who pray for, and seek to promote "the peace of Jerusalem," shall secure the blessing of Him who says to His chosen nation, "They shall prosper that love thee," Ps. cxxii. 6.

6. The channel of a world-wide blessing-"In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Abraham and his posterity were taken from, and were not to be reckoned among the nations," Num. xxiii. 9. Yet bad all nations of the earth, without being aware of it for centuries, the deepest interest in the fortunes of God's chosen people, for whatever mercies the Creator had in store for an enslaved and afflicted world, they were not to reach it otherwise than through them; and this is the key to all the Divine dispensations with which they have been visited since the call of their forefather Abraham. God had need of them as an exposition of His purposes and plans for the regeneration of mankind at large, and to exemplify those Divine attributes which were peculiarly to be called into exercise in their accomplishment. He has stamped His own image on every page of their history, and to whatever incident in that history we turn, we find it but some new illustration of the character, the office, and the glory of Jehovah Jesus. To the least enlightened perception it must be manifest, that Christ is the end or object of the whole Jewish economy-that from Abraham, who " saw His day and was glad," John viii. 56, to the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem and dispersion of the Jews, "because they knew not the time of their visitation," Luke xix. 44. He was the centre round which all their providences revolved. He was "the first and the last their existence as a people. The great doctrine of justification by faith alone in Him, and its kindred doctrine--election by grace-are written in living and eternal characters on the call of Abraham-" Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness," Gen. xv. 6, Rom. iv. 3. As we proceed further in his history, we shall find that the coming Redeemer was the object of Abraham's faith, and the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah or anointed Deliverer of God's people by those whom He came to save has been the fruitful source of all the cala

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mities which have been visited on them from the day of His first appearance to the present hour. Between those two events there lies a wide field of Christian enquiry and instruction, which is equally demonstrative of the purposes in Christ Jesus which the separation and history of the Israelites were appointed to

serve.

Of Abraham also and his posterity, "as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever," Rom. ix. 5, and He is "a light to lighten the Gentiles," as well as "the glory of God's people Israel," Lu. ii. 32. This fact, in which we have so deep an interest that the promised Messiah should visit the Gentiles with His salvation as well as the Jews-was a mystery to the latter for many ages, and even the Apostles, as we know, for some years after our Lord's ascension, did not receive it; but, blessed be God, that great fact was at length "revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit," namely, "that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel," Eph. iii. 5, 6. To the Jews first, however, He offered Himself, and was by them, as a nation, rejected-"He came to His own, and His own received Him not," John i. 11. Yet during His sojourn on earth did He most consistently restrict His labours and blessings to the children of Abraham, declaring that He was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," Mat. xv. 24. And when He sent out His disciples to preach, He warned them-"Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," Mat. x. 5, 6. This was, however, merely to give God's ancient people the precedence which appeared due to the distinction which He had put upon them, for the Lord Himself afterwards showed, that according to the Scriptures, " Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning" however, He adds, "at Jerusalem," Luke xxiv. 47; and the apostles afterwards well understood this, as we see from what Paul and Barnabas said to the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia, "It was necessary that the word of God should first

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have been spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo,weturn to the Gentiles," Acts xiii. 46. So they turned accordingly. Thus, as St. Paul tells us, "The fall of them was the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles," Rom. xi. 12. In our calculation of the debt of gratitude which we owe to Abraham and his family, we must not omit the fact, that the Church of Christ to which, as believers in Him, we profess to belong, is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Eph. ii. 20—that is, upon their testimony, and they were all of the stock of Israel. Thus, in various points of view, it can be shown, that in Abraham, "all the families of the earth have been blessed."

But the obligation on our part is by no means exhausted. Even now are we Gentiles reaping rich blessings from the testimony borne to the truth of God not only by the Jewish Scriptures, but by the Jewish dispersion. In the face of every Jew we recognise the righteousness and faithfulness of God-righteous in His judgments-faithful to His promises. Israel has indeed become " an astonishment, a proverb, and a bye-word among all nations whither the Lord has led them," Deut. xxviii. 37. Yet has "He made a full end of" many of the nations, (and will soon make an end of all) "whither He has driven them, but He has not made a full end of them," Jer. xlvi. 28. "This is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes," Ps. cxviii. 23. But the time is coming when this long afflicted and despised people will be the channel of still more copious streams of blessing to the nations of the earth. "It shall come to pass in the last day that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it,” Is. ii. 2, That time is yet to come. Israel is the Lord's house, and you and I, brethren, will be entitled to join ourselves to it only in virtue of being Christ's people, that is," Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise," Gal. iii. 29.

LECTURE XII.

ABRAHAM.

STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS.

"So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land; and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.”

"And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. And there was a famine in the land; and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land "—Gen. xii. 4-7, 9, 10. ABRAM "did the will of his heavenly Father," Mat. xxi. 31; for when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, he obeyed, and went out not knowing whither he went," Heb. xi. 8. This, we are told, was the triumph of faith-of faith in the promises of God, based on His 66 eternal purpose which He had purposed in Christ Jesus," Eph. iii. 11. He did not say, "I go, and went not; but the sacred historian, having told us of Jehovah's command to him to remove from his country and kindred to the land that He would shew him, adds, "So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him." No one could more highly appreciate the comforts of home-the attractions of country and kindred-the ties of friendship; but he was told of Jesus and of His coming day: he "saw it with the eye of faith, and rejoiced," John viii. 56. Hence," none

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46

of these earthly things moved him," Acts xx. 24. He was content to suffer the loss of all, and counted them but dung that he might win Christ," Phil. iii. 8. This was the faith which, we are told, was counted to him for righteousness," Rom. iv. 3-not the act of obedience which it produced; but the confidence in God's promises which it evidenced. He believed,

and, therefore, he obeyed. The faith which pleased God, and "without which it is impossible to please Him," Heb. xi. 6, was proved to be genuine because it was fruitful. It was a working, not a speaking faith. God said, Renounce all things which you consider good, and come with me and I will give you what is far better. Abraham might, as many do, have trusted rather to his own eye than to God's word; but he did just the reverse-"He went out" from the things which attracted his natural eye, and reached forth to the offers of Divine love, Phil. iii. 13. In so doing, he "walked by faith and not by sight," 2 Cor. v. 7; and so he came to be called "the friend of God," Jas. ii. 23. And thus, my fellow-sinners, your part and mine in the great salvation provided for a guilty world in the Lord Jesus Christ, depends upon the confidence which we repose in Him who has called us to be saints. The world in which we live is agreeable to our carnal tastes; but He has prepared for us "in heaven a better and an enduring substance," Heb. x. 34. To renounce the one and to pursue the other is His command to us, and our highest interest; but as long as we trust our own senses rather than His promises, we shall not take that step; but this is the proof which God requires of our faith, and of our sense of His love-if we give not this, how can we be children of Abraham, or partakers of that faith and patience by which he and his fellow-saints inherited the promises? Heb. vi. 12: they forsook all and followed Christ, Mat. xix. 27. Shall we cling to the world and give Christ only fair words, and yet expect to share their everlasting portion? The idea is absurd. He says, Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed," 1 Sam. ii. 30.

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Abram had two calls from God before he reached the land of Canaan-one in his native city, "Ur of the