admit this, as a reason why He doth not bless those households that long for, and live upon his grace? This be far from me, as from one whose office it is to vindicate the ways of God to man. Unless indeed it can be shown me, that the burdens of Israel were as bitter as the plagues of Egypt; unless it be proved, (as infidelity may be defied to prove,) that God's chastenings to his children, are as dreadful as his judgments upon the wicked; I will never believe-and not believing, God forbid that I should encourage others to think so unworthily, of Him who is the covenant God of every spiritually praying family, that He does not put a decided difference between those who call upon his name, and glory in his service, and turn away such as in their miserable unbelief, from the obligations of family worship, and condemn not only themselves, but those whose best interests should be bound around their hearts, to the multiplied evils of alienation from God and his salvation. The saint and the sinner, may have the same ingredients to outward sense, wrung into the cup of each; but the difference is immense. The one hath his portion in love, the other in wrath: the Red Sea, the waves of which were the same, did

offices vastly different for Israel and Egypt. It formed a way for Jehovah's ransomed to pass over, and it overwhelmed his enemies in a destruction, from which there was no escape.

The family of Abram was secure from all attempts or devices of the idolatrous Canaanites; for the altar of God was among them; and from its horns, not all the might and enmity of the land could drag them. While the tribes of Israel went to their worship in the holy city at the appointed feasts, Jehovah drew a wall, as of fire, around the land; and no enemy was ever known to cross its borders. It will be ever thus in those families where the Redeemer is loved, honoured, and served by its members, not only as individuals, but as households. Their enemies, and Satan the chief of all their foes, may go round the battlements seeking entrance, to devour and to destroy; but the mountain on which they stand, the mountain on which their houses stand, the everlasting hill of divine love, is full round about, and shining, (as the eye of faith's assurance can discover,) with horses and chariots of fire from the Lord, their shelter and defence.

I close this subject for the present, with one word of remembrance. In the very place, even

in Bethel, where, probably, Abram built his altar, or at least very near to it, God afterwards appeared to Jacob in his hour of sorrow and temporal destitution. There did Jehovah renew the covenant with this saint of his church; there cheer his soul; and there promise never to leave him, never to forsake him. Bear this gracious history upon your hearts, ye who are anxious that your houses should be among those where the name of the Lord is invoked. Your family altar may be a blessing, an unspeakable, an inconceivable blessing to your children's children, when your bones are mingled with the clods of the valley. As Jacob, speaking of God, calls Him The fear of his father Isaac, so may those who shall come forth from your loins, rise up to call your memory blessed; and looking to the Eternal Three, to the saving knowledge of whom, in Christ, you may have instrumentally led them, may say, "He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation; my Father's God, and I will exalt Him."

SERMON XIII.

THE MORE REMOTE INFLUENCE OF FAMILY

RELIGION.

GENESIS XII. 7, 8.

THERE BUILDED HE AN ALTAR UNTO THE LORD, WHO APPEARED UNTO HIM. AND HE REMOVED FROM THENCE UNTO A MOUNTAIN ON THE EAST OF BETHEL, AND PITCHED HIS TENT, HAVING BETHEL ON THE WEST, AND HAI ON THE EAST; AND THERE HE BUILDED AN ALTAR UNTO THE LORD, AND CALLED UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD.

WHEN a country is overspread by enemies, who have taken possession of the greater portion of its surface, and are doing it mischief at their pleasure, those fortresses and strong holds which still resist, are peculiarly important. They not only protect the brave and loyal men whom their walls contain, but serve also as refuges and rallying points to those who would escape the common bondage, and make war against their enemy, under the banner of their lawful sovereign. Such a castle is every holy

example, in the midst of that spiritual tyranny, with which Satan has subdued the world. The Christian lives at peace in the high tower of his salvation, Jesus Christ. "When the enemy

cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him,1 for the protection of holy believers; and they are as cities set on a hill, which cannot be hid, to discover, whither all may flee, and where all may be happy in the same Almighty refuge. It was thus with Abram, in the land of Canaan. The altar, which was to him as the Shekinah of the God of the altar, was the defence of his tent, and of those whom it contained. That altar

served, moreover, as a beacon in the midst of the dark and destructive sea of idolatry, which had overflowed the country of promise. If the power of divine grace should influence any of the people to flee from wrath, and join the people of the God of Abram, the altar directed them whither to go, and what to do. Nor can it be known, until the world's whole history shall be fully disclosed, in the awful valley of final and unchangeable decision, how many idolaters in Canaan were saved from the wrath to come, by the influence of Abram's altar, and

1 Isaiah lix. 19.