the more attentively we consider this trial, the harder it will appear.

The case was this: God had appeared to Abraham under the Oaks of Mamre, and, with all the solemnity of a divine exhibition, had assured him that Sarah, who till that time had been barren, and was now very far advanced in years, should bring forth a son. In this son, all the nations of the Earth were to be blessed his posterity was to be as innumerable as the stars of Heaven, and as the sand upon the sea-shore: which promise, according to St. Paul's application of it, was originally so expressed, as to include the person of the expected Messiah, that promised seed, who in the latter days was actually born of the family of Abraham.

The circumstance on which all these great things depended, did accordingly come to pass. Sarah brought forth her son Isaac, who grew up towards manhood, while his parents were happy under a 'persuasion, that in him all the promises of God would in due time be accomplished.

Things being thus disposed, the Angel of the Lord appears to Abraham, and commands him to offer his son for a burnt offering: an action shocking in itself, and apparently

much

much worse in its consequences. For the promise of a blessing, as wide as the whole world, depended on the life of Isaac; and if we suppose him changed into a burntoffering, how is the truth of God to be justified? How is the Messiah to be born? How is the world to be redeemed? These are queries which obtrude themselves with some clamour, and are very hard to be answered.

But let us not be discouraged. The subject will soon wear a better face for if we view this transaction, with its motives, circumstances, issues, and prophetical signatures, (all of which must be taken into the account) we shall not only see the truth and justice of God acquitted, but shall understand the whole as an additional argument of the divine wisdom and mercy. In the prosecution of this enquiry, our first step must be to ask, with what design God commanded Abraham to offer up his son?

V. After the flood, the church and the true religion were continued in the family of Shem for in the other sons of Noah, particularly in Ham, the same principles of infidelity which had corrupted the old world, began to work afresh in the new: so that at

the

The

the expiration of the first century after the 1 flood (if we take the naming of Peleg as a memorial of the transaction) a scheme of. apostacy was set on foot at Babel, or, as the Greek version calls it, Babylon. That there was a change in religion at the time of the dispersion from Babel is highly probable on all accounts: and the Scripture seems to contain some evident marks of such an event. denomination of the children of Heber, or Hebrews, as distinguishing the true believers from the Gentiles, and which took place at this time, is one mark of it. A second is the character we have of Babylon in the Revelation of St. John; for it could not properly be assumed to denote a mother of religious abominations in the mystical sense, unless itself had originally been such in the literal.

A

third, and a plainer mark than either of the foregoing, is the fact; that from this time we cannot with certainty find any religion amongst the descendants of Ham and Japheth, but that of idolatry.

From the time of the dispersion at Babel, two parts of the world out of three were gone off to heathenism: and as falsehood is more. alluring than truth, and generally more successful in its zeal, through the corruption it

has to work upon, idolatry would soon gather. many proselytes from the posterity of Heber. Such was the rapidity of its progress, that in less than three hundred years from the flood, the Progenitors of Abraham were infected with this growing evil, and are said to have served other Gods.

The divine mercy therefore, having regard to the succeeding generations, judged it necessary to separate from the world some one individual of the children of Heber, for the preservation of the faith and the practice of true religion; both of which were now like to be extirpated by the prevailing influence of idolatry.

VI. Abraham was the person selected of God for this purpose. He was called to be the father of the church of the Hebrews, and of that promised seed which was to bruise the head of the Serpent. But as faith and righteousness are the marks which have always distinguished the members of the church from the children of this world, it was expedient that the person, so called of God, should be eminent as an example of both to all his posterity. With this view divine

providence was training him up, under the severe discipline of a long and solemn probation. For though he is able to search the heart, and read all the secrets of it, he requires nevertheless, that the inward state of the mind should always be made manifest by some outward acts, for the perfecting of his saints, and for an example to those who come after. Abraham is supposed to have believed in the true God from the beginning: and faith is an excellent virtue, without which no other virtue can stand, and upon which every other may be built. Yet the only acceptable faith, is that which worketh by love. Some men may think well; some may speak well; and others may both think and speak as their duty requires: yet they may easily fail when their thoughts and their words are to be reduced to action. This is the surest trial of their sincerity and if the heart of man may so far impose upon itself as to think its attainments higher than they are, some fact is necessary to convince it of its mistake, and thereby lead it forward to greater degrees of perfection.

VII. On this consideration, as well as on some others, it was necessary that the facts of of Abraham's life should agree with the profession

VOL. III.

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