rished, and the importance of his coming to be better understood, are obvious from the great care observed with respect to the rite of marriage. The prevalence of idolatry rendered it difficult to contract an union with a family which had not apostatised from the true faith, and hence, probably, Abraham had been led to form an alliance with a member of his father's house. It is certain that he was extremely particular in his charge to his steward to fetch a wife for his son from the same place, and so much did he dread a connection of this kind with the families of Canaan, that he exacted an oath of him, not to suffer so unhallowed a mixture. If we bear in mind the object of God in the call of Abraham, namely, to separate a people to himself who should preserve the divine Oracles from idolatrous contagion, and be the depositary of the hope of the world in a future deliverer, then the patriarch's anxiety respecting his son's marriage will become natural, and evince the piety of a devout mind.

The blessing of Abraham was transferred to Isaac as his rightful heir, and was confirmed to him by the Lord himself, who appeared to Isaac in the land of the Philistines, and declared to him, that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed. Isaac had two sons, twins, and as it might be doubtful which of the two should inherit the blessing, God chose the younger for the line of the Messiah. Though this son, by a stratagem which none can commend, outwitted his brother, and stole

his father's blessing, yet God, for reasons which it would be tedious to mention here, acquiesced in what was done, and ratified the act. "Yea, and he shall be blessed." Jacob's life was one of the most varied and eventful of all the post-diluvian patriarchs. It was a life subject to those great vicissitudes which naturally awaken in religious minds an ardent sense of piety, and call forth frequent expressions of trust and confidence in God. On his departure from home, Isaac solemnly enjoined him, as he had himself been enjoined before, to seek no affinity with the daughters of Canaan, but to form an alliance, as himself and Abraham had done, from a righteous source; and this is the more observable here, because Esau, who was rejected from the Covenant of promise, had followed a contrary course, and was, in consequence, blamed.

The blessing of Abraham and of Isaac descended to Jacob and his seed, and was solemnly assured to him, as it had been to his fathers, by the voice and presence of the Lord.

Hitherto the line of the Messiah was with less difficulty distinguished, because the rightful inheritors of the blessing were few in number. But Jacob had twelve sons. It became necessary, therefore, to announce, in a public manner, from which of these the Redeemer was to spring. Jacob, then, lying on his death-bed, summons his twelve sons before him, and guided by the Spirit of prophecy, which, in times past, spake unto the fathers, declared the future fortunes of every one of these. Beginning

with Reuben, the first-born, who had defiled his father's bed, and thereby forfeited the honour due to primogeniture, then passing on Simeon and Levi, the two next in descent, who, in vindication of their sister's honour, had cruelly and treacherously, in the face of a solemn treaty, murdered a whole city, and shown themselves unworthy of any family preference, he comes to Judah, on whom he pronounces the divine blessing, as standing first for distinction after the three elder rejected sons. "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." This remarkable prophecy of Jacob confines the line of the Redeemer's descent to one tribe out of the twelve, and calls him by a name, which both marks the commission he should bear, and expresses a clear apprehension of his character and object. The venerable patriarch who spake this prophecy, and the members of his family who stood around him and heard it, could not but know that it referred to a person who was not then first announced to them, but of whose history they had all their lives long been informed, and of whose coming, and of the object of it, they must have very frequently and seriously discoursed.

Judah's posterity was afterwards erected into a kingdom, and a long succession of monarchs swayed

the sceptre of that numerous and favoured race. It still remained, therefore, for the Spirit of prophecy to declare, from which of the families of this powerful tribe, the Redeemer should take his rise. Of all her kings the most eminent was the son of Jesse, who, for his unshaken steadfastness to the true faith amid the general corruption of the world, and for his great qualities as a public officer, was styled, by way of preference, "the man after God's own heart." For him this high honour, of having the Redeemer to spring from his family, was reserved. "The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne." This is called by Isaiah, "the sure mercies of David;" and is that prophecy which is over and over alluded to by the Prophets and inspired penmen, as descriptive of Christ. Hence it was, that, in our Saviour's time, the well-known title of "the Son of David" was applied to him, and the distinguishing characteristic of Messiah, by which he should become known, was, his being a descendant of that famous prince.

Now, the birth of Jesus was in exact accordance with this expectation. His reputed father was a lineal descendant of the Jewish monarch, and his pedigree is drawn out, with much accuracy, by the Evangelist St. Matthew, who begins his history with this remarkable preface, "The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham." But as Jesus was not literally the Son of Joseph, being born of a pure virgin, St. Luke

gives, (it is supposed,) the pedigree by the female line, and traces up the genealogy by Mary his mother to Jesse, the father of David, to Abraham, to Adam, and to God. Thus both lines establish, for the most part, the same descent, and prove the genuineness of our Lord's origin, and the truth of Scripture prophecy; and nothing can corroborate more fully the promise of God to our first parents in respect of a Deliverer, nor define, more exactly, the precise and literal meaning of his words, than Jesus becoming the offspring of a virgin only. As the woman was the first in the transgression, she was the first in bringing deliverance from it,—a gracious kindness in God, because it took away from man all ground for reproach. That the Redeemer should be born of a virgin, was not indeed in the contemplation of mankind before the prophet Isaiah had declared it, nor, perhaps, even after that, was it clearly understood. But we see from first to last, how merciful a provision was made in the first promise in Paradise after the fall, for keeping alive the hopes and expectations of mankind, under all their sorrows, and amid all their backslidings and degeneracy; and how natural it was for every woman, who had heard of and believed in this promise, to hope to become instrumental towards its accomplishment. Thus the expectation of a Redeemer's advent, and the desire of giving birth to him, account to us for the many strange occurrences recorded in Scripture; for the unnatural conduct of Lot's daughters; for the anxiety manifested by the wives of the patri