mount of the LORD it shall be seen," or "In the mountain the LORD will provide," - that is, "As He had pity on Abraham, so He will have pity on us." A few words remain to be added on the relation of this crowning scene of the beginning of sacred history to the crowning scene of its close. The thoughts of Christian readers almost inevitably wander from one to the other; and without entering into details of controversy or doctrine which would be here out of place, there is a common ground which no one need fear to recognize. The doctrine of the types of the Ancient Dispensation has often been pushed to excess. But there is a sense in which the connection indicated thereby admits of no dispute, and which may be illustrated even by other history than that with which we are now concerned. Not only in Sacred, but even in Grecian and Roman history, do the earliest records sometimes foreshadow and represent to us the latest fortunes of the nation or power then coming into existence. Whoever is (if we may thus combine the older and the more modern use of the word) the type of the nation or race at any marked period of its course is also the type of its final consummation. Abraham and Abraham's son, in obedience, in resignation, in the sacrifice of whatever could be sacrificed short of sin, form an anticipation, which cannot be mistaken, of that last and greatest event which closes the history of the Chosen People. We leap, as by a natural instinct, from the sacrifice in the land of Moriah to the sacrifice of Calvary. There are many differences there is a danger of exaggerating the resemblance, or of confounding in either case what is subordinate with what is essential. But the general feeling of Christendom has in this respect not gone

far astray. Each event, if we look at it well, and understand it rightly, will serve to explain the other. In the very point of view in which I have just been speaking of it, the likeness is most remarkable. Human sacrifice, it has been well said, which in outward form most nearly resembled the death on the Cross, is in Spirit the furthest removed from it. Human sacrifice, as we have seen, which was in outward form nearest to the offering of Isaac, was in fact and in spirit most entirely condemned and repudiated by it. The union of parental love with the total denial of self is held up in both cases as the highest model of human, and therefore as the shadow of Divine, Love. "Sacrifice" is rejected, but "to do Thy will, O God," is accepted.1

Questions have often arisen on the meaning of the words which bring together in the Gospel history the names of Abraham and of the true and final Heir of Abraham's promises. But to the student of the whole line of the Sacred history, they may at least be allowed to express the marvellous continuity and community of character, of truth, of intention, between this, its grand beginning, and that, its still grander end.

"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad." 2

Note. To the illustrations of the Israelite History from Egypt, ante, p. 48, and post, p. 85, may be added some details which can be found in Brugsch's Egypt, i. 56; Sharpe's History of Egypt, book ii. § 16; Bunsen's Egypt, v. 5i, 545, 561; as also the new light thrown upon the Temples of the Sun (a given in Lecture IV. 96) by the complete excavation of the Temple of Edfou.

1 Heb. x. 5, 7.

2 John viii. 39, 56, 58.

LECTURE III

JACOB.

Abraham

"ABRAHAM was a hero, Jacob was a hero, Jacob was a plain man, "dwelling in tents.' Abraham we feel to be Contrast of "above ourselves, Jacob to be like ourselves." and Jacob. So the distinction between the two great Patriarchs has been drawn out by a celebrated theologian.1 "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, "and have not attained unto the days of the years of the "life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." So the experience of Israel himself is summed up in the close of his life. Human cares, jealousies, sorrows, cast their shade over the scene-the golden dawn of the Patriarchal age is overcast: there is no longer the same unwavering faith; we are no longer in communion with the "High Father," the "Friend of God; we at times almost doubt whether we are not with His enemy. But for this very reason the interest attaching to Jacob, though of a less lofty and universal kind, is more touching, more penetrating, more attractive. Nothing but the perverse attempt to demand perfection of what is held before us as imperfect could blind us to the exquisite truthfulness which marks the delineation of the Patriarch's character.

1 Newman's Sermons, v. 91.

2 It is a striking legend that Abrabam died on the day that Esau sold

"2

his birthright (Beer's Leben Abrahams, 84).

of Jacob

I. Look at him, as his course is unrolled through the long vicissitudes which make his life a faithful mirror of human existence in its most varied aspects. Characters Look at him, as compared with his brother and Esau. Esau. Unlike the sharp contrast of the earlier pairs of Sacred history, in these two the good and evil are so mingled, that at first we might be at a loss which to follow, which to condemn. The distinctness with which they seem to stand and move before us against the horizon of the clear distance is a new phase in the history. Esau, the shaggy red-haired1 huntsman, the man of the field, with his arrows, his quiver, and his bow, coming in weary from the chase, caught, as with the levity and eagerness of a child, by the sight of the lentil soup,-"Feed me, I pray

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thee, with the 'red, red'' pottage," yet so full of generous impulse, so affectionate towards his aged father, so forgiving towards his brother, so open-handed, so chivalrous: who has not at times felt his heart warm towards the poor rejected Esau; and been tempted to join with him as he cries with "a great and exceeding bitter cry," "Hast thou but one blessing, my "father? bless me, even me also, O my father!"

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And who does not in like manner feel at times his indignation swell against the younger brother? "Is "he not rightly named Jacob, for he hath supplanted "me these two times?" He entraps his brother, he deceives his father, he makes a bargain even in his prayer; in his dealings with Laban, in his meeting

1 Esau (hairy) Arabic word. “As if with a cloak of hair (Adrath Seir)." -Zech. xiii. 4. Edmoni (LXX. πvрpáns) is "red-haired" here, and in speaking of David. Edom (red), as of the hair of a cow (Num. xix. 2), or

horse (Zech. i. 8; vi. 2). So also of lentils (Gen. xxv. 30), or blood (Isa. lxiii. 2). Compare Scott's description of" Rob Roy" (ch. 7).

2 Gen. xxv. 30 (in the original)

with Esau, he still calculates and contrives; he distrusts his neighbors, he regards with prudential indifference the insult to his daughter, and the cruelty of his sons; he hesitates to receive the assurance of Joseph's good-will; he repels, even in his lesser traits, the free confidence that we cannot withhold from the Patriarchs of the elder generation.

But yet, taking the two from first to last, how entirely is the judgment of Scripture and the judg ment of posterity confirmed by the result of the whole. The mere impulsive hunter vanishes away, light as air: "he did eat and drink, and rose up, "and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birth"right." The substance, the strength of the Chosen family, the true inheritance of the promise of Abraham, was interwoven with the very essence of the character of the plain man, dwelling in tents," steady, persevering, moving onward with deliberate settled purpose, through years of suffering and of prosperity, of exile and return, of bereavement and recovery. The birthright is always before him. Rachael is won from Laban by hard service, "and the seven years seemed unto him but a few days for "the love he had to her." Isaac, and Rebekah, and Rebekah's nurse, are remembered with a faithful, filial remembrance; Joseph and Benjamin are long and passionately loved with a more than parental affection, bringing down his gray hairs for their sakes "in sorrow to the grave." This is no character to bè contemned or scoffed at; if it was encompassed with much infirmity, yet its very complexity demands

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1 Gen. xxv. 27. The word translated "plain" implies a stronger approbation, which the English Version.

has softened, probably from a sense of the difficulty.