purpose: but would make our purpose with reverence bend to that sacred authority. We would not with sacrilegious hands force out of the bible, by violence and art, a scanty and unnatural crop; but by diligent cultivation and assiduous care, draw from it a plenteous harvest of what the soil naturally produces. And, we now return from this digression, to pursue the history of Jacob.

History of Jacob.

LECTURE VI.

And Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Padan arum, unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's und Esau's mother. And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went towards Haran....GEN. xxviii. 5, 10.

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T what stage, or in what condition of human life, can a man say, Now my heart is at rest, now my wishes are accomplished, now my happiness is complete? By what unaccountably untoward circumstances is the comfort of the worthiest, best ordered, most prosperous families, oft-times marred and detroyed! Not through vice only do we suffer, but up to some piece of imprudence or inadvertency; up to some trifling infirmity in our nature, or some petty fault in our conduct, our greatest calamities may easily be traced. One man has made his fortune, as it is called, but he has impaired his health in the acquisition of it, or made shipwreck of a good conscience._Another inherits a fine estate; but goes childless. There we behold a numerous and promising family of children; but the wretched parents have hardly bread to give them and here, both progeny and plenty; but hatred, and jealousy and strife, banish tranquillity and ease. The heart of this child is corrupted through indulgence; the spirit of that one is broken by severity.

Isaac is wealthy, but his eyes are dim that he cannot see. God has given him two sons at once, but they are the torment of his life. He is fondly partial to Esau; and Esau does every thing in his power to mortify and disoblige his kind and indulgent father. He is unwittingly drawn in to bless Jacob; and, the very next breath, feels himself constrained to pronounce sentence of dismission and banishment upon him. "The whole ordering of the lot is of the Lord," but "men themselves cast it into the lap." Providence only brings that out, which, with our own hands, we first put in.

Jacob has by skill and address pushed himself into the birth-right and by subtilty insinuated himself into the blessing. And how do they sit upon him? Very uneasily indeed. His father's house is no longer a bome for him. Grasping at more than his right, he loses what he already had. Eagerly hastening to preferment, without waiting for Providence, he puts himself just so much further back. And, seeking rule and pre-eminence in his father's family, he finds servitude and severity in the house of a stranger. If men will carve for themselves, they must not charge the consequence of their rashness and presumption upon God.

Behold the pilgrim then, on his way, pensive and solitary; without so much as a favorite, faithful dog, to accompany and to cheer his wanderings. His whole inberitance, the staff in his hand. Now, for the first time, he knows the heart of a stranger. Now he feels the bitter change from affluence to want, from society to solitude, from security and protection to anxiety and danger. More forlorn than Adam when expelled from paradise, than Abraham when exiled from his father's house, he has no gentle mate to participate and to soothe his anxieties and cares.

The scripture assigns no reason, why Isaac's heir, and Rebekah's favorite son, the hope of a powerful and

wealthy family, was dismissed with such slender provision, wholly unattended, and unprotected too, upor a journey, according to the best calculations, of about one hundred and fifty leagues, or four hundred and fifty miles, through a country in many places desert and savage, and in others no less dangerous, from the hostile tribes which inhabited and ranged through it. But the reason, though not directly assigned, is plainly hinted at in the sixth verse of this chapter, which informs us that Esau knew of this journey, as well as of the cause and intention of it. Jacob therefore may be supposed to have stolen away secretly, and without any retinue, and to have shunned the beaten and frequented path to Padan-aram, in order to elude the vigilance and resentment of his brother, who, he had reason to apprehend, would pursue him to take away his life. And besides this, we may justly consider both the errand on which he was sent, to take a wife from an allied and pious family, to propagate a holy and chosen seed; and the homely, solitary style of his travelling, as a very illustrious instance of faith in God, and obedience to his will, and that not in Jacob himself only, but in his parents also, who could thus trust the sole prop of their family hopes, and of the promise, to dangers so great and distresses so certain, with no security but what arose from the truth, mercy and faithfulness of God.

The uneasy reflections arising from solitude, and inspired by a gradual removal from the scenes of his youthful and happy days, must have been greatly embittered to Jacob, by the consciousness of his having brought all this upon himself; by the keenness of disappointment, in the very moment when the spirits were wound up to the highest tone through success; and by total darkness and uncertainty with respect to his future fortunes. However, the cheerfulness of light, the pleasing change and variety of natural objects as he journeyed on, the ardor and confidence of youthful

blood and spirits, carry him with confidence and joy through the day. But ah! what is to become of him now that the sun declines, and the shadows of the evening begin to lengthen? Overtaken at once by hunger and fatigue, and darkness and apprehension, where shall he seak shelter, how find repose? Happily calamity strengthens that soul which it is unable to subdue. The mind forced back upon itself, finds in itself resources which it new not of before, and the man who has learned to seek relief in religion, knows where to fly in every time of need. The strong hand of necessity is upon our patriarch; submit he must, and therefore he submits with alacrity.

And now behold the heir of Abraham and of Isaac, without a place where to lay his head; that head which maternal tenderness had taken pleasure to pillow so softly, and to watch so affectionately.

"He

lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set: and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep," Gen xxviii. 11.

"Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

Jacob, removed from his earthly parents, is but the nearer to his heavenly father; a stranger in the waste howling wilderness, he is at home with God. Cares perplex his waking thoughts, but angels in bands lull his perturbed breast to rest; they guard, and instruct, and bless his slumbering moments. Who does not pity Jacob, as the evening shades gather and close around his head? Who does not envy his felicity when the morning lights appear, and with it, the recollection of a night passed in communion with God? Jacob sleeps, but his heart wakes. What had been most upon his mind through the day, continues to occupy and to impress his thoughts after his eyes are closed. Wonderful, awful, pleasing power of God! which in the city