" Abraham."

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"God did tempt Abraham. The ori

ginal word here is very emphatic. Ve-ha-Elohim "nissah eth Abraham: and the Elohim he tried this “Abraham. God brought him into such circumstances, as exercised and discovered his faith, love and "obedience. Though the word tempt, from tento, signifies no more than to prove or try, yet as it is "now generally used to imply a solicitation to evil, in "which way God never tempts any man; it would "be well to avoid it here." (A. Clarke.) And in correspondency with these several texts, as above explained and commented on, are the words of the kinsman of our Lord, viz. "Let no man (no, not even "Moses nor Abraham, David, nor Nathaniel Em

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mons,) say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of "God; for God cannot be tempted with evil; neither 'tempteth he any man." (James 1, 13.)

Auxiliary text third. Isaiah LXIII, 17. "O Lord why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our hearts from thy fear?" The prophet here speaks not individually, but nationally: Not of punishment in eternity, for necessitated sinfulness in time; but of punishment in this life inflicted on the Jews for their aggravated rebellions against God. In verses 9, 10, he thus speaks concerning the dealings. of God towards that people, and of their ungrateful conduct in return; "In all their affliction he was af"flicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. "In his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and "he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. "But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: there

God

"fore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought "against them." And what the prophet thus described as having been of old; so in verses 17, 18, he accommodated to the sinfulness of the people, and to the providential corrections of his day. "O Lord, "why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and "hardened our hearts from thy fear? Return, for thy "servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. The "people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little "while; our adversaries have trodden down thy sanc "tuary." Nothing, therefore, was further from the prophet's intention, than to accuse God with being the author of their sins, or the actor of their misdeeds. But his object was most manifestly, openly to confess the sinfulness of the nation, and the just judgments of God upon them for their manifold offences. in his holy displeasure had forsaken, and given them up to their own blind counsels, and thereby into the hands of their enemies. And in so doing, he acted not according to Hopkinsianism, but in conformity with his own rule of most righteous retribution, viz. "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy "backslidings shall reprove thee; know, therefore, "and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou "hast forsaken the Lord thy God; and that my fear "is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts." (Jeremiah 11, 19.) This divine method of recompense, whereby wicked men, being abandoned to their own lusts and devices, are thereby made their own most merciless tormenters, is declared, not only by Isaiah, Jeremiah and David, but is also most expressly com

mented on in the new-testament.

St. Paul thus re

marks thereon in Romans x1, 8, 9, 10. "According "as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of "slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears "that they should not hear unto this day. And Dav"id saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, "and a stumbling block, and a recompense unto “them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may "not see, and bow down their back alway." And both Christ and Paul explain Isaiah v1, 9, 10, in precisely the same words. The former, in Matthew XIII, 14, 15, and the latter, in Acts xxvIII, 26, 27. Their words are, "In them is fulfilled the prophesy "of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, "and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, "and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is ઃઃ waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and "their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they "should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, "and should understand with their heart, and should

Truly difand his A

"be converted, and I should heal them." ferent then, is this commentary of Christ postle, from that of Hopkinsianism. For whilst the former ascribe the whole agency of closing their eyes to the corrupt Jews themselves; the latter makes that act, and all their other acts, to be the actions of God himself.

The supposed difficulty in the scripture expressions of God's "hardening hearts from his fear," seems to arise from the mistaken notion of a positive divine influence, and from the gross errour of imagining that

God should corrupt his own creatures.

For God makes no man wicked; but sometimes recompenses those who have made themselves corrupt, by justly abandoning them to the consequences of their own depravity. And "when the subject in question is a

person who has hardened his own heart, by frequently resisting the grace and spirit of God; all "sober christians will agree with St. Augustin, that "God does not harden men, by infusing malice into

them, but by not imparting mercy to them. (And "that) God does not work this hardening of heart in

man, but he may be said to harden him, whom he "refuses to soften, and repel him, whom he refuses to "call." (A. Clarke, on Exodus, iv, 24.)

Lastly. We are now to notice Romans v1, 17; but therewith I shall connect the sixteenth verse, viz. "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves ser"vants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey: "whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto

righteousness. But God be thanked that ye were "the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the "heart, that form of doctrine which was delivered you."

As it was an important fact, and of great notoriety, that numerous, learned, critical and pious commentators had condemned the common reading in this seventeenth verse, as an errour of the translators; it therefore became incumbent on the doctor, to have refuted these objections, before he had pressed it into his service in its present form.

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Gell says of the present reading, that "it was a foul oversight of the translators."* Doddridge renders the text in question, "But thanks be to God, that "whereas ye were the servants of sin, ye have obeyed "from the heart, the model of doctrine into which ye were delivered." And Macknight renders it after this manner; "But thanks to God, that although ye "were the slaves of sin, yet ye have obeyed from the heart, the mould of doctrine into which ye were de"livered." As each of these distinguished criticks, as well as others who might here be cited, thus condemn the present reading of this verse, and consequently condemn the doctor's appropriate use of it: propriety, therefore, demands of him a settlement of this point with these learned commentators. But as it is a question too important for mere verbal and grammatical disquisition, I will, in the mean time, seek the true sense of this disputed text from analogy, or from its due connection with other scriptures.

We find almighty God thus speaking by Jeremiah; "Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the proph

ets, rising early and sending them: saying, oh! do "not the abominable thing that I hate. But they "hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, to turn from "their wickedness." XLIV, 4, 5. Moses informs. us, that "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. "And it repented the Lord, that he made man on