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clared, and continually supported favour and preference of Heaven in his behalf-Early, constant, habitual impressions of piety-The covenant promise and presence of the Almighty-The testimony of a conscience void of offence-The aggrandizement, and the virtues of his beloved son-Seventeen years of uninterrupted quiet, with daily growing prospects of prosperity to his family; and the consolation of expiring at last in the arms of Joseph-O, the balance is greatly in his favour! Who shall dare to say God has dealt hardly with him! We shall make Jacob himself judge of the case now, and defy him to say, "All these things are against me." The patriarch makes a greater figure in death than ever he had done in his life. The house of Israel, the seed of Abraham is now beginning to make a considerable appearance in the world. Egyptians forego their prejudices to do honour to the remains of the old shepherd of Beer-sheba; and the nations of Canaan are awakened to attention and respect, to a family which they hated or despised.

But, while the world is conferring empty, unavailing respect on the insensible dust, the immortal spirit has winged its flight to those bright regions, where the faithful repose in perfect and everlasting peace; where the smile of God obliterates all recollection of the favour of princes, and buries in eternal oblivion the pains and sorrows of a few transitory years. If saints in glory have any recollection of what passed upon earth, as undoubtedly they have, what satisfaction must it afford the glorified patriarch to call to remembrance the various stages of his pilgrimage state, the dark and dreary paths through which Providence led him, and which he once feared were leading him to destruction and death, now that he finds them all certainly and directly tending to his Father's house above? If saints in glory have any knowledge of what passes upon earth, as perhaps they may, what must it have been to Jacob from the lofty height of a throne above the skies, to mark the order and course of Providence, in bringing to pass upon his family the things which were seen in prophetic vision, darkly, and at a distance, and spoken in much weakness and obscurity? What must it be to see the Gentile nations gathered together to Shiloh; to see the glory with the sceptre departed from Judah, but a crown, whose lustre shall never fade, put upon the head of Messiah the Prince? If saints in glory have any intercourse with their fellow partakers in bliss, what must it have been to Jacob, after treading in the footsteps of Abraham and Isaac his fathers, to overtake and be joined to them in that world, where men are as the angels of God in heaven; and to see his faithful children, his Joseph in particular, gathered unto him, every one in his own order, their day of trial also over, and their warfare accomplished? What must it have been to all the ransomed of the Lord, to see their common Saviour returning on high, leading captivity captive, triumphing over principalities and powers? If there be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, what must have been the joy of that day, when an elect world, in the person of their divine Head, took possession of a throne eternal in the heavens?

The next Lecture will conclude the history of Joseph, and the book of Genesis, and bring down that of the world to its two thousand three hundred and ninth year, one thousand six hundred and ninety-five years before Christ. -Jacob, like his forefathers, died, and was buried, and saw corruption; but he whom God raised up died indeed, and was buried, but saw no corruption. Jacob could observe, be offended with, and reprove the faults of his children, but Christ has power to forgive sins, and to change a sinful nature. The day which Jacob saw afar off, is that which arose under Jesus in all its meridian splendour, and continues to shine unto this day. The body of Jacob, by the skill of physicians, was for awhile saved from putrefaction; the body of Christ, by the almighty power of God, was preserved, so that not a bone of it was broken on the cross, not a particle of it lost and left in the grave. The corpse

of the patriarch, deposited in the cave of Machpelah, in Canaan, was a token and pledge to his family, that in due time they should return thither, and enjoy lasting possession; the resurrection and ascension of Christ's glorious .body, gives full security to all his spiritual seed, that "those who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him ;”- "Christ the head first, afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming." The possession, of which Jacob's burial was the pledge, was itself partial and transitory, was long ago forfeited, and has long ago expired; but the succession ensured by the ascension of Christ, is "to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Egyptian art might keep together the dust of Jacob for awhile; but the power of God, through the grace that is in Christ, guards every fragment and shred of it even until now, and "will raise it up again at the last day." The afflicted man Jacob saw the end of all his troubles in the friendly tomb; Jacob, the believer, the saint in bliss, sees no end to his joy, but a still beginning, never-ending eternity. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." To me to live let it be Christ, and then to die it shall be gain. Let us be followers of them "who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.' "Be faithful unto death, and ye shall receive a crown of life." "The hour cometh, when all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall live." "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

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HISTORY OF JOSEPH.

LECTURE XVII.

GENESIS L. 24, 25, 26.

And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land, unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

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THE events of a short and uncertain life upon earth, derive all their importance from the relation which they bear to a future and eternal state of existence. Remove the prospects of immortality, and what is left worthy the attention and pursuit of man? What is reputation? A breath of empty air: honour, a bubble; riches, a bird eternally on the wing; youth, beauty, health, fading flowers of the spring; the splendour of kings, childish pageantry; a crown, a toy. That alone is valuable which time cannot impair, nor mortality destroy; that which, though the man die, continues to live and speak; that which, despised or neglected of men, is of high estimation in the sight of God. If in this life only there were hope, the happiest of mankind were a wretch

* Rev. xx. 6.

ed, dark, comfortless being. But for the consolations of religion, Jacob must have sunk under the accumulated weight of calamity upon calamity: and Joseph, destitute of a principle of grace in the heart, had fallen in the hour of temptation, or despaired in the day of adversity; had risen into pride when exalted to honour, or deviated into resentment and revenge when armed with - power. But, directed and supported by this celestial guide, he descends into the pit undejected, undismayed; spurns with holy indignation the solicitations of illicit desire; preserves moderation in the height of prosperity, and sinks the resentments of the injured man, in the meekness and gentleness of the affectionate brother. A character so near perfection seldom occurs; we have therefore been tempted to dwell upon it the longer, and now that we must part with it, we bid it farewell, with no little regret.

The last office in which we left Joseph employed, was the burial of his venerable parent. In this he at once acquitted a solemn obligation; fulfilled the law of humanity, gratitude and filial duty; and acted faith in the covenant and promise of God given to his forefathers. He is never so much an Egyptian, as to forget he is an Israelite; but, engaged in the duties of a son of Israel, he remembers he was a naturalized Egyptian. Having deposited the sacred pledge in the cave of the field of Machpelah, he and his brethren and all his retinue return into the land of Egypt.

Terror ever haunts the guilty conscience; and men, whether they be good or bad, are apt to judge of others by themselves. The brothers of Joseph considered the life of their father as the only bulwark betwixt them and their brother's anger. Knowing themselves to be criminal, they conclude he must be resentful; knowing he had the power, they suppose he must needs have the inclination to punish them. O how guilt degrades, debases the spirit of a man! In bad minds how quick the transition from extreme to extreme! How nearly allied to each other, vices seemingly remote, contradictory and opposite! These reflections are all strikingly exemplified and illustrated in the conduct of Jacob's sons. We see malice and cruelty passing into suspicion and timidity: insolence but a single step removed from fawning, flattery and submission; and bold defiance of Heaven changing in a moment into superstitious horror. They had before done obeisance to Joseph, not knowing who he was, and so fulfilled the dreams of his early youth, which had given them such mortal offence. With a meanness equal to their former haughtiness, they now voluntarily prostrate themselves in his presence, and humbly deprecate that wrath which they had so unjustly provoked. What a pitiable, what a contemptible figure a man makes, overtaken and reproved by his own wickedness!

A little mind would have enjoyed this triumph of acknowledged superiority, if it did not resort to retaliation. But a great soul like Joseph's gives only into emotions worthy of itself. Seeing his father's children thus humbled before him, he dissolves into tears. Had he been ever so much inclined to vengeance, adjured by the awful names of his father and his God, his heart must have relented, and anger must have turned to pity. But in truth, he had never harboured one thought of revenge, and the offenders possessed an infinitely better security in the generosity and compassion of their brother, than in the protection of their father's feeble arm, parental authority, or frail life. Being at no variance with them, entertaining no grudge, mark what pains he takes to reconcile them to themselves; "But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish ye and vour little ones. And he comforted them and spake kindly unto them."*

* Gen. 1. 20, 21.

Such is the exalted triumph of true goodness. Not satisfied with merely bestowing forgiveness, it strives to close the wounds which guilt has made it aims not only at bettering the external condition of the penitent, but also at meliorating his inward frame; it not only proclaims peace to the offender, but likewise generously studies the means of restoring him to peace with his own conscience. This is the glorious triumph of God himself, who overcomes evil with good, turns enmity into love, and obliterates the foul traces of undutifulness and ingratitude, by painting over them the fairer, softer features of filial tenderness and dutiful submission. And in no one respect can human nature so nearly resemble the divine, as in pardoning transgression, in shewing mercy, in bestowing on the guilty outward and inward peace, and burying and effacing painful and mortifying recollections in total and everlasting oblivion. Thus Joseph comforted his brethren, and spake kindly unto them. This spirit, a greater than Joseph, by precept, by example, and by the model which he prescribed for our devotions, has recommended and enforced; and thus, by habitually drinking into it, "men shall at length become perfect, as their father in heaven is perfect."

At the death of his father, Joseph was fifty-six years old. The history of the remainder, containing a period of fifty-four years more, shrinks into a few short sentences. But they exhibit a beautiful and instructive picture of a generous spirit, of great and growing domestic happiness, of a capacious prophetic soul, and of a faithful, obedient, and believing heart. He had the satisfaction of living to see his posterity of the fourth generation, by Ephraim his younger son, and of the third, by Manasseh his firstborn. He had the felicity of beholding Israel greatly increased, and the promise of God hastening to its accomplishment; resigned to die in Egypt, but looking and longing for a sepulchre in Canaan. Jacob's, a life of almost uninterrupted misery, is lengthened out to the hundred and forty-seventh year; Joseph's with the exception of a very few years, a scene of splendour, usefulness and prosperity, is cut short at a hundred and ten. But the difference dwindles into mere nothing before Him, with whom "a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years." Grief has its cure, usefulness its period, glory its decay, and pride its destroyer in the grave. As his dying father held him engaged by a solemn oath not to bury him but in Canaan, so Joseph binds his posterity by a similar obligation to carry his remains, when opportunity offered, to the sacred spot where the sleeping dust of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob reposed. Whatever had been his power or possessions in Egypt, this is all he bequeaths to his children; his last, dying will, disposes of nothing but his bones. But it is not merely the natural desire of the man, to rest in death with his fathers; it is the zeal, piety and wisdom of the believer, leaving to his family a solemn pledge of his dying confidence in the truth and faithfulness of God. Accordingly, the dead body of Joseph becomes no inconsiderable object in the history of Israel, from this time forward, to their final establishment in Canaan. With much pomp it was now embalmed, with much care it was preserved in their deepest distresses and affliction; in all their wanderings it accompanied them, and never, till they rested in the peaceable possession of the land of promise, did it rest in the peaceful tomb.

But had the credit of Joseph declined before his death? Had Pharaoh died, and Egypt forgotten to be grateful, that no royal mandate is issued for a splendid public interment; that an affectionate nation accompanies not, with tears, the son, as they did the father, to his long home? Miserable would Joseph have been, had not his happiness rested on a surer foundation than the smile of kings, or the applause of a multitude. Who shall be vain of any thing, when such a man as Joseph must be content to obtain that by entreaty and permission, which once he could have enjoyed by authority. His pious atten

tion to the dead is now requited by the pious attention of the living. And thus of all the debts contracted by us, none is so certain of being repaid, as the last solemn offices of humanity. Here, we only give and receive a little short credit; and the day of our burial hastens on, with rapid wings, to bring the account to a balance.

Thus lived, and thus died, Joseph the son of Jacob. A man whom all nations and every description of mankind, have united to praise and admire. Whose character and fortunes the pen of inspiration has vouchsafed to delineate with singular accuracy, and with uncommon strength of colouring. Who, in every stage of life, in youth, in manhood, and even to old age, interests, instructs and delights every reader of taste, virtue and sensibility. Who, in adversity, preserved inflexible constancy; and, in elevation next to royalty, adorned his high station by unaffected simplicity, incorruptible integrity, native, unassuming dignity, fervent piety, invariable moderation, and uniform modesty and humility. Who, as a son, a brother, a servant, a father, a master, a ruler, is equally amiable and praiseworthy. Who, to the sagacity of the statesman, added the penetration of the prophet, the firmness of the believer, and the purity of the saint. Who, by the blessing of Providence, was saved through dangers the most threatening, to pity, to forgive, and to preserve those who meant to have destroyed him; and who, in a word, was miraculously raised up of God from an obscure station, to be an instrument of much temporal good to nations; to mature and execute the plans of eternal Wisdom, and to tipify to a dark age, Him who is fairer than the children of men, and through whom all the blessings of nature, of providence and of redemption are communicated to mankind. We cannot therefore, as christians, conclude his history better, than by considering it somewhat more particularly, as a typical representation of the person, the character, the offices, and the work of the Messiah.

We know the generation of Joseph the son of Rachel, and the well beloved of Jacob-but "who shall declare the generation" of the well beloved Son of God, "the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth ?” Early, unambiguous prognostics foretold the future greatness of Joseph. Thus the tongues of a thousand prophets; signs in heaven, and signs in earth; the disposition of angels singly, and of a multitude of the heavenly host together, before and at his birth, conduct the babe of Bethlehem from the manger to the throne. Sonie allegorists, who inquire rather curiously than wisely, have carried the analogy so far as to represent Joseph's coat of many colours, the distinguishing badge of his father's partial affection, as typical of the body prepared for Christ, "curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth." When imagination, unrestrained by reason, and unconducted by scripture, is set to work, any thing may be made to resemble any thing. But if the interests of true piety be promoted, we must give, as we need and expect, much allowance; and so long as a metaphor presumes not to pass for a text or an argument, let metaphorical language be examined with candour, and the bold flights of an honest heart be treated with tenderness and respect. While we thus plead indulgence for others, we are perhaps making an apology that is necessary to ourselves; and far, very far from this place be the vanity of thinking that" surely we are the people, and that wisdom shall die with us." We remarked of Joseph, that in making his observations upon, and in giving the report of his brothers' conduct, a mixture of self sufficiency, malevolence and presumption might possibly insinuate itself; but in the censure and reproof administered by the Brother and Friend of mankind, we always discover unmixed benevolence and gentleness; severity against the offence without acrimony towards the offender; slowness to condemn, readiness to forgive; a disposition to palliate and excuse the worst of crimes, instead of eagerness and zeal to detect, magnify and expose the least. Jacob's affec

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