blind and aged patain that by art or industry which nature had rent, as forming an essential article of Jacob's taken from him. It happened on a certain history, rises again to view. I like his taking day, that Jacob had employed himself in pre- advantage of his father's blindness still less paring a plain dish of pottage of lentiles, for than his attempt to carry a favourite point by his own entertainment. And here, let not taking advantage of his brother's hunger and the fastidious critic, who measures every impetuosity. The latter was but the skill and thing by modern manners and maxims, con- address of an open adversary; the former sider this as an employment beneath the dig- was the cunning and deceit of a crafty and nity of Isaac's son. It is, in truth, one of a undutiful child. Observe how cautiously, multitude of instances, of the beautiful sim- and fearfully, and slowly, the footsteps of the plicity of ancient customs. The greatest deceitful must proceed. The moment that heroes, and proudest princes, whom Homer the conscience swerves from truth and rectihas exhibited, are frequently found engaged tude, the man becomes jealous, and anxious, in similar occupations. Esau, returning from and timid. But integrity advances with firmthe field, and having been either unsuccess-ness and intrepidity. "And Jacob said to ful in hunting, or being too impatient to delay the gratification of his appetite till his venison was prepared, entreats his brother to give him a share of the provision which he had made for himself. Jacob, taking advantage of his hunger and eagerness, proposes, as an equivalent for his pottage, no less a price than the favourite object of all his ambition and desire, the birthright. Unconscious or regardless of its value, and in a haste to satisfy the cravings of the moment, he inconsiderately parts with that which nature had given him in vain, and which a father's fondness strove to secure for him; but which a conduct so "profane" and precipitate proved him altogether unworthy of possessing.

But, was the conduct of Jacob pure and praise-worthy in this transaction? It cannot be affirmed. Providence had indeed ordained him to the blessing which he so ardently coveted; but Providence neither appoints nor approves of crooked and indirect paths to the ends which it has proposed. Weak and erring men may perhaps not be displeased, to have part of their work taken off from their

Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing."*

But, what could make Rebekah and her favourite son so anxious to attain this superiority? What was there in the birthright, to make it thus fondly coveted, and unremittingly pursued? The answer to these questions will at least plead some excuse for their zeal, if not wholly do away the guilt of their falsehood. First-The gift of prophesy was known to reside in the patriarch Isaac; and the parental benediction, in certain circumstances, was considered as having the force of a prediction. SecondlyPreeminency and power over the rest of the family in patriarchal times, were affixed to priority of birth; thus God speaks to Cain concerning Abel, "Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Thirdly-A double portion of the paternal inheritance appertained to the first born. And

Gen. xxvii. 11, 12.