in the chain of evidence, to prove its great defign.

Abraham was the tenth in regular defcent from Noah, through Shem, to whom the divine promife of peculiar protection and bleffing had been given, apparently as the reward of filial piety, and in whose family the worship of the true God was preserved, amidst the idolatry of the other defcendants of Noah. At the efpecial call of the Almighty, Abraham left his native country Ur of the Chaldeans, in Mefopotamia, then beginning to be infected by idolatry. And it was in confequence of his faith in God, and ready obedience to his commands, that he was favoured with the promises we are now to confider.

Upon the remarkable prophecy, concerning Shem, Ham, and Japhet, Gen. ix. the learned Jofeph Mede obferves, Book I. Dif. xlviii. " that there never yet hath been a fon of Cham, who hath shaken a fceptre over the head of Japhet. Sem hath fubdued Japhet, and Japhet hath fubdued Sem, but Cham never fubdued either. And this fate was it, which made Hannibal, a child of Canaan, cry out with the amazement of his foul, I acknowledge the fate of Carthage." (See Livy, lib. xxvii. in fine.) In the Hebrew language Shem fignifies renowned, Japhet larged, and Canaan abject, or humbled.

As

As this Prophecy forms, as it were, the grand outline of the building, the foundation of which we have examined in the former Chapter, I fhall endeavour to draw it out diftinctly, for the infpection of the reader, before his attention is called to the circumftances of its completion.

"Now the Lord had faid unto Abram [before the death of his father Terah] Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a bleffing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and surfe him that curfeth thee; and in thee fhall all the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran, where Terah his father died."-Upon his firft entering Canaan, "the Lord appeared unto Abram, and faid, unto thy feed will I give this land." Some time after his return from Egypt, whither he had been led by a famine in the land of Canaan, with which he must by that

time have been well acquainted, having paffed through it from north to fouth, "the Lord faid unto Abraham, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art [probably the mountain on the east of Bethel, where he had pitched his tent, before he went into Egypt, and had built an altar unto the Lord] northward, and fouthward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou feeft, to thee will I give it, and unto thy feed for ever. And I will make thy feed as the duft of the earth; fo that if a man can number the duft of the earth, then shall thy feed alfo be numbered. Arife, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it [fearlefs of danger from its inhabitants]: for I will give it unto thee."-Thefe promises were repeated after the victory obtained by Abraham over the Kings, and his refufal of the spoil offered him by Melchifedeck the King of Salem, and Priest of the most high God." The time of the captivity in Egypt was exactly predicted; the limits of the land they were afterwards to poffefs, were exactly determined; and the nations they were to destroy, were enumerated. "Know of a furety, that thy feed fhall be a ftranger in a land that

66

• Genefis xiii. 14-17.

age.

is not their's, and shall ferve them; and they Shall afflict them 400 years: and also that nation, whom they fhall ferve, will I judge, and afterward fhall they come out with great fubftance. And thou fhalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Unto thy feed will I give this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgafbites, and the Jebufites." Abraham had as yet no fon to inherit thefe promises; but his faith in the word of God remained unfhaken. When he was 99 years old [13 years after the birth of Ishmael] "the Lord appeared again unto him, and faid unto him: I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.-Behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram; but thy name shall be Abra

4 Genefis xv. 13-21.

7

ham:

ham: for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and Kings shall come out of thee. And I will eftablish my covenant between me and thee, and thy feed after thee, in their generations, for an everlafting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy feed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy feed after thee, the land wherein thou art a ftranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting poffeffion, and I will be their God. - Sarah thy wife fhall bear thee a fon indeed; and thou fhalt call his name Ifaac and I will establish my covenant with him, for an everlasting covenant, and with his feed after him. And as for Ifhmael, I have. heard thee; Behold I have bleffed him—and will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I eftablish with Ifaac, whom Sarah thy wife fhall bear unto thee, at this fet time in

• In the early part of the history the facred writer informs us, that "Sarah was barren, fhe had no child.". The expreffion implies that the laboured under fome natural defect. Both Abraham and Sarah were far advanced in age, when this promise was given; fo that the birth of Isaac is reprefented in Scripture as a miraculous event. "The Lord vifited Sarah as he had faid - fhe bore Abraham a fon-and Abraham was one hundred years old, when his fon Ifaac was born." Gen. xvii. and xxi.

the