(1.) Here was a danger about to be encountered without God. He had been left behind.

(2.) Here was a resource sought against the danger, but not in or from Him who could infallibly supply it. (3.) Here is an artifice suggested to the mind of the patriarch which at once decides that that mind was not just then under the guidance of the Holy One.

(4.) And here was a lesson of falsehood and imposition inculcated to the mind of Sarai by him who ought to have been her guide and director only into the paths of righteousness and truth.

4. Abram's fears are fully realized on their arrival in Egypt. Sarai is seen and admired, and according to the licentious custom of such a country, she is, on the commendation of the Egyptian princes, taken into the king's house, with the view of being added to the number of his wives, How inconceivably painful must such an occurrence have been to the hearts of this attached pair. They were thus torn asunder, it might be for ever, and owing to the vigilance with which females, under such circumstances, are guarded, all means of communicating with each other were cut off. Abram must now have discovered how much better it would have been for him and his family to fall into the hands of the Lord in Canaan, than into the hands of man in Egypt, see 2 Sam. xxiv. 14, and he must bitterly have repented that he had consulted his own judgment and not asked counsel at the mouth of the Lord, Josh. ix. 14. He was now utterly helpless, and must have been, as far as he himself was concerned, utterly hopeless. He durst not expose his own falsehood, and declare that Sarai was his wife. Who would now believe him? He would only have degraded himself in the eyes of the Egyptians, without mending his case. Such is one of the direct effects of turning out of the obvious paths of rectitude. And Sarai, too, what must she not have suffered? but she had participated in her husband's sin, and deserved to share his punishment. A wife should obey her husband indeed, but only in the Lord: she that did more than this was made amenable to the justice of an offended God.

5. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, entreated Abram well for Sarai's sake, enriching him with "sheep, and oxen,

and horses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses and camels," v. 16, conceiving her to be his sister. This, to a mind like his, must have been very painful: every addition made to his flock or to his household, by the liberality of the monarch, reminded him of his duplicity, and must have appeared to him, as it really was, the wages of imposture. That he did not feel himself impelled to go to the man whom he was deceiving, and confess his fault is truly surprising, only that the longer confession was deferred, and the more of the king's property Abram had accepted on the false representation made, the more flagrant the deception would appear, and therefore the more reluctant Abram was to encounter the indignation of the king and his people. Well has it been said that the way of sin is down-hill-one false step induces many more. Falsehood is of Satan, and they who commit it enlist themselves in his service, and no fear but he will find them full employment.

6. If God had not graciously interposed in behalf of His fallen servant, who can tell what Abram's lot would have been? He might have become rich and great in Egypt-that is, if he had flagitiously connived. at the dishonour of his wife; and who would undertake to say, that to a heart hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and gradually corrupted with riches and the favours of royalty, such depravity was impossible? Without the constraining grace of God, no extremity of wickedness or impiety is impossible to fallen man; and this is just the lesson which a wise Father was now conveying to Abram, and through Abram to us.

Jehovah, by great plagues upon Pharaoh and his house, makes him aware that, by retaining Sarai, he is coming in collision with a God of righteousness and judgment, whose purposes he is seeking, however unwittingly, to frustrate. The Lord's people, though erring, are still precious in His sight-" He will suffer no man to do them wrong, He will reprove even kings for their sakes," 1 Chron. xvi. 21. Who would not be a child of God; for "this honour have all his saints," Ps. cxlix. 9.

7. The heathen king takes the believing patriarch to task for his dishonesty. How must the father of

the faithful have stood abashed before the man whom he had so grievously deceived and injured, and whom, as he now learns, he had nearly betrayed into a fearful crime? "Why saidst thou, She is my sister, so I might have taken her to me to wife," so that if the crime had been committed, Abram, by his crooked policy, would have been the author of it. Ah! how precious is the counsel, Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Is. ii. 22. The man who was called the friend of God, can only exemplify the "exceeding grace of God," 2 Cor. ix. 14, in his own case, and encourage us to seek it for ourselves. We must

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neither exalt him as our head, nor follow him as our guide, while we adore his God and ours for his place in the Church as a special monument of electing love. Let us rejoice that the headship of the Christian Church belongs to Jesus, who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens," Heb. vii. 26, and that the righteousness accounted or imputed to Abram, is offered from the same Divine Fountain to us, and we may appropriate it to ourselves by the same faith which conveyed it to him.

Abram was allowed to go down into Egypt, no doubt that he might there be instructed in selfknowledge, and be the better prepared for those further tokens of Almighty love which he was to receive. The remarkable parallelism between this part of his history and that of his descendants the Israelites, is worthy of our attention. It often happens to God's children now, that they are suffered to identify themselves again with the world, that they may be driven back, wounded and self-condemned, to the arms of a long-suffering Father.

LECTURE XIII.

ABRAHAM.

THE INHERITANCE.

"And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee"—Gen. xiii. 14-17.

as it

AN unbecoming fear of temporal want and present inconvenience drove Abram from the land of promise, and, as it were, from the presence of the Lord, into Egypt, a land of idolatry, and, consequently, of great corruption of manners; but he found no rest there: from the day of his arrival to that of his departure, he seems to have been reminded by anguish of heart that he had taken a false step. He was a child of God, and cannot be suffered with impunity to throw discredit on His parental love. Being expelled, were, from Egypt, with some loss of character, although with a large increase of worldly substance, and, we may hope, of heavenly wisdom, he feels his heart yearning after renewed intercourse with God. The hidings of a Father's countenance constitute the severest chastisement which He can inflict on His children's wanderings. Abram, full of riches, feels empty without the presence of Jehovah, and no sooner does he escape from Egypt than he hastens to Bethel"unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there Abram called on the name of

the Lord," v. 3, 4. How inconceivably sweet must have been this first act of worship after the return of the exile to the place of his past spiritual privileges and enjoyments. He knew now what it was to be deprived of them-"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panted his soul after God," Ps. xlii. 1, and he now drinks from the "Fountain of living waters," Jer. ii. 13, with an avidity and a relish which none can know but those who have been similarly circumstanced.

Ah! how little can they understand of what is truly satisfying amidst the ruins of a dismantled world, who carelessly abandon a land of churches, bibles, and family altars-the precious tokens of a Saviour's presence-for some far-off settlement, where the sound of "the church-going bell" is never heard-where no messenger of heavenly peace has yet found his way, and no Sabbath sanctifies the week of toil. They have perchance never enquired whether any provision for their souls was to be found there, quite contented with learning that it is "a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vine and figtrees and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive, and honey, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills they may dig brass," Deut. viii. 7-9, or perhaps gold, and therefore, a land suited to the indulgence of their carnal longings, however deficient it may be in those tokens of a Saviour God's presence, upon which their spiritual health and a provision for their everlasting future depends. Can any who call themselves members of the family of God become emigrants under such circumstances? They may; but if they are truly what they profess to be, they will be dealt with as Abram was: "the heaven over their heads," however sunny and beautiful to the eye of sense, "shall be brass," and the earth that is under them, "though genial and exuberant beyond their most sanguine expectations," shall be iron;" and though "the early and the latter rain" should be supplied with all regularity and the most fertilizing effect, "the Lord shall make the rain of their land powder and dust," Deut. xxviii. 24— that is, none of these advantages will enjoy "the blessing that maketh rich," Prov. x. 22; the possession of them