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totypes, Lachmann, &c. But we must apprise all students that
if they desire to know and examine the basis on which the
text is formed, (i.e. the readings of MSS. versions and Fathers.)
they will not find them here. By far the best critical help to
such readers is the seventh edition of Tishendorf's Greek Testa-
ment, now in course of publication at Leipsic. We have received
the first two parts, which carry one as far as Mark x, and can
assure enquirers that Tishendorf's former editions were not more
preferable to most of his rivals, than his new recension is to
all its predecessors. One very satisfactory result is, that this
latest edition returns, in more than one hundred places in St.
Matthew alone, to the received text, which the learned Professor
We hope that this fact
had abandoned in his earlier efforts.
may not be lost upon an editor, whose recent writings lead us
to fear dreadful havoc in this respect. It is Griesbach whose
research and acumen have laid down the grand outlines of a
revised text, though no doubt he has fallen into errors here and
there, and others may correct him in details. The main
desideratum, as to the letter, is a better knowledge of the famous
Vatican MSS. B.

Hegelian philosophy, where it has penetrated the mass of sacraments. Such are the means whereby our author hopes to the people, have been just as fearful and baneful. regenerate Germany, and to maintain the authority of God's "The third point in which this modern philosophy coin- word. We need scarce add that the failure is complete, as far cides with Hinduism is the distinct denial of a personal as interpretation goes, though the integrity of the text is sus existence after death. What an arrogance, what a selfish-tained far more than in Mr. Alford's edition, or his German proness and pride of men, they exclaim, of worms of the dust, to claim a personal existence after death! As one drop of water loses its separate existence when falling into the ocean, so man, when dying, loses his personality in God. And what is the consequence of such a system as Pantheism? The complete degradation, the extreme ignorance and excessive misery of the lower classes of Germany, only lately brought to light by the efforts of the Home Mission, are more or less the consequences of a godless education, and of practical Pantheism..... Yea, the disciples of Hegel go even so far as to say, that Christianity has brought extreme woe over mankind, by oppressing the flesh, and that they desire to reinstate it in its rights! Woe unto them,' the Bible says, 'that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.' Fearful in the extreme are the consequences of such a system, openly taught and widely spread. The fruits are described by the apostle Paul, in the latter part of the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. Are we wrong, are we too severe, when we call such a system diabolical, satanical? Education without christian principles and opposed to the Bible, cannot but do incalculable injury and great harm. The natives in this country, without education, are little elevated above animal existence. Train them up in all arts and sciences, products of Christianity, without giving them the Bible, the word of God, without implanting christian principles, and you will train them to be enemies of God and man. The Hegelian philosophy shows us that the human mind under the most favourable circumstances, under the highest mental training and culture, when not influenced by the word [and Spirit] of God, cannot advance a step towards obtaining truth, but must fall into the most dangerous errors, which again lead to a most immoral life and to vicious practices." (Cited, with omissions, from Dr. Prochnow, in News of the Churches.)

Our Study.

The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the original Greek, with Notes. By Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of Westminster. Part I.-the Four Gospels. London: Rivingtons, 1856. Preface, &c., pp. lii; pp. 287, 4to. Dr. W. states that this work is the result of a design formed many years ago, and suggested, both by the existing greater privileges which the age enjoys for the elucidation of scripture, and by the growing evils of the day also. "If Christendom has had her Masora from Germany, she has had also her Cabbala.” (p. vi.)

"There

is scarcely any error, however puerile or preposterous, which may not find its advocates among persons enjoying high literary and scientific advantages for the interpretation of the New Testa ment, and be gravely propounded by them, with an air of superior intelligence, as a true exposition, to be received by the world in the place of ancient interpretations of holy writ." (p. vii.) "These evils are not confined to the range of exposition; they menace scripture itself. There is scarcely any portion of the New Testament whose inspiration, genuineness, or veracity, has not been impugned by some one or more of these biblical critics. Some would expunge this portion of the sacred canon, some would cancel that, till at last, if they are to be indulged in their arbitrary caprices, Christendom would hardly be permitted to possess a fragment of the documents of Christ." (viii.) But if Dr. W, is thus shown to be in some degree alive to the perils of these last days, what shall we say of his remedies? A return to the general consent of ancient Christendom, (i.e. of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries more particularly,) and a fuller owning of ministry in due apostolic succession and administration of the

A Premillennial Manual. By the Rev. John Cox, author of, &c. (London : Nisbet & Co., Ward & Co. "My object," says the author, "in writing and compiling has been to suit various classes. Those who are enquiring respecting prophetic truth may find some directions. Those who are called to answer objections, may, for those who have long studied the subject; this I have not perhaps, gather a little assistance. There is not much teaching aimed at.... the work is of a very miscellaneous character, and is intended to be a companion in a quiet hour of retirement; in a solitary walk; or during a season of affliction." The truth is that the author is not acquainted with prophetic truth beyond the rudiments. Anything beyond the borderland seems to him of doubtful character. Nevertheless, as his style is plain and perspicuous, and as his matter is of the easiest digestion, we trust that this little work may be useful for beginners. It gives some instruction as regards the general truth of the Lord's coming and kingdom; but there is no light thrown upon the distinction between the heavenly and the earthly aspect of that coming, which is indispensable for all who desire to make progress.

Also,

The Monthly Christian Spectator, for Nov., 1856. The Ethics of Quotation, with a Preliminary Letter. By Silent Long. Songs Controversial, by the same. (London: Freeman, 1856.) As long as Mr. Lynch, however guilty, was the assailed, his silence had an air of dignity which contrasted favourably with the coarse vehemence of more than one assailant. But he has now spoken at length in the "Christian Spectator." A more suicidal defence cannot be conceived. If he suppressed truth and broached heresy before, he exhibits now levity, ribaldry, and malice beyond all the others. If the tracts by "Silent Long" be his, self-idolatry is his also without measure.

Postscript to our Readers, Contributors and Correspondents.

Professor Wallace has retired from the editorship of the Bible Treasury. He, to whose hands the control of the work is now entrusted, has no desire to mention or to conceal his name, feeling deeply that the Lord alone can guide the writers and the readers for His own glory. If the work speak aright for Christ, we have solid ground to expect that it will find favour among those who love Him: if it prove savourless, we dare not wish it to be welcome, but rather to be cast out and trodden under foot. He asks the prayers of all God's people who may take it up, that grace and wisdom from above may be amply vouchsafed to all concerned,-readers, contributors, proprietor, and editor.

In answer to several enquiries, the publisher begs to announce that Parts I and II of the BIBLE TREASURY (consisting of Four Nos. each, in a neat wrapper) are now ready, price one shilling each part, which will be sent post free to any address on the receipt of twelve stamps. It is proposed to continue close of the present year, with the usual title-page, indices, &c. the issue of shilling parts at regular intervals, and to conclude Vol. I at the

No MSS. are returned unless by special request, and stamps sufficient to cover the expense of postage be sent at the same time.

All communications and books for review to be sent addressed to the

EDITOR OF THE BIBLE TREASURY, care of D. F. Oakey, 10, Paternoster Row, to whom all advertisements should be sent.

Reviews.

THE TYPES OF SCRIPTURE.*

No. III.-TYPICAL PERSONS AND THINGS IN THE
BOOK OF GENESIS.

self is a striking type of the state of the Jews. In these two chapters, (Gen. iii, iv,) we have sin in all its forms, as a picture set before us in Adam's and Cain's conduct: sin in its proper original character against God, and then more particularly against Christ in figure, with its present consequences set forth as regards the earth.... In the history of Dr. FAIRBAIRN devotes chapter vi to "typical things Lamech we have, on man's part, self-will in lust, (he in history, during the progress of the first dispensa-had two wives,) and vengeance in self-defence; but I tion." The chapter, as long as it is varied, he subdi-apprehend an intimation in God's judgment that, as vides into six sections, as follows: 1, the seed of Cain was the preserved though punished Jew, his pospromise-Abel, Enoch; 2, Noah and the Deluge; terity at the end (before the heir was raised up, and 3, the new world and its inheritors, the men of faith; men called on Jehovah in the earth) would be seven4, the change in the divine call from the general to fold watched over of God. Lamech acknowledges he the particular-Shem, Abraham; 5, the subjects and had slain to his hurt, but shall be avenged. In the channels of blessing-Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and second chapter, then, we have man in the order of the twelve patriarchs; and 6, the inheritance destined created blessing. In the third, man's fall from God, for the heirs of blessing. We think that our author by which his intercourse with God on this ground is is not a whit more successful in tracing these sha- foreclosed. In the fourth his wickedness in condows of an auxiliary and supplemental character than nexion with grace, in the evil state resulting from we have found him in treating of the grand primary the fall. Driven from the presence of God, Cain and symbolical facts. Thus he considers that through Abel knowledge the enjoyments of life, temporal consolation, and tries seeks, in the importance of his family, in the arts and was imparted, especially in regard to "the principle to render the world, where God had sent him forth a of election, which was to prevail in the actual fulfil- vagabond, as agreeable an abode as possible, far from ment of the original promise." Now we do not doubt God. Sin has here the character of forgetfulness of that the names, given to Cain and Abel respectively, do indicate the hasty hopes, and perhaps the subsequent disappointment of Eve; as the name of Seth not obscurely bespeaks her confidence in God and His purpose, spite of her past mournful experience. Neither do we question that in the Cainites, as compared with the line that followed, we have the children of the world and the men of faith. But this principle of election is equally and even more strikingly true, when we come to the history of Ishmael and Isaac, of Esau and Jacob, not to speak of Abraham himself, the conspicuous example of a man chosen, called, and faithful. All the emphasis of italics fails: Dr. F. states merely what is common, instead of drawing the distinctive lesson.

We

all that had passed in the history of man; of hatred
against grace and against him who was the object and
vessel of it; of pride and indifference; and then
despair, which seeks comfort in worldliness.
have also the man of grace (Abel, type of Christ and
them that are His) rejected and left without heritage
here below; man, his enemy, judged and abandoned
to himself; and another (Seth) the object of the
counsels of God, who becomes heir of the world on
the part of God. We must remember, however, that
they are only figures of these things, and that, in the
antitype, the man who is heir of all is the same as He
who had been put to death."

As to Enoch and Noah, Dr. F. is just as vague as usual. "Enoch, as being the most distinguished memHow much more masterly is the sketch given in the ber of the seed of blessing, in its earlier division, and Synopsis. (pp. 15-17.) "Abel comes as guilty, and the most honoured heir of that life which comes (unable as he is to draw near to God) setting the death through the righteousness of faith, is undoubtedly to of another between himself and God, recognizes the be viewed as a type of Christ." (p. 278.) Why and in judgment of sin—has faith in expiation. Cain, la- what respects he is so to be regarded does not appear, bouring honestly where God had set him to do so, ex-save in a mere amplification of what is here cited; and ternally worshipper of the true God, has not the con- that is evidently rather the characteristic of Christians science of sin; he brings the fruits which are signs of than of Christ. Nor indeed have we any doubt that the curse-proof of the complete blinding of the heart, such is the true reference: for Enoch aptly sets forth and hardening of the conscience of a sinful race, driven out from God. He supposes that all is well: why should not God receive him? Thus is brought in, not only sin against God, which Adam had fully wrought, but against one's very neighbour, as it has been displayed in the case of Jesus; and Cain him

The Typology of Scripture: viewed in connexion with the entire scheme of the Divine Dispensations. By Patrick Fairbairn, Professor of Divinity, Free Church College, Aberdeen. Second Edition, much enlarged and improved, vols. i, ii. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1854. 2 The Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, vol i, Genesis to 2 Chronicles. London: T. H. Gregg, 24, Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

No. 9. Vol. I.-February 1, 1857.

the proper testimony and portion of the Church, as
Noah strikingly represents the place of the Jewish
people. The one bears witness beforehand to others
of the Lord's coming in judgment, and is himself
caught up previously, to be with Him in heaven; the
other, a "preacher of righteousness," is preserved
through the divine judgments to begin the new world's
But the au-
history, governing in the name of God,
thor's system precludes his understanding these truths,
and consequently blinds him to their foreshadowings.
There are more than doubtful speculations in these

sections, but we cannot occupy ourselves with dis- conquered. Another branch of this family is marked cussing them. Noah was the chief of a state of things as forming the races in possession of the inheritance where evil existed, but was restrained by authority destined of God for His people. Shem comes last: committed to man by God; where sacrifice was the the father of Hebrews, the brother of him who has basis, and the rainbow was the sign of divine for- long despised him as possessed of an elder brother's bearance, an express covenant being made that no title. flood should again destroy all flesh upon the earth. "Such is the general result in the peopling of the Equally indistinct is the sketch, in section 4, of the world under God's ordering. The way was this. time and persons subsequent to the deluge. As to Man sought to make a centre for himself. . . . . Will this we must again draw on the Synopsis. (pp. 19- characterized all now; but in a multitude of wills, all 23.) "The special judgment and the special blessing, impotent as centres, what can be done? A common in connexion with Israel, begins to show itself, for we centre and interest is sought, independent and excluare yet on earth here. The historical course of Noah's sive of God. . . . . . They must get a name for themfamily is brought out in connexion with these two selves to be a centre. And God scatters into nations points, the blessing and the curse in Shem and Ham. by judgment what would not fill the earth by families But this is a new subject, and we begin afresh with in peace. Tongues and nations must be added to chap. x. Chaps. x and xi, give us the history of the families to designate men on the earth. The judged world as it was peopled and established after the place becomes the seat of the energetic will of onedeluge, and the ways of men in this new world. The the apostate power. The beginning of Nimrod's kingposterity of Noah is given by families and nations, dom was Babel. Tongues were a restraint and an iron out of which, from the race of Ham, arises the first band round men. In them God's history begins: He power which rules by its own force and founds an is the Lord God of Shem. We have dates and epochs; empire; for that which is according to flesh comes for, after all, God governs, and the world must follow first. By the side of this we have then the universal -man belongs to God. . . . . . But of known history association of men to exalt themselves against God, God's people have ever been the centre. This comes and make to themselves a name indepedently of Him, down to Abraham. And here again a new element of an effort stamped on God's part with the name of evil had become universal, at least practically so:Babel, (confusion,) and which ends in judgment and Idolatry. (Josh. xxiv, 2.) We have seen the wickedin the dispersion of the race, henceforth jealous of and ness and violence of man, his rebellion against God, hostile to each other. Lastly, we have the genealogy and Satan's craft to bring him into this state: but of the race by which God was pleased to name Him- here an immense step is made, an astonishing conself; for God is the Lord God of Shem. The im-dition of evil appears on the scene. Satan thrusts portance of these chapters will be felt. The pre- himself, to man's mind, into the place of power, and ceding chapters gave us, after the creation, the great so seizes the idea of God in man's mind, placing himoriginal principles of man's ruin, closing with judg- self between God and him, so that men worship devils ment, in which the old world found its close. Here we have the history of our present world. . . . . . The result of this history is that the world is set out by families. The fashion of this world has obliterated the memory and the perception of this, but not the power. It is rooted in the judgment of God; and when the acquired force of this world becomes weak, will be ever more apparent, as it now really works. The fountain heads were three, first named in the order-Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: the first being the family in which the covenant was to be established, and with which God was to be in relationship; then he who was in hostility with God's family; and last, though eldest and proudest, the Gentile Japheth. In But we must now turn to the rich field of scripthe detail Japheth is given first. The isles of the ture in which Dr. F.'s fifth section professes to glean, Gentiles in general, that is, the countries with which-Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and his sons, as the subwe are familiar, were peopled by his descendants. jects and channels of blessing. The history of AbraBut the great moral questions and power of good and ham he divides into three main parts-the call and evil in the world arose elsewhere, and the evil now its results; (Gen. xii-xiv ;) the covenants; (Gen. (for it was man's day) before the good. The East, xv-xvii ;) and the sacrifice of Isaac. (Gen. xxii.) as we call it, was in the hands of Ham. There Here, again, we do not overlook many observations power first establishes itself by the will of one in true and valuable, but we have to repeat that, viewed Nimrod. A mighty hunter-force and craft-works as a typical treatise, his method and applications are to bring untamed man, as well as beast, under his meagre and defective, when not absolutely erroneous. yoke. And cities arise; but Babel was the begin-But here also we must quote the "Synopsis," which ning of his kingdom; others he went out and built or is to us a far pleasanter task than criticising the

as God. When it began scripture does not say; but the passage cited shows that it had contaminated even Shem's family, in the part of it which scripture itself counts up as God's genealogy in the earth, at the time we have arrived at. Individuals may be pious; but in every sense the link of the world with God was gone. Here, therefore, we change entirely the whole system and order of thought; and a principle in exercise without doubt from the beginning, but not manifested in the order of things, declares itself, and comes into evidence in the history of the earth. Abraham is called, chosen, and made personally the depositary of the promises.'

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the striking prefiguration of God's ways with the earthly people, Israel, as we have had before the heavenly people, the Church. In the closing chapters, which concern the twelve patriarchs, we have the deeply interesting type, in Joseph, of Him who was sold by His brethren to the Gentiles, and, as it were, dead; afterwards, and unknown to his kin, exalted to the right hand of the throne, whence He administers all authority over the world; has, meanwhile, a Gentile bride and children; but at length is made known to His brethren in glory, who had scorned Him in humiliation, who owed all to His sustaining wisdom and love, and, finally, are established through Him in the best of the land.

Typology. "The revelation of God, when (we are) unconditionally, though with circumcision annexed, far from Him, sets us out on the journey of faith, in- i.e., a sign which confessed the death of the flesh. spires the walk toward heaven. When in the heavenly Gen. xviii-xxi is a fresh and beautiful unfolding of position, God reveals Himself for communion and the thoughts and dealings of God connected with the worship, and a full revelation of His ways. The promised seed. Then comes the figure of the death Canaanite is in the land; but the Lord reveals Him- and resurrection of the seed in Gen. xxii; the disself, shows the heir and inheritance when the Canaan- appearance of the covenant form of blessing (Sarah) ite will be gone; and so Abraham worships by faith, in Gen. xxiii; and the call of the Bride for the risen as before he walks by faith. This is the full double Bridegroom in Gen. xxiv. The history of Jacob is function of faith. The rest of the chapter (Gen. xii) is the history of his personal want of it. Pressed by circumstances, he does not consult God, finds himself in presence of the world, where he seeks help and refuge, and denies his true relationship to his wife, (just as has been done in respect of the Church,) is cherished by the world, which God at last judges, sending Abraham again out from it. During this period, and until he was returned to the place from which he started, he had no altar. When he left Egypt and returned to his strangership in Canaan, he had what he had before. What a warning for Christians as to the relationship of the Church with Christ! And however the world may be a help for the Church, this relationship cannot be maintained when we seek that help." Then, as to Gen. xiii, it is remarked that we have in Abraham the path of the heavenly man, and in Lot the believer linked with the world and suffering its vicissitudes, as soon appears in Gen. xiv. "Such are the just discipline and faithful ways of God. These last circumstances are the occasion of the manifestation of the Kingly Priest, King of Righteousness and King of Peace, i.e., Christ, millennial king of the world, blessing victorious Abraham, and, on Abraham's behalf, blessing the Most High God, who had delivered his enemies into his hand. In this picture, then, we have the final triumph of the family of faith over the power of the world, realized in spirit by the Church for a heavenly hope and association with Christ, and literally by the Jews on the earth, for whom Christ will be Melchizedek-priest in full accomplished position-Priest on His throne, Mediator in this character, blessing them and blessing God for them; God Himself then taking, fully and indeed, the character of possessor of heaven and earth. When God had thus revealed Himself, according to this establishment of blessing in power on the earth, through the priestly king Melchizedek, naturally the actual blessing of the chosen people finds its place; and in chap. xv we have the detailed instruction of the Lord to Abraham regarding the earthly seed and the land given to him-the whole confirmed by a covenant where God, as light to guide and furnace to try, deigns to bind Himself to the accomplishment of the whole."

We need not dwell on the episode of Gen. xvi-the effort on Sarah's part to forestall the promise of the Lord in the preceding chapter, which ends, as all that is of the will of the flesh and of man must, in disappointment and sorrow. Gen. xvii brings in God on the scene, the Almighty God, who talks with Abraham, opens out larger and higher hopes, not legally but

This mere syllabus of the types contained in the history of Genesis must suffice for the present, particularly as other papers in our current and future numbers will indicate what we conceive to be a truer and more distinct application. But we cannot close without a word on the sixth section, wherein the question of the inheritance is discussed. Here, though there is much that is sensible at the beginning, Dr. F.'s system necessarily distorts his conclusions and deprives him of one half of the truth. He proves clearly that the promise of Canaan to the fathers, as well as to their seed, involves the resurrection from the dead. He owns that, so far, the Rabbis, with all their blindness, seem to have had juster, because more scriptural, notions of the truth and purposes of God, than some popular Gentile theologians, who have been too much tinctured by Platonic philosophy. But when he proceeds to reason that as the risen body is to be glorified, so the inheritance it occupies must be a glorified one too, it is manifest that he overlooks other and connected truths. It does not seem to occur to him that, in the kingdom of God, earthly things are found as well as heavenly. (Comp. John iii; Eph. i, 10, &c.; Col. i; Rev. xxi.) At the least, he cannot take for granted the very thing which is denied by a large body of christian men. Our scheme-that is, as we are convinced, the scriptural one-is neither heaven alone, nor earth alone, but both united under the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the glorified saints in the heavenly places, and men, in their natural bodies, especially Israel, blessed for 1000 years on the earth. These are harmonious but varied spheres of blessing, the risen saints being the instruments of the truly divine joy of love and beneficence with Christ, yet more conspicuously than the evil spirits are now the instruments of Satan's malicious and destructive power. It is remarkable that, as to this, Dr. F.'s quasi-spiritualism ends in denying the proper heavenly glory of the risen saints.

All the inheritance they have to look for is the renovated earth. The testimony of John xiv and xvii, the doctrine of Ephesians throughout, and of Hebrews, and not to speak of the Epistles of Peter and Jude, the pictures of Revelation go for nothing. The Church is reduced to a glorious earthly inheritance, after all, and, by a poor juggle of words, this is called heaven! "God can make any region of His universe a heaven. . . . . and why might He not do so here," &c.? But why, then, speak of both heavens and earth in the time of incipient and of perfected glory? The reason is, because the Bible distinguishes what Dr. F. here labours to confound.

To notice the appendices at any length would detain us too long. Suffice it to say that they refer :-A. to typical forms in nature; B. to the Old Testament in the New, under six heads; C. to the doctrine of a future state; D. to sacrificial worship; and E. to the question whether the original relation of the seed of Abraham to the land of Canaan affords any ground for expecting their final return to it. This Dr. F. decides in the negative, chiefly because he assumes that the present dispensation is the last, and that the brightest visions of glory in Old and New Testament prophecy are to be realized either in the Church as it now is, or in the eternal state. No room is left for the distinctive features of the millennium for earth or for heaven. Dr. F. reads them not in his Bible.

Original Contributions.

NOTES ON SCRIPTURE.
No. II.

ABRAHAM AND LOT. GENESIS XVIII, XIX.

THE destruction of Sodom is a figure of what will happen when the Lord comes. They carried themselves as if the world was to last for ever. Such is still the great sin of the world, and what marks the incredulity of the heart. (2 Peter iii.) Men make all possible arrangements for the future; and yet, since the death of Jesus, the world cannot count upon a single day. God is waiting till the iniquity of the earth reaches its height, till it is all out and open before He exercises judgment. The world takes advantage of this. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." (Eccles. viii, 11.) It is the principle and the practice of infidelity all through: it was the history of the antediluvians and of the doomed cities of the plain. (Luke xvii, 26—30.)

The Church, the Christian, has properly but one object-Christ in heaven, and therefore is called to be in heart separated from everything here below. Abraham, as far as he was a stranger and pilgrim on earth, is the type of the faithful. (Heb. xi.) He saw the promises afar off, was persuaded of them, embraced them, and confessed himself a pilgrim here below. Of such God is not ashamed to be called their God. He would be ashamed to own as His people those

who make this world their fatherland. And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned: but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." Abraham had only a burying place in the land of Canaan. As he followed God in the main faithfully, God took a particular interest in him: Abraham is called "the friend of God." There is no uncertainty in his movements. He quits Ur of the Chaldees; he and his leave Haran subsequently "they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.

On the other hand, Lot's wife, ("remember Lot's wife,") left Sodom in bodily presence, not in heart. Her judgment is recalled to mind by the Saviour. Which of the two does Christendom resemble ? His people are not in a state which God can own, if they do not say such things as Abraham, if they say them not in deed and in truth.

God communicates His thoughts to Abraham, and Abraham responds, in his measure, to such grace on God's part. He is not here, as in Gen. xv, asking something for himself; he intercedes for others. There is no lovelier scene than the opening one of Gen. xviii, upon which the infidel spues his wretched materialism, and proves his moral incapacity to appreciate God's gracious condescension to his "friend." "This did not Abraham." Accustomed to the ways and words of God, he quickly feels the divine presence; yet he beautifully waits till the Lord is pleased to discover Himself, acting all the while with a touching and instinctive deference. Indeed, such intimacy was not only most suitable to the infancy of man in the revealed blessings of God, but it was the fitting prelude and preparation for Abraham to learn the high privileges in store for him; above all, for that precious communion which rejoices in another's blessing, and sympathises in another's sorrows. God therein assured Abraham, in such a way as he could not pos sibly mistake, of His interest and His confidence in him. "And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." (Gen. xviii, 17-19.) Abraham enjoys the closest intercourse with Jehovah, who reveals His counsels to him. Not only is he told afresh, with fuller light, of the promised seed, but he learns from God the imminent destruction of Sodom.

Now God has displayed other, richer, and more spiritual means of assuring our hearts of His love; but nothing could be more appropriate then than His dealings with Abraham. He appears to him in the plains of Mamre. He comes before the tent door, enters, converses, and walks with him. He wanted to confirm the heart of Abraham practically; and He

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