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SERMON XXII.

GENESIS xlix. 18.

I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.

THESE words were spoken by good Jacob on his death-bed, in the midst of the blessings which he pronounced to his sons by the spirit of prophecy. Just between the blessings of his two sons Dan and Gad, the words of the text are introduced: "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord."

I shall not quote any thing that precedes or follows. There seems no connection; nor can I conceive any consistent meaning to be made of the words in that view. The plain and natural sense of the text, the sense which obviously offers itself to the mind at first reading, is that which I should prefer; and the rather, as whatever other

particular meanings may be supposed to be couched in the words, they must be included in this principal sense. What this sense is, no person can doubt, who is in the serious habit of attending to the spiritual meaning of his Bible, and is so enlightened as not to overlook that meaning which pervades almost every part of the Old and New Testament. The "salvation" of the Lord, in the general use of these scriptural terms, respects the safety and happiness of man, and his deliverance from sin and pain and misery; not merely as he is a partaker of a troublesome fragment of existence in this life, but as a candidate for a glorious immortality in the world to come. Is it likely, then, that holy Jacob, at the hour of death, could mention salvation with any other idea than this? Surely the mind of the dying patriarch was deeply impressed with affecting sentiments of his just God and gracious Redeemer; was filled with a sense of Divine things, of the heaven that awaited him, and of the glorious change which would shortly take place. This must have been the case with Jacob. He was in the full use of his intellectual powers; he spake this whole chapter by the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit. It could

not have been otherwise; for, whatever doubts some may entertain concerning the distinctness of the Gospel views of the worthies of the Old Testament, we have an authority not to be questioned that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchal saints, "desired a better country, that is, a heavenly" country; and that they waited in faith and patience for the fulfilment of the promises.

Jacob, then, seems to have interrupted his discourse with this solemn reflection, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" As if he had said, "Since I was brought to the knowledge of Thee, the true God, I have waited for the enjoyment of thy salvation. Thou hast hitherto supported me by the earnests and first-fruits of it; and I am waiting for its full consummation. The time is near, O Lord: I am expecting soon to be with thee! A little longer, a few moments longer, I beg Thy supporting hand, to conduct me safely through this dreary scene of death, and land me at the haven of bliss and immortality."

Happy they who, like Jacob, in the hour of death, in the extremity of their need, can look up to a God in heaven, and commend their souls into

his hands!-But, remember, it is "through much tribulation" that we must enter into the kingdom of God. Those who would die with Jacob's comfort, must become acquainted with the God of the Scriptures, and be converted to him and his ways like little children, that they may live as Jacob did.

The holy Bible abounds with opposite examples, recorded no doubt for our instruction, that we may profit by them, and learn to eschew the evil and follow the good. The stories of Cain, of king Ahab, of king Saul, of the traitor Judas, and of many others, furnish instances of the progress of vice and its miserable termination: and, on the other hand, the eleventh chapter to the Hebrews, to which I have just alluded, presents us with a cloud of witnesses, who were all faithful servants of God, and looked forward to a heavenly country, and to "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

To wait in faith and patience for God's salvation, is the peculiar character of holy men and servants of the Most High. These have been brought to see that of themselves they are in a lost and helpless state; and with the eyes of a

spiritual understanding they discern the salvation of God. It makes no essential difference in the spirit of a true servant of God, whether, like Jacob, living before the Son of God had appeared in the flesh, he puts his whole trust in the Shiloh that was to come; or, like St. Paul, he lives by the faith of that Jesus who had then been crucified, and commits his soul to be kept till the great day. In both cases the temper is precisely the same. In all cases where the new creature in Christ Jesus is manifest, the man is weaned from all confidence in human help, and looks up to that salvation which alone is adequate to all his wants; and though it may tarry, with regard to the manifestation of it to his mind in general, and much more with regard to its affording of particular reliefs that are much desired on certain occasions, he nevertheless "waits for it," because "it surely will come, it will not tarry." Further: the man knows that salvation belongeth to the Lord: it is his gift; the effect of his free bounty. He can claim no part of it on the score of debt, but relies entirely on the promise: he is humbled to disclaim any share of merit in procuring the promise: and therefore he tarries the Lord's leisure in