Turning from the rescued to the destroyed, we recognise how sufficient a

test of their moral condition the presence of the angels was. The

inhabitants of Sodom quickly afford evidence that they are ripe for

judgment. They do nothing worse than their habitual conduct led them to

do. It is not for this one crime they are punished; its enormity is only

the legible instance which of itself convicts them. They are not aware

of the frightful nature of the crime they seek to commit. They fancy it

is but a renewal of their constant practice. They rush headlong on

destruction and do not know it. How can it be otherwise? If a man _will

not_ take warning, if he will persist in sin, then the day comes when he

is betrayed into iniquity the frightful nature of which he did not

perceive, but which is the natural result of the life he has led. He

goes on and will not give up his sin till at last the final damning act

is committed which seals his doom. Character tends to express itself in

one perfectly representative act. The habitual passion, whatever it is,

is always alive and seeking expression. Sometimes one consideration

represses it, sometimes another; but these considerations are not

constant, while the passion is, and must therefore one day find its

opportunity--its opportunity not for that moderate, guarded, disguised

expression which passes without notice, but for the full utterance of

its very essence. So it was here, the whole city, small and great, young

and old, from every quarter came together unanimous and eager in

prosecuting the vilest wickedness. No further investigation or proof was

needed: it has indeed passed into a proverb: "they _declare_ their sin

as Sodom."

To punish by a special commission of enquiry is quite unusual in God's

government. Nations are punished for immorality or for vicious

administration of law or for neglect of sanitary principles by the

operation of natural laws. That is to say, there is a distinctly

traceable connection between the crime and its punishment; the one being

the natural cause of the other. That nations should be weakened,

depopulated, and ultimately sink into insignificance, is the natural

result of a development of the military spirit of a country and the love

of glory. That a population should be decimated by cholera or small-pox

is the inevitable result of neglecting intelligible laws of health. It

seems to me absurd to put this destruction of Sodom in the same

category. The descent of meteoric stones from the sky is not the natural

result of immorality. The vices of these cities have disastrous national

results which are quite legibly written in some races existing in the

present day. We have here to do not with what is natural but with what

is miraculous. Of course it is open to any one to say, "It was merely

accidental--it was a mere coincidence that a storm of lightning so

violent as to set fire to the bituminous soil should rage in the valley,

while on the hills a mile or two off all was serene; it was a mere

coincidence that meteoric stones or some instrument of conflagration

should set on fire just these cities, not only one of them but four of

them, and no more." And certainly were there nothing more to go upon

than the fact of their destruction, this coincidence, however

extraordinary, must still be admitted as wholly natural, and having no

relation to the character of the people destroyed. It might be set down

as pure accident, and be classed with storms at sea, or volcanic

eruptions, which are due to physical causes and have no relation to the

moral character of those involved, but indiscriminately destroy all who

happen to be present.

But we have to account not only for the fact of the destruction but for

its prediction both to Abraham and to Lot. Surely it is only reasonable

to allow that such prediction was supernatural; and the prediction being

so, it is also reasonable to accept the account of the event given by

the predicters of it, and understand it not as an ordinary physical

catastrophe, but as an event contrived with a view to the moral

character of those concerned, and intended as an infliction of

punishment for moral offences. And before we object to a style of

dealing with nations so different from anything we now detect, we must

be sure that a quite different style of dealing was not at that time

required. If there is an intelligent training of the world, it must

follow the same law which requires that a parent deal in one way with

his boy of ten and in another with his adult son.

Of Lot's wife the end is recorded in a curt and summary fashion. "His

wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." The

angel, knowing how closely on the heels of the fugitives the storm would

press, had urgently enjoined haste, saying, "Look not behind thee,

neither stay thou in all the plain." Rapid in its pursuit as a prairie

fire, it was only the swift who could escape it. To pause was to be

lost. The command, "Look not behind thee" was not given because the

scene was too awful to behold for what men can endure, men may behold,

and Abraham looked upon it from the hill above. It was given simply from

the necessity of the case and from no less practical and more arbitrary

reason. Accordingly when the command was neglected, the consequence was

felt. Why the infatuated woman looked back one can only conjecture. The

woful sounds behind her, the roar of the flame and of Jordan driven

back, the crash of falling houses and the last forlorn cry of the doomed

cities, all the confused and terrific din that filled her ear, may well

have paralysed her and almost compelled her to turn. But the use our

Lord makes of her example shows us that He ascribed her turning to a

different motive. He uses her as a warning to those who seek to save out

of the destruction more than they have time to save, and so lose all.

"He which shall be on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him

not come down to take it away; and he that is in the field, let him

likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife." It would seem, then, as

if our Lord ascribed her tragic fate to her reluctance to abandon her

household stuff. She was a wife after Lot's own heart, who in the midst

of danger and disaster had an eye to her possessions. The smell of fire,

the hot blast in her hair, the choking smoke of blazing bitumen,

suggested to her only the thought of her own house decorations, her

hangings, and ornaments, and stores. She felt keenly the hardship of

leaving so much wealth to be the mere food of fire. The thought of such

intolerable waste made her more breathless with indignation than her

rapid flight. Involuntarily as she looks at the bleak, stony mountains

before her, she thinks of the rich plain behind; she turns for one last

look, to see if it is impossible to return, impossible to save anything

from the wreck. The one look transfixes her, rivets her with dismay and

horror. Nothing she looked for can be seen; all is changed in wildest

confusion. Unable to move, she is overtaken and involved in the

sulphurous smoke, the bitter salts rise out of the earth and stifle her

and encrust around her and build her tomb where she stands.

Lot's wife by her death proclaims that if we crave to make the best of

both worlds, we shall probably lose both. Her disposition is not rare

and exceptional as the pillar of salt which was its monument. She is not

the only woman whose heart is so fixedly set upon her household

possessions that she cannot listen to the angel-voices that would guide

her. Are there none but Lot's wife who show that to them there is

nothing so important, nothing else indeed to live for at all, but the

management of a house and the accumulation of possessions? If all who

are of the same mind as Lot's wife shared her fate the world would

present as strange a spectacle as the Dead Sea presents at this day. For

radically it was her divided mind which was her ruin. She had good

impulses, she saw what she ought to do, but she did not do it with a

mind made up. Other things divided her thoughts and diverted her

efforts. What else is it ruins half the people who suppose themselves

well on the way of life? The world is in their heart; they cannot pursue

with undivided mind the promptings of a better wisdom. Their heart is

with their treasure, and their treasure is really not in spiritual

excellence, not in purity of character, not in the keen bracing air of

the silent mountains where God is known, but in the comforts and gains

of the luxurious plain behind.

We are to remember Lot's wife that we may bear in mind how possible it

is that persons who promise well and make great efforts and bid fair to

reach a place of safety may be overtaken by destruction. We can perhaps

tell of exhausting effort, we may have outstripped many in practical

repentance, but all this may only be petrified by present carelessness

into a monument recording how nearly a man may be saved and yet be

destroyed. "Have ye suffered all these things in vain, if it be yet in

vain?" "Ye have run well, what now hinders you?" The question always is,

not, what have you done, but what are you now doing? Up to the site of

the pillar, Lot's wife had done as well as Lot, had kept pace with the

angels; but her failure at that point destroyed her.

The same urgency may not be felt by all; but it should be felt by all to

whose conscience it has been distinctly intimated that they have become

involved in a state of matters which is ruinous. If you are conscious

that in your life there are practices which may very well issue in moral

disaster, an angel has taken you by the hand and bid you flee. For you

to delay is madness. Yet this is what people will do. Sagacious men of

the world, even when they see the probability of disaster, cannot bear

to come out with loss. They will always wait a little longer to see if

they cannot rescue something more, and so start on a fresh course with

less inconvenience. They will not understand that it is better to live

bare and stripped with a good conscience and high moral achievement,

than in abundance with self-contempt. What they have, always seems more

to them than what they are.

XVI.

_SACRIFICE OF ISAAC._

GENESIS xxii.

The sacrifice of Isaac was the supreme act of Abraham's life. The faith

which had been schooled by so singular an experience and by so many

minor trials was here perfected and exhibited as perfect. The strength

which he had been slowly gathering during a long and trying life was

here required and used. This is the act which shines like a star out of

those dark ages, and has served for many storm-tossed souls over whom

God's billows have gone, as a mark by which they could still shape their

course when all else was dark. The devotedness which made the sacrifice,

the trust in God that endured when even such a sacrifice was demanded,

the justification of this trust by the event, and the affectionate

fatherly acknowledgment with which God gloried in the man's loyalty and

strength of character--all so legibly written here--come home to every

heart in the time of its need. Abraham has here shown the way to the

highest reach of human devotedness and to the heartiest submission to

the Divine will in the most heart-rending circumstances. Men and women

living our modern life are brought into situations which seem as

torturing and overwhelming as those of Abraham, and all who are in such

conditions find, in his loyal trust in God, sympathetic and effectual

aid.

In order to understand God's part in this incident and to remove the

suspicion that God imposed upon Abraham as a duty what was really a

crime, or that He was playing with the most sacred feelings of His

servant, there are one or two facts which must not be left out of

consideration. In the first place, Abraham did not think it wrong to

sacrifice his son. His own conscience did not clash with God's command.

On the contrary, it was through his own conscience God's will impressed

itself upon him. No man of Abraham's character and intelligence could

suppose that any word of God could make that right which was in itself

wrong, or would allow the voice of conscience to be drowned by some

mysterious voice from without. If Abraham had supposed that in all

circumstances it was a crime to take his son's life, he could not have

listened to any voice that bade him commit this crime. The man who in

our day should put his child to death and plead that he had a Divine

warrant for it would either be hanged or confined as insane. No miracle

would be accepted as a guarantee for the Divine dictation of such an

act. No voice from heaven would be listened to for a moment, if it

contradicted the voice of the universal conscience of mankind. But in

Abraham's day the universal conscience had only approbation to express

for such a deed as this. Not only had the father absolute power over the

son, so that he might do with him what he pleased; but this particular

mode of disposing of a son would be considered singular only as being

beyond the reach of ordinary virtue. Abraham was familiar with the idea

that the most exalted form of religious worship was the sacrifice of the

first-born. He felt, in common with godly men in every age, that to

offer to God cheap sacrifices while we retain for ourselves what is

truly precious, is a kind of worship that betrays our low estimate of

God rather than expresses true devotion. He may have been conscious that

in losing Ishmael he had felt resentment against God for depriving him

of so loved a possession; he may have seen Canaanite fathers offering

their children to gods he knew to be utterly unworthy of any sacrifice;

and this may have rankled in his mind until he felt shut up to offer his

all to God in the person of his son, his only son, Isaac. At all events,

however it became his conviction that God desired him to offer his son,

this was a sacrifice which was in no respect forbidden by his own

conscience.

But although not wrong in Abraham's judgment, this sacrifice was wrong

in the eye of God; how then can we justify God's command that He should

make it? We justify it precisely on that ground which lies patent on the

face of the narrative--God meant Abraham to make the sacrifice in

spirit, not in the outward act; He meant to write deeply on the Jewish

mind the fundamental lesson regarding sacrifice, that it is in the

spirit and will all true sacrifice is made. God intended what actually

happened, that Abraham's sacrifice should be complete and that human

sacrifice should receive a fatal blow. So far from introducing into

Abraham's mind erroneous ideas about sacrifice, this incident finally

dispelled from his mind such ideas and permanently fixed in his mind the

conviction that the sacrifice God seeks is the devotion of the living

soul not the consumption of a dead body. God met him on the platform of

knowledge and of morality to which he had attained, and by requiring him

to sacrifice his son taught him and all his descendants in what sense

alone such sacrifice can be acceptable. God meant Abraham to sacrifice

his son, but not in the coarse material sense. God meant him to yield

the lad truly to Him; to arrive at the consciousness that Isaac more

truly belonged to God than to him, his father. It was needful that

Abraham and Isaac should be in perfect harmony with the Divine will.

Only by being really and absolutely in God's hand could they, or can any

one, reach the whole and full good designed for them by God.

How old Isaac was at the time of this sacrifice there is no means of

accurately ascertaining. He was probably in the vigour of early manhood.

He was able to take his share in the work of cutting wood for the burnt

offering and carrying the faggots a considerable distance. It was

necessary too that this sacrifice should be made on Isaac's part not

with the timorous shrinking or ignorant boldness of a boy, but with the

full comprehension and deliberate consent of maturer years. It is

probable that Abraham was already preparing, if not to yield to Isaac

the family headship, yet to introduce him to a share in the

responsibilities he had so long borne alone. From the touching

confidence in one another which this incident exhibits, a light is

reflected on the fond intercourse of former years. Isaac was at that

time of life when a son is closest to a father, mature but not

independent; when all that a father can do has been done, but while as

yet the son has not passed away into a life of his own.

And Isaac was no ordinary son. The man of business who has encouraged

and solaced himself in his toil by the hope that his son will reap the

fruit of it and make his old age easy and honoured, but who outlives

his son and sees the effort of his life go for nothing; the proprietor

who bears an ancient name and sees his heir die--these are familiar

objects of pathetic interest, and no heart is so hard as to refuse a

tear of sympathy when brought into view of such heart-withering

bereavements. But in Abraham all fatherly feelings had been evoked and

strengthened and deepened by a quite peculiar experience. By a special

and most effectual discipline he had been separated from the objects

which ordinarily divide men's attention and eke out their contentment in

life, and his whole hopes had been compelled to centre in his son. It

was not the perpetuation of a name nor the transmission of a well-known

and valuable property; it was not even the gratification of the most

justifiable and tender of human affections, that was crushed and

thwarted in Abraham by this command; but it was also and especially that

hope which had been aroused and fostered in him by extraordinary

providences and which concerned, as he believed, not himself alone but

all men.

Manifestly no harder task could have been set to Abraham, than that

which was imposed on him by the command, "Take now thy son, thine only

son, Isaac, whom thou lovest," this son of thine in whom all the

promises are yea and amen to thee, this son for whose sake thou gavest

up home and kindred, and banished thy firstborn Ishmael, this son whom

thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt-offering. This son, Abraham might

have said, whom I have been taught to cherish, putting aside all other

affections that I might love him above all, I am now with my own hand to

slay, to slay with all the terrible niceties and formalities of

sacrifice _and with all the love and adoration of sacrifice_. I am with

my own hand to destroy all that makes life valuable to me, and as I do

so I am to love and worship Him who commands this sacrifice. I am to go

to Isaac, whom I have taught to look forward to the fairest happiest

life, and I am to contradict all I ever told him and tell him now that

he has only grown to maturity that he might be cut down in the flush and

hope of opening manhood. What can Abraham have thought? Possibly the

thought would occur that God was now recalling the great gift He had

made. There is always enough conscience of sin in the purest human heart

to engender self-reproach and fear on the faintest occasion; and when so

signal a token of God's displeasure as this was sent, Abraham may well

have believed himself to have been unwittingly guilty of some great

crime against God, or have now thought with bitterness of the languid

devotion he had been offering Him. I have in sacrificing a lamb been as

if I had been cutting off a dog's neck, profane and thoughtless in my

worship, and now God is solemnising me indeed. I have in thought or

desire kept back the prime of my flock, and God is now teaching me that

a man may not rob God. Who could have been surprised if in this horror

of great darkness the mind of Abraham had become unhinged? Who could

wonder if he had slain _himself_ to make the loss of Isaac impossible?

Who could wonder if he had sullenly ignored the command, waited for

further light, or rejected an alliance with God which involved such

lamentable conditions? Nothing that could befall him in consequence of

disobedience, he might have supposed, could exceed in pain the agony of

obedience. And it is always easier to endure the pain inflicted upon us

by circumstances than to do with our own hand and free will what we know

will involve us in suffering. It is not mere resignation but active

obedience that was required of Abraham. His was not the passive

resignation of the man out of whose reach death or disaster has swept

his dearest treasures, and who is helped to resignation by the

consciousness that no murmuring can bring them back--his was the far

more difficult active resignation, which has still in possession all

that it prizes, and may withhold these treasures if it pleases, but is

called by a higher voice than that of self-pleasing to sacrifice them

all.

But though Abraham was the chief, he was not the sole actor in this

trying scene. To Isaac this was the memorable day of his life, and

quiescent and passive as his character seems to have been, it cannot but

have been stirred and strained now in every fibre of it. Abraham could

not find it in his heart to disclose to his son the object of the

journey; even to the last he kept him unconscious of the part he was

himself to play. Two long days' journey, days of intense inward

commotion to Abraham, they went northward. On the third day the servants

were left, and father and son went on alone, unaccompanied and

unwitnessed. "So they went," as the narrative twice over says, "both of

them together," but with minds how differently filled; the father's

heart torn with anguish, and distracted by a thousand thoughts, the

son's mind disengaged, occupied only with the new scenes and with

passing fancies. Nowhere in the narrative does the completeness of the

mastery Abraham had gained over his natural feelings appear more

strikingly than in the calmness with which he answers Isaac's question.

As they approach the place of sacrifice Isaac observes the silent and

awe-struck demeanour of his father, and fears that it may have been

through absence of mind he has neglected to bring the lamb. With a

gentle reverence he ventures to attract Abraham's attention: "My

father;" and he said, "Here am I, my son." And he said, "Behold the fire

and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" It is one of

those moments when only the strongest heart can bear up calmly and when

only the humblest faith has the right word to say. "My son, the Lord

will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering."

Not much longer could the terrible truth be hidden from Isaac. With what

feelings must he have seen the agonised face of his father as he turned

to bind him and as he learned that he must prepare not to sacrifice but

to be sacrificed. Here then was the end of those great hopes on which

his youth had been fed. What could such contradiction mean? Was he to

submit even to his father in such a matter? Why should he not

expostulate, resist, flee? Such ideas seem to have found short

entertainment in the mind of Isaac. Trained by long experience to trust

his father, he obeys without complaint or murmur. Still it cannot cease

to be matter of admiration and astonishment that a young man should have

been able on so brief a notice, through so shocking a way, and with so

startling a reversal of his expectations, to forego all right to choose

for himself, and yield himself implicitly to what he believed to be

God's will. By a faith so absolute Isaac became indeed the heir of

Abraham. When he laid himself on the altar, trusting his father and his

God, he came of age as the true seed of Abraham and entered on the

inheritance, making God his God. At that supreme moment he made himself

over to God, he put himself at God's disposal; if his death was to be

helpful in fulfilling God's purpose he was willing to die. It was God's

will that must be done, not his. He knew that God could not err, could

not harm His people; he was ignorant of the design which his death could

fulfil, but he felt sure that his sacrifice was not asked in vain. He

had familiarised himself with the thought that he belonged to God; that

he was on earth for God's purposes not for his own; so that now when he

was suddenly summoned to lay himself formally and finally on God's

altar, he did not hesitate to do so. He had learned that there are

possessions more worth preserving than life itself, that

"Manhood is the one immortal thing

Beneath Time's changeful sky"--

he had learned that "length of days is knowing when to die."

No one who has measured the strain that such sacrifice puts upon human

nature can withhold his tribute of cordial admiration for so rare a

devotedness, and no one can fail to see that by this sacrifice Isaac

became truly the heir of Abraham. And not only Isaac, but every man

attains his majority by sacrifice. Only by losing our life do we begin

to live. Only by yielding ourselves truly and unreservedly to God's

purpose do we enter the true life of men. The giving up of self, the

abandonment of an isolated life, the bringing of ourselves into

connection with God, with the Supreme and with the whole, this is the

second birth. To reach that full stream of life which is moved by God's

will and which is the true life of men, we must so give ourselves up to

God, that each of His commandments, each of His providences, all by

which He comes into connection with us, has its due effect upon us. If

we only seek from God help to carry out our own conception of life, if

we only desire His power to aid us in making of this life what we have

resolved it shall be, we are far indeed from Isaac's conception of God

and of life. But if we desire that God fulfil in us, and through us His

own conception of what our life should be, the only means of attaining

this desire is to put ourselves fairly into God's hand, unflinchingly to

do what we believe to be His will irrespective of present darkness and

pain and privation. He who thus bids an honest farewell to earth and

lets himself be bound and laid upon God's altar, is conscious that in

renouncing himself he has won God and become His heir.

Have you thus given yourselves to God? I do not ask if your sacrifice

has been perfect, nor whether you do not ever seek great things still

for yourselves; but do you know what it is thus to yield yourself to

God, to put God first, yourself second or nowhere? Are you even

occasionally quite willing to sink your own interests, your own

prospects, your own native tastes, to have your own worldly hopes

delayed or blighted, your future darkened? Have you even brought your

intellect to bear upon this first law of human life, and determined for

yourself whether it is the case or not that man's life, in order to be

profitable, joyful, and abiding, must be lived in God? Do you recognise

that human life is not for the individual's good, but for the common

good, and that only in God can each man find his place and his work? All

that we give up to Him we have in an ampler form. The very affections

which we are called to sacrifice are purified and deepened rather than

lost. When Abraham resigned his son to God and received him back, their

love took on a new delicacy and tenderness. They were more than ever to

one another after this interference of God. And He meant it to be so.

Where our affections are thwarted or where our hopes are blasted, it is

not our injury, but our good, that is meant, a fineness and purity, an

eternal significance and depth, are imparted to affections that are

annealed by passing through the fire of trial.

Not till the last moment did God interpose with the gladdening words,

"Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for

now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son,

thine only son, from Me." The significance of this was so obvious that

it passed into a proverb: "In the mount of the Lord it shall be

provided." It was there, and not at any earlier point, Abraham saw the

provision that had been made for an offering. Up to the moment when he

lifted the knife over all he lived for, it was not seen that other

provision was made. Up to the moment when it was indubitable that both

he and Isaac were obedient unto death, and when in will and feeling they

had sacrificed themselves, no substitute was visible, but no sooner was

the sacrifice complete in spirit than God's provision was disclosed. It

was the spirit of sacrifice, not the blood of Isaac, that God desired.

It was the noble generosity of Abraham that God delighted in, not the

fatherly grief that would have followed the actual death of Isaac. It

was the heroic submission of father and son that God saw with delight,

rejoicing that men were found capable of the utmost of heroism, of

patient and unflinching adherence to duty. At any point short of the

consummation, interposition would have come too soon, and would have

prevented this educative and elevating display of the capacity of men

for the utmost that life can require of them. Had the provision of God

been made known one minute before the hand of Abraham was raised to

strike, it would have remained doubtful whether in the critical moment

one or other of the parties might not have failed. But when the

sacrifice was complete, when already the bitterness of death was past,

when all the agonizing conflict was over, the anguish of the father

mastered, and the dismay of the son subdued to perfect conformity with

the supreme will, then the full reward of victorious conflict was given,

and God's meaning flashed through the darkness, and His provision was

seen.

This is the universal law. We find God's provision only on the mount of

sacrifice, not at any stage short of this, but only there. We must go

the whole way in faith; what lies before us as duty, we must do; often

in darkness and utter misery, seeing no possibility of escape or relief,

we must climb the hill where we are to abandon all that has given joy

and hope to our life; and not before the sacrifice has been actually

made can we enter into the heaven of victory God provides. You may be

called to sacrifice your youth, your hopes of a career, your affections,

that you may uphold and soothe the lingering days of one to whom you are

naturally bound. Or your whole life may have centred in an affection

which circumstances demand you shall abandon; you may have to sacrifice

your natural tastes and give up almost everything you once set your

heart on; and while to others the years bring brightness and variety and

scope, to you they may be bringing only monotonous fulfilment of insipid

and uncongenial tasks. You may be in circumstances which tempt you to

say, Does God see the inextricable difficulty I am in? Does He estimate

the pain I must suffer if immediate relief do not come? Is obedience to

Him only to involve me in misery from which other men are exempt? You

may even say that although a substitute was found for Isaac, no

substitute has been found for the sacrifice you have had to make, but

you have been compelled actually to lose what was dear to you as life

itself. But when the character has been fully tried, when the utmost

good to character has been accomplished, and when delay of relief would

only increase misery, then relief comes. Still the law holds good, that

as soon as you in spirit yield to God's will, and with a quiet

submissiveness consent to the loss or pain inflicted upon you, in that

hour your whole attitude to your circumstances is transformed, you find

rest and assured hope. Two things are certain: that, however painful

your condition is, God's intention is not to injure, but to advance you,

and that hopeful submission is wiser, nobler, and every way better than

murmuring and resentment.

Finally, these words, "The Lord will provide," which Abraham uttered in

that exalted frame of mind which is near to the prophetic ecstasy, have

been the burden sung by every sincere and thoughtful worshipper as he

ascended the hill of God to seek forgiveness of his sin, the burden

which the Lord's worshipping congregation kept on its tongue through all

the ages, till at length, as the angel of the Lord had opened the eyes

of Abraham to see the ram provided, the voice of the Baptist "crying in

the wilderness" to a fainting and well-nigh despairing few turned their

eye to God's great provision with the final announcement, "Behold the

Lamb of God." Let us accept this as a motto which we may apply, not only

in all temporal straits, when we can see no escape from loss and misery,

but also in all spiritual emergency, when sin seems a burden too great

for us to bear, and when we seem to lie under the uplifted knife of

God's judgment. Let us remember that God's desire is not that we suffer

pain, but that we learn obedience, that we be brought to that true and

thorough confidence in Him which may fit us to fulfil His loving

purposes. Let us, above all, remember that we cannot know the grace of

God, cannot experience the abundant provision He has made for weak and

sinful men, until we have climbed the mount of sacrifice and are able to

commit ourselves wholly to Him. Not by attacking our manifold enemies

one by one, nor by attempting the great work of sanctification

piecemeal, shall we ever make much growth or progress, but by giving

ourselves up wholly to God and by becoming willing to live in Him and as

His.

XVII.

_ISHMAEL AND ISAAC._

GEN. xxi., xxii.

"Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a

freewoman. * * * Which things are an allegory."--GALATIANS iv. 22.

"Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his

son."--GENESIS xxii. 10.

In the birth of Isaac, Abraham at length sees the long-delayed

fulfilment of the promise. But his trials are by no means over. He has

himself introduced into his family the seeds of discord and disturbance,

and speedily the fruit is borne. Ishmael, at the birth of Isaac, was a

lad of fourteen years, and, reckoning from Eastern customs, he must have

been over sixteen when the feast was made in honour of the weaned child.

Certainly he was quite old enough to understand the important and not

very welcome alteration in his prospects which the birth of this new son

effected. He had been brought up to count himself the heir of all the

wealth and influence of Abraham. There was no alienation of feeling

between father and son: no shadow had flitted over the bright prospect

of the boy as he grew up; when suddenly and unexpectedly there was

interposed between him and his expectation the effectual barrier of this

child of Sarah's. The importance of this child to the family was in due

course indicated in many ways offensive to Ishmael; and when the feast

was made, his spleen could no longer be repressed. This weaning was the

first step in the direction of an independent existence, and this would

be the point of the feast in celebration. The child was no longer a mere

part of the mother, but an individual, a member of the family. The hopes

of the parents were carried forward to the time when he should be quite

independent of them.

But in all this there was great food for the ridicule of a thoughtless

lad. It was precisely the kind of thing which could easily be mocked

without any great expenditure of wit by a boy of Ishmael's age. The too

visible pride of the aged mother, the incongruity of maternal duties

with ninety years, the concentration of attention and honours on so

small an object,--all this was, doubtless, a temptation to a boy who had

probably at no time too much reverence. But the words and gestures which

others might have disregarded as childish frolic, or, at worst, as the

unseemly and ill-natured impertinence of a boy who knew no better, stung

Sarah, and left a poison in her blood that infuriated her. "Cast out

that bondwoman and her son," she demanded of Abraham. Evidently she

feared the rivalry of this second household of Abraham, and was resolved

it should come to an end. The mocking of Ishmael is but the violent

concussion that at last produces the explosion, for which material has

long been laid in train. She had seen on Abraham's part a clinging to

Ishmael, which she was unable to appreciate. And though her harsh

decision was nothing more than the dictate of maternal jealousy, it did

prevent things from running on as they were until even a more painful

family quarrel must have been the issue.

The act of expulsion was itself unaccountably harsh. There was nothing

to prevent Abraham sending the boy and his mother under an escort to

some safe place; nothing to prevent him from giving the lad some share

of his possessions sufficient to provide for him. Nothing of this kind

was done. The woman and the boy were simply put to the door; and this,

although Ishmael had for years been counted Abraham's heir, and though

he was a member of the covenant made with Abraham. There may have been

some law giving Sarah absolute power over her maid; but if any law gave

her power to do what was now done, it was a thoroughly barbarous one,

and she was a barbarous woman who used it.

It is one of those painful cases in which one poor creature, clothed

with a little brief authority, stretches it to the utmost in vindictive

maltreatment of another. Sarah happened to be mistress, and, instead of

using her position to make those under her happy, she used it for her

own convenience, for the gratification of her own spite, and to make

those beneath her conscious of her power by their suffering. She

happened to be a mother, and instead of bringing her into sympathy with

all women and their children, this concentrated her affection with a

fierce jealousy on her own child. She breathed freely when Hagar and

Ishmael were fairly out of sight. A smile of satisfied malice betrayed

her bitter spirit. No thought of the sufferings to which she had

committed a woman who had served her well for years, who had yielded

everything to her will, and who had no other natural protector but her,

no glimpses of Abraham's saddened face, visited her with any relentings.

It mattered not to her what came of the woman and the boy to whom she

really owed a more loving and careful regard than to any except Abraham

and Isaac. It is a story often repeated. One who has been a member of

the household for many years is at last dismissed at the dictate of some

petty pique or spite as remorselessly and inhumanly as a piece of old

furniture might be parted with. Some thoroughly good servant, who has

made sacrifices to forward his employer's interest, is at last, through

no offence of his own, found to be in his employer's way, and at once

all old services are forgotten, all old ties broken, and the authority

of the employer, legal but inhuman, is exercised. It is often those who

can least defend themselves who are thus treated; no resistance is

possible, and also, alas! the party is too weak to face the wilderness

on which she is thrown out, and if any cares to follow her history, we

may find her at the last gasp under a bush.

Still, both for Abraham and for Ishmael it was better this severance

should take place. It was grievous to Abraham; and Sarah saw that for

this very reason it was necessary. Ishmael was his first-born, and for

many years had received the whole of his parental affection: and,

looking on the little Isaac, he might feel the desirableness of keeping

another son in reserve, lest this strangely-given child might as

strangely pass away. Coming to him in a way so unusual, and having

perhaps in his appearance some indication of his peculiar birth, he

might seem scarcely fit for the rough life Abraham himself had led. On

the other hand, it was plain that in Ishmael were the very qualities

which Isaac was already showing that he lacked. Already Abraham was

observing that with all his insolence and turbulence there was a natural

force and independence of character which might come to be most useful

in the patriarchal household. The man who had pursued and routed the

allied kings could not but be drawn to a youth who already gave promise

of capacity for similar enterprises--and this youth his own son. But can

Abraham have failed to let his fancy picture the deeds this lad might

one day do at the head of his armed slaves? And may he not have dreamt

of a glory in the land not altogether such as the promise of God

encouraged him to look for, but such as the tribes around would

acknowledge and fear? All the hopes Abraham had of Ishmael had gained

firm hold of his mind before Isaac was born; and before Isaac grew up,

Ishmael must have taken the most influential place in the house and

plans of Abraham. His mind would thus have received a strong bias

towards conquest and forcible modes of advance. He might have been led

to neglect, and, perhaps, finally despise, the unostentatious blessings

of heaven.

If, then, Abraham was to become the founder, not of one new warlike

power in addition to the already too numerous warlike powers of the

East, but of a religion which should finally develop into the most

elevating and purifying influence among men, it is obvious that Ishmael

was not at all a desirable heir. Whatever pain it gave to Abraham to

part with him, separation in some form had become necessary. It was

impossible that the father should continue to enjoy the filial affection

of Ishmael, his lively talk, and warm enthusiasm, and adventurous

exploits, and at the same time concentrate his hope and his care on

Isaac. He had, therefore, to give up, with something of the sorrow and

self-control he afterwards underwent in connection with the sacrifice of

Isaac, the lad whose bright face had for so many years shone in all his

paths. And in some such way are we often called to part with prospects

which have wrought themselves very deep into our spirit, and which,

indeed, just because they are very promising and seductive, have become

dangerous to us, upsetting the balance of our life, and throwing into

the shade objects and purposes which ought to be outstanding. And when

we are thus required to give up what we were looking to for comfort, for

applause, and for profit, the voice of God in its first admonition

sometimes seems to us little better than the jealousy of a woman. Like

Sarah's demand, that none should share with her son, does the

requirement seem which indicates to us that we must set nothing on a

level with God's direct gifts to us. We refuse to see why we may not

have all the pleasures and enjoyments, all the display and brilliance

that the world can give. We feel as if we were needlessly restricted.

But this instance shows us that when circumstances compel us to give up

something of this kind which we have been cherishing, room is given for

a better thing than itself to grow.

For Ishmael himself, too, wronged as he was in the mode of his

expulsion, it was yet far better that he should go. Isaac _was_ the true

heir. No jeering allusions to his late birth or to his appearance could

alter that fact. And to a temper like Ishmael's it was impossible to

occupy a subordinate, dependent position. All he required to call out

his latent powers was to be thrown thus on his own resources. The daring

and high spirit and quickness to take offence and use violence, which

would have wrought untold mischief in a pastoral camp, were the very

qualities which found fit exercise in the desert, and seemed there only

in keeping with the life he had to lead. And his hard experience at

first would at his age do him no harm, but good only. To be compelled to

face life single-handed at the age of sixteen is by no means a fate to

be pitied. It was the making of Ishmael, and is the making of many a lad

in every generation.

But the two fugitives are soon reminded that, though expelled from

Abraham's tents and protection, they are not expelled from his God.

Ishmael finds it true that when father and mother forsake him, the Lord

takes him up. At the very outset of his desert life he is made conscious

that God is still his God, mindful of his wants, responsive to his cry

of distress. It was not through Ishmael the promised seed was to come,

but the descendants of Ishmael had every inducement to retain faith in

the God of Abraham, who listened to their father's cry. The fact of

being excluded from certain privileges did not involve that they were to

be excluded from all privileges. God still "heard the voice of the lad,

and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven."

It is this voice of God to Hagar that so speedily, and apparently once

for all, lifts her out of despair to cheerful hope. It would appear as

if her despair had been needless; at least from the words addressed to

her, "What aileth thee, Hagar?" it would appear as if she might herself

have found the water that was close at hand, if only she had been

disposed to look for it. But she had lost heart, and perhaps with her

despair was mingled some resentment, not only at Sarah, but at the whole

Hebrew connection, including the God of the Hebrews, who had before

encouraged her. Here was the end of the magnificent promise which that

God had made her before her child was born--a helpless human form

gasping its life away without a drop of water to moisten the parched

tongue and bring light to the glazing eyes, and with no easier couch

than the burning sand. Was it for this, the bitterest drop that, apart

from sin, can be given to any parent to drink, she had been brought from

Egypt and led through all her past? Had her hopes been nursed by means

so extraordinary only that they might be so bitterly blighted? Thus she

leapt to her conclusions, and judged that because her skin of water had

failed God had failed her too. No one can blame her, with her boy dying

before her, and herself helpless to relieve one pang of his suffering.

Hitherto in the well-furnished tents of Abraham she had been able to

respond to his slightest desire. Thirst he had never known, save as the

relish to some boyish adventure. But now, when his eyes appeal to her in

dying anguish, she can but turn away in helpless despair. She cannot

relieve his simplest want. Not for her own fate has she any tears, but

to see her pride, her life and joy, perishing thus miserably, is more

than she can bear.

No one can blame, but every one may learn from her. When angry

resentment and unbelieving despair fill the mind, we may perish of

thirst in the midst of springs. When God's promises produce no faith,

but seem to us so much waste paper, we are necessarily in danger of

missing their fulfilment. When we ascribe to God the harshness and

wickedness of those who represent Him in the world, we commit moral

suicide. So far from the promises given to Hagar being now at the point

of extinction, this was the first considerable step towards their

fulfilment. When Ishmael turned his back on the familiar tents, and

flung his last gibe at Sarah, he was really setting out to a far richer

inheritance, so far as this world goes, than ever fell to Isaac and his

sons.

But the chief use Paul makes of this entire episode in the history is to

see in it an allegory, a kind of picture made up of real persons and

events, representing the impossibility of law and gospel living

harmoniously together, the incompatibility of a spirit of service with a

spirit of sonship. Hagar, he says, is in this picture the likeness of

the law given from Sinai, which gendereth to bondage. Hagar and her son,

that is to say, stand for the law and the kind of righteousness produced

by the law,--not superficially a bad kind; on the contrary, a

righteousness with much dash and brilliance and strong manly force about

it, but at the root defective, faulty in its origin, springing from the

slavish spirit. And first Paul bids us notice how the free-born is

persecuted and mocked by the slave-born, that is, how the children of

God who are trying to live by love and faith in Christ are put to shame

and made uneasy by the law. They believe they are God's dear children,

that they are loved by Him, and may go out and in freely in His house as

their own home, using all that is His with the freedom of His heirs; but

the law mocks them, frightens them, tells them _it_ is God's first-born,

law lying far back in the dimness of eternity, coeval with God Himself.

It tells them they are puny and weak, scarcely out of their mother's

arms, tottering, lisping creatures, doing much mischief, but none of the

housework, at best only getting some little thing to pretend to work at.

In contrast to their feeble, soft, unskilled weakness, it sets before

them a finely-moulded, athletic form, becoming disciplined to all work,

and able to take a place among the serviceable and able-bodied. But with

all this there is in that puny babe a life begun which will grow and

make it the true heir, dwelling in the house and possessing what it has

not toiled for, while the vigorous, likely-looking lad must go into the

wilderness and make a possession for himself with his own bow and spear.

Now, of course, righteousness of life and character, or perfect manhood,

is the end at which all that we call salvation aims, and that which can

give us the purest, ripest character is salvation for us; that which can

make us, for all purposes, most serviceable and strong. And when we are

confronted with persons who might speak of service we cannot render, of

an upright, unfaltering carriage we cannot assume, of a general human

worthiness we can make no pretension to, we are justly perturbed, and

should regain our equanimity only under the influence of the most

undoubted truth and fact. If we can honestly say in our hearts,

"Although we can show no such work done, and no such masculine growth,

yet we have a life in us which is of God, and will grow;" if we are sure

that we have the spirit of God's children, a spirit of love and

dutifulness, we may take comfort from this incident. We may remind

ourselves that it is not he who has at the present moment the best

appearance who always abides in the father's home, but he who is by

birth the heir. Have we or have we not the spirit of the Son? not

feeling that we must every evening make good our claim to another

night's lodging by showing the task we have accomplished, but being

conscious that the interests in which we are called to work are our own

interests, that we are heirs in the father's house, so that all we do

for the house is really done for ourselves. Do we go out and in with

God, feeling no need of His commands, our own eye seeing where help is

required, and our own desires being wholly directed towards that which

engages all His attention and work?

For Paul would have each of us apply, allegorically, the words, Cast out

the bondwoman and her son, that is, cast out the legal mode of earning a

standing in God's house, and with this legal mode cast out all the

self-seeking, the servile fear of God, the self-righteousness, and the

hard-heartedness it engenders. Cast out wholly from yourself the spirit

of the slave, and cherish the spirit of the son and heir. The slave-born

may seem for a while to have a firm footing in the father's house, but

it cannot last. The temper and tastes of Ishmael are radically different

from those of Abraham, and when the slave-born becomes mature, the wild

Egyptian strain will appear in his character. Moreover, he looks upon

the goods of Abraham as plunder; he cannot rid himself of the feeling of

an alien, and this would, at length, show itself in a want of frankness

with Abraham--slowly, but surely, the confidence between them would be

worn out. Nothing but being a child of God, being born of the Spirit,

can give the feeling of intimacy, confidence, unity of interest, which

constitutes true religion. All we do as slaves goes for nothing; that is

to say, all we do, not because we see the good of it, but because we are

commanded; not because we have any liking for the thing done, but

because we wish to be paid for it. The day is coming when we shall

attain our majority, when it will be said to us by God, Now, do whatever

you like, whatever you have a mind to; no surveillance, no commands are

now needed; I put all into your own hand. What, in these circumstances,

should we straightway do? Should we, for the love of the thing, carry on

the same work to which God's commands had driven us; should we, if left

absolutely in charge, find nothing more attractive than just to

prosecute that idea of life and the world set before us by Christ? Or,

should we see that we had merely been keeping ourselves in check for a

while, biding our time, untamed as Ishmael, craving the rewards but not

the life of the children of God? The most serious of all questions

these--questions that determine the issues of our whole life, that

determine whether our home is to be where all the best interests of men

and the highest blessings of God have their seat, or in the pathless

desert where life is an aimless wandering, dissociated from all the

forward movements of men.

The distinction between the servile spirit and the spirit of sonship

being thus radical, it could be by no mere formality, or exhibition of

his legal title, that Isaac became the heir of God's heritage. His

sacrifice on Moriah was the requisite condition of his succession to

Abraham's place; it was the only suitable celebration of his majority.

Abraham himself had been able to enter into covenant with God only by

sacrifice; and sacrifice not of a dead and external kind, but vivified

by an actual surrender of himself to God, and by so true a perception of

God's holiness and requirements, that he was in a horror of great

darkness. By no other process can any of his heirs succeed to the

inheritance. A true resignation of self, in whatever outward form this

resignation may appear, is required that we may become one with God in

His holy purposes and in His eternal blessedness. There could be no

doubt that Abraham had found a true heir, when Isaac laid himself on the

altar and steadied his heart to receive the knife. Dearer to God, and of

immeasurably greater value than any service, was this surrender of

himself into the hand of his Father and his God. In this was promise of

all service and all loving fellowship. "Precious in the sight of the

Lord is the death of His saints. O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am

Thy servant, the son of Thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds."

So incomparable with the most distinguished service did this sacrifice

of Isaac's self appear, that the record of his active life seems to have

had no interest to his contemporaries or successors. There was but this

one thing to say of him. No more seemed needful. The sacrifice was

indeed great, and worthy of commemoration. No act could so conclusively

have shown that Isaac was thoroughly at one with God. He had much to

live for; from his birth there hovered around him interests and hopes of

the most exciting and flattering nature; a new kind of glory such as had

not yet been attained on earth was to be attained, or, at any rate,

approached in him. This glory was certain to be realised, being

guaranteed by God's promise, so that his hopes might launch out in the

boldest confidence and give him the aspect and bearing of a king; while

it was uncertain in the time and manner of its realisation, so that the

most attractive mystery hung around his future. Plainly his was a life

worth entering on and living through; a life fit to engage and absorb a

man's whole desire, interest, and effort; a life such as might well make

a man gird himself and resolve to play the man throughout, that so each

part of it might reveal its secret to him, and that none of its wonder

might be lost. It was a life which, above all others, seemed worth

protecting from all injury and risk, and for which, no doubt, not a few

of the home-born servants in the patriarchal encampment would have

gladly ventured their own. There have, indeed, been few, if any, lives

of which it could so truly be said, The world cannot do without this--at

all hazards and costs this must be cherished. And all this must have

been even more obvious to its owner than to any one else, and must have

begotten in him an unquestioning assurance, that he at least had a

charmed life, and would live and see good days. Yet with whatever shock

the command of God came upon him, there is no word of doubt or

remonstrance or rebellion. He gave his life to Him who had first given

it to him. And thus yielding himself to God, he entered into the

inheritance, and became worthy to stand to all time the representative

heir of God, as Abraham by his faith had become the father of the

faithful.

XVIII.

_PURCHASE OF MACHPELAH._

GENESIS xxiii.

It may be supposed to be a needless observation that our life is greatly

influenced by the fact that it speedily and certainly ends in death. But

it might be interesting, and it would certainly be surprising, to trace

out the various ways in which this fact influences life. Plainly every

human affair would be altered if we lived on here for ever, supposing

that were possible. What the world would be had we no predecessors, no

wisdom but what our own past experience and the genius of one generation

of men could produce, we can scarcely imagine. We can scarcely imagine

what life would be or what the world would be did not one generation

succeed and oust another and were we contemporary with the whole process

of history. It is the grand irreversible and universal law that we give

place and make room for others. The individual passes away, but the

history of the race proceeds. Here on earth in the meantime, and not

elsewhere, the history of the race is being played out, and each having

done his part, however small or however great, passes away. Whether an

individual, even the most gifted and powerful, could continue to be

helpful to the race for thousands of years, supposing his life were

continued, it is needless to inquire. Perhaps as steam has force only

at a certain pressure, so human force requires the condensation of a

brief life to give it elastic energy. But these are idle speculations.

They show us, however, that our life beyond death will be not so much a

prolongation of life as we now know it as an entire change in the form

of our existence; and they show us also that our little piece of the

world's work must be quickly done if it is to be done at all, and that

it will not be done at all unless we take our life seriously and own the

responsibilities we have to ourselves, to our fellows, to our God.

Death comes sadly to the survivor, even when there is as little

untimeliness as in the case of Sarah; and as Abraham moved towards the

familiar tent the most intimate of his household would stand aloof and

respect his grief. The stillness that struck upon him, instead of the

usual greeting, as he lifted the tent-door; the dead order of all

inside; the one object that lay stark before him and drew him again and

again to look on what grieved him most to see; the chill which ran

through him as his lips touched the cold, stony forehead and gave him

sensible evidence how gone was the spirit from the clay--these are

shocks to the human heart not peculiar to Abraham. But few have been so

strangely bound together as these two were, or have been so manifestly

given to one another by God, or have been forced to so close a mutual

dependence. Not only had they grown up in the same family, and been

together separated from their kindred, and passed through unusual and

difficult circumstances together, but they were made co-heirs of God's

promise in such a manner that neither could enjoy it without the other.

They were knit together, not merely by natural liking and familiarity

of intercourse, but by God's choosing them as the instrument of His work

and the fountain of His salvation. So that in Sarah's death Abraham

doubtless read an intimation that his own work was done, and that his

generation is now out of date and ready to be supplanted.

Abraham's grief is interrupted by the sad but wholesome necessity which

forces us from the blank desolation of watching by the dead to the

active duties that follow. She whose beauty had captivated two princes

must now be buried out of sight. So Abraham stands up from before his

dead. Such a moment requires the resolute fortitude and manly

self-control which that expression seems intended to suggest. There is

something within us which rebels against the ordinary ongoing of the

world side by side with our great woe; we feel as if either the whole

world must mourn with us, or we must go aside from the world and have

our grief out in private. The bustle of life seems so meaningless and

incongruous to one whom grief has emptied of all relish for it. We seem

to wrong the dead by every return of interest we show in the things of

life which no longer interest _him_. Yet he speaks truly who says:--

"When sorrow all our heart would ask,

We need not shun our daily task,

And hide ourselves for calm;

The herbs we seek to heal our woe,

Familiar by our pathway grow,

Our common air is balm."

We must resume our duties, not as if nothing had happened, not proudly

forgetting death and putting grief aside as if this life did not need

the chastening influence of such realities as we have been engaged

with, or as if its business could not be pursued in an affectionate and

softened spirit, but acknowledging death as real and as humbling and

sobering.

Abraham then goes forth to seek a grave for Sarah, having already with a

common predilection fixed on the spot where he himself would prefer to

be laid. He goes accordingly to the usual meeting-place or exchange of

these times, the city-gate, where bargains were made, and where

witnesses for their ratification could always be had. Men who are

familiar with Eastern customs rather spoil for us the scene described in

this chapter by assuring us that all these courtesies and large offers

are merely the ordinary forms preliminary to a bargain, and were as

little meant to be literally understood as we mean to be literally

understood when we sign ourselves "your most obedient servant." Abraham

asks the Hittite chiefs to approach Ephron on the subject, because all

bargains of the kind are negotiated through mediators. Ephron's offer of

the cave and field is merely a form. Abraham quite understood that

Ephron only indicated his willingness to deal, and so he urges him to

state his price, which Ephron is not slow to do; and apparently his

price was a handsome one such as he could not have asked from a poorer

man, for he adds, "What are four hundred shekels between wealthy men

like you and me? Without more words let the bargain be closed--bury thy

dead."

The first landed property, then, of the patriarchs is a grave. In this

tomb were laid Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca; here, too, Jacob

buried Leah, and here Jacob himself desired to be laid after his death,

his last words being, "Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in

the field of Ephron the Hittite." This grave, therefore, becomes the

centre of the land. Where the dust of our fathers is, there is our

country; and as you may often hear aged persons, who are content to die

and have little else to pray for, still express a wish that they may

rest in the old well-remembered churchyard where their kindred lie, and

may thus in the weakness of death find some comfort, and in its

solitariness some companionship from the presence of those who tenderly

sheltered the helplessness of their childhood; so does this place of the

dead become henceforth the centre of attraction for all Abraham's seed

to which still from Egypt their longings and hopes turn, as to the one

magnetic point which, having once been fixed there, binds them ever to

the land. It is this grave which binds them to the land. This laying of

Sarah in the tomb is the real occupation of the land.

During the lapse of ages, all around this spot has been changed again

and again; but at some remote period, possibly as early as the time of

David, the reverence of the Jews built these tombs round with masonry so

substantial that it still endures. Within the space thus enclosed there

stood for long a Christian church, but since the Mohammedan domination

was established, a mosque has covered the spot. This mosque has been

guarded against Christian intrusion with a jealousy almost as rigid as

that which excludes all unbelievers from approaching Mecca. And though

the Prince of Wales was a few years ago allowed to enter the mosque, he

was not permitted to make any examination of the vaults beneath, where

the original tomb must be.

It is evident that this narrative of the purchase of Machpelah and the

burial of Sarah was preserved, not so much on account of the personal

interest which Abraham had in these matters, as on account of the

manifest significance they had in connection with the history of his

faith. He had recently heard from his own kindred in Mesopotamia, and it

might very naturally have occurred to him that the proper place to bury

Sarah was in his fatherland. The desire to lie among one's people is a

very strong Eastern sentiment. Even tribes which have no dislike to

emigration make provision that at death their bodies shall be restored

to their own country. The Chinese notoriously do so. Abraham, therefore,

could hardly have expressed his faith in a stronger form than by

purchasing a burying-ground for himself in Canaan. It was equivalent to

saying in the most emphatic form that he believed this country would

remain in perpetuity the country of his children and people. He had as

yet given no such pledge as this was, that he had irrevocably abandoned

his fatherland. He had bought no other landed property; he had built no

house. He shifted his encampment from place to place as convenience

dictated, and there was nothing to hinder him from returning at any time

to his old country. But now he fixed himself down; he said, as plainly

as acts can say, that his mind was made up that this was to be in all

time coming his land; this was no mere right of pasture rented for the

season, no mere waste land he might occupy with his tents till its owner

wished to reclaim it; it was no estate he could put into the market

whenever trade should become dull and he might wish to realise or to

leave the country; but it was a kind of property which he could not sell

and could not abandon.

Again, his determination to hold it in perpetuity is evident not only

from the nature of the property, but also from the formal purchase and

conveyance of it--the complete and precise terms in which the

transaction is completed. The narrative is careful to remind us again

and again that the whole transaction was negotiated in the audience of

the people of the land, of all those who went in at the gate, that the

sale was thoroughly approved and witnessed by competent authorities. The

precise subjects made over to Abraham are also detailed with all the

accuracy of a legal document--"the field of Ephron, which was in

Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field and the cave which was

therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the

borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the

presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of

his city." Abraham had no doubt of the friendliness of such men as Aner,

Eshcol, and Mamre, his ancient allies, but he was also aware that the

best way to maintain friendly relations was to leave no loophole by

which difference of opinion or disagreement might enter. Let the thing

be in black and white, so that there may be no misunderstanding as to

terms, no expectations doomed to be unfulfilled, no encroachments which

must cause resentment, if not retaliation. Law probably does more to

prevent quarrels than to heal them. As statesmen and historians tell us

that the best way to secure peace is to be prepared for war, so legal

documents seem no doubt harsh and unfriendly, but really are more

effective in maintaining peace and friendliness than vague promises and

benevolent intentions. In arranging affairs and engagements one is

always tempted to say, Never mind about the money, see how the thing

turns out and we can settle that by-and-bye; or, in looking at a will,

one is tempted to ask, of what strength is Christian feeling--not to say

family affection--if all these hard-and-fast lines need to be drawn

round the little bit of property which each is to have? But experience

shows that this is false delicacy, and that kindliness and charity may

be as fully and far more safely expressed in definite and legal terms

than in loose promises or mere understandings.

Again, Abraham's idea in purchasing this sepulchre is brought out by the

circumstance that he would not accept the offer of the children of Heth

to use one of their sepulchres. This was not pride of blood or any

feeling of that sort, but the right feeling that what God had promised

as His own peculiar gift must not seem to be given by men. Possibly no

great harm might have come of it if Abraham had accepted the gift of a

mere cave, or a shelf in some other man's burying-ground; but Abraham

could not bear to think that any captious person should ever be able to

say that the inheritance promised by God was really the gift of a

Hittite.

Similar captiousness appears not only in the experience of the

individual Christian, but also in the treatment religion gets from the

world. It is quite apparent, that is to say, that the world counts

itself the real proprietor here, and Christianity a stranger fortunately

or unfortunately thrown upon its shores and upon _its mercy_. One cannot

miss noticing the patronising way of the world towards the Church and

all that is connected with it, as if it alone could give it those things

needful for its prosperity--and especially willing is it to come forward

in the Hittite fashion and offer to the sojourner a sepulchre where it

may be decently buried, and as a dead thing lie out of the way.

But thoughts of a still wider reach were no doubt suggested to Abraham

by this purchase. Often must he have brooded on the sacrifice of Isaac,

seeking to exhaust its meaning. Many a talk in the dusk must his son and

he have had about that most strange experience. And no doubt the one

thing that seemed always certain about it was, that it is through death

a man truly becomes the heir of God; and here again in this purchase of

a tomb for Sarah it is the same fact that stares him in the face. He

becomes a proprietor when death enters his family; he himself, he feels,

is likely to have no more than this burial-acre of possession of his

land; it is only by dying he enters on actual possession. Till then he

is but a tenant, not a proprietor; as he says to the children of Heth,

he is but a stranger and a sojourner among them, but at death he will

take up his permanent dwelling in their midst. Was this not to suggest

to him that there might be a deeper meaning underlying this, and that

possibly it was only by death he could enter fully into all that God

intended he should receive? No doubt in the first instance it was a

severe trial to his faith to find that even at his wife's death he had

acquired no firmer foothold in the land. No doubt it was the very

triumph of his faith that though he himself had never had a settled,

permanent residence in the land, but had dwelt in tents, moving about

from place to place, just as he had done the first year of his entrance

upon it, yet he died in the unalterable persuasion that the land was

his, and that it would one day be filled with his descendants. It was

the triumph of his faith that he believed in the performance of the

promise as he had originally understood it; that he believed in the gift

of the actual visible land. But it is difficult to believe that he did

not come to the persuasion that God's friendship was more than any

single thing He promised; difficult to suppose he did not feel

something of what our Lord expressed in the words that God is the God of

the living, not of the dead; that those who are His enter by death into

some deeper and richer experience of His love.

Such is the interpretation put upon Abraham's attitude of mind by the

writer, who of all others saw most deeply into the moving principles of

the Old Testament dispensation and the connection between old things and

new--I mean the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He says that

persons who act as Abraham did declare plainly that they seek a country;

and if on finding they did not get the country in which they sojourned

they thought the promise had failed, they might, he says, have found

opportunity to return to the country whence they came at first. And why

did they not do so? Because they sought a better, that is, an heavenly

country. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He

hath prepared for them a city; as if He said, God would have been

ashamed of Abraham if he had been content with less, and had not aspired

to something more than he received in the land of Canaan.

Now how else could Abraham's mind have been so effectually lifted to

this exalted hope as by the disappointment of his original and much

tamer hope? Had he gained possession of the land in the ordinary way of

purchase or conquest, and had he been able to make full use of it for

the purposes of life; had he acquired meadows where his cattle might

graze, towns where his followers might establish themselves, would he

not almost certainly have fallen into the belief that in these pastures

and by his worldly wealth and quiet and prosperity he was already

exhausting God's promise regarding the land? But buying the land for

his dead he is forced to enter upon it from the right side, with the

idea that not by present enjoyment of its fertility is God's promise to

him exhausted. Both in the getting of his heir and in the acquisition of

his land his mind is led to contemplate things beyond the range of

earthly vision and earthly success. He is led to the thought that God

having become his God, this means blessing eternal as God Himself. In

short Abraham came to believe in a life beyond the grave on very much

the same grounds as many people still rely on. They feel that this life

has an unaccountable poverty and meagreness in it. They feel that they

themselves are much larger than the life here allotted to them. They are

out of proportion. It may be said that this is their own fault; they

should make life a larger, richer thing. But that is only apparently

true; the very brevity of life, which no skill of theirs can alter, is

itself a limiting and disappointing condition. Moreover, it seems

unworthy of God as well as of man. As soon as a worthy conception of God

possesses the soul, the idea of immortality forthwith follows it. We

instinctively feel that God can do far more for us than is done in this

life. Our knowledge of Him here is most rudimentary; our connection with

Him obscure and perplexed, and wanting in fulness of result; we seem

scarcely to know whose we are, and scarcely to be reconciled to the

essential conditions of life, or even to God;--we are, in short, in a

very different kind of life from that which we can conceive and desire.

Besides, a serious belief in God, in a personal Spirit, removes at a

touch all difficulties arising from materialism. If God lives and yet

has no senses or bodily appearance, we also may so live; and if His is

the higher state and the more enjoyable state, we need not dread to

experience life as disembodied spirits.

It is certainly a most acceptable lesson that is read to us here--viz.,

that God's promises do not shrivel, but grow solid and expand as we

grasp them. Abraham went out to enter on possession of a few fields a

little richer than his own, and he found an eternal inheritance.

Naturally we think quite the opposite of God's promises; we fancy they

are grandiloquent and magnify things, and that the actual fulfilment

will prove unworthy of the language describing it. But as the woman who

came to touch the hem of Christ's garment with some dubious hope that

thus her body might be healed, found herself thereby linked to Christ

for evermore, so always, if we meet God at any one point and honestly

trust Him for even the smallest gift, He makes that the means of

introducing Himself to us and getting us to understand the value of His

better gifts. And indeed, if this life were all, might not God well be

ashamed to call Himself our God? When He calls Himself our God He bids

us expect to find in Him inexhaustible resources to protect and satisfy

and enrich us. He bids us cherish boldly all innocent and natural

desires, believing that we have in Him one who can gratify every such

desire. But if this life be all, who can say existence has been

perfectly satisfactory--if there be no reversal of what has here gone

wrong, no restoration of what has here been lost, if there be no life in

which conscience and ideas and hopes find their fulfilment and

satisfaction, who can say he is content and could ask no more of God?

Who can say he does not see what more God could do for him than has here

been done? Doubtless there are many happy lives, doubtless there are

lives which carry in them a worthiness and a sacredness which manifest

God's presence, but even such lives only more powerfully suggest a state

in which all lives shall be holy and happy, and in which, freed from

inward uneasiness and shame and sorrow, we shall live unimpeded the

highest life, life as we feel it ought to be. The very joys men have

here experienced suggest to them the desirableness of continued life;

the love they have known can only intensify their yearning for this

perpetual enjoyment; their whole experience of this life has served to

reveal to them the endless possibilities of growth and of activity that

are bound up in human nature; and if death is to end all this, what more

has life been to any of us than a seed-time without a harvest, an

education without any sphere of employment, a vision of good that can

never be ours, a striving after the unattainable? If this is all that

God can give us we must indeed be disappointed in Him.

But He is disappointed in us if we do not aspire to more than this. In

this sense also He is ashamed to be called our God. He is ashamed to be

known as the God of men who never aspire to higher blessings than

earthly comfort and present prosperity. He is ashamed to be known as

connected with those who think so lightly of His power that they look

for nothing beyond what every man calculates on getting in this world.

God means all present blessings and all blessings of a lower kind to

lure us on to trust Him and seek more and more from Him. In these early

promises of His He says nothing expressly and distinctly of things

eternal. He appeals to the immediate wants and present longings of

men--just as our Lord while on earth drew men to Himself by healing

their diseases. Take, then, any one promise of God, and, however small

it seems at first, it will grow in your hand; you will find always that

you get more than you bargained for, that you cannot take even a little

without going further and receiving all.

XIX.

_ISAAC'S MARRIAGE._

GENESIS xxiv.

"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth

the Lord, she shall be praised."--PROV. xxxi. 30.

"When a son has attained the age of twenty years, his father, if able,

should marry him, and then take his hand and say, I have disciplined

thee, and taught thee, and married thee; I now seek refuge with God from

thy mischief in the present world and the next." This Mohammedan

tradition expresses with tolerable accuracy the idea of the Eastern

world, that a father has not discharged his responsibilities towards his

son until he finds a wife for him. Abraham no doubt fully recognised his

duty in this respect, but he had allowed Isaac to pass the usual age. He

was thirty-seven at his mother's death, forty when the events of this

chapter occurred. This delay was occasioned by two causes. The bond

between Isaac and his mother was an unusually strong one; and alongside

of that imperious woman a young wife would have found it even more

difficult than usual to take a becoming place. Besides, where was a wife

to be found? No doubt some of Abraham's Hittite friends would have

considered any daughter of theirs exceptionally fortunate who should

secure so good an alliance. The heir of Abraham was no inconsiderable

person even when measured by Hittite expectations. And it may have taxed

Abraham's sagacity to find excuses for not forming an alliance which

seemed so natural, and which would have secured to him and his heirs a

settled place in the country. This was so obvious, common, easily

accomplished a means of gaining a footing for Isaac among somewhat

dangerous neighbours, that it stands to reason Abraham must often have

weighed its advantages.

But as often as he weighed the advantages of this solution of his

difficulty, so often did he reject them. He was resolved that the race

should be of pure Hebrew blood. His own experience in connection with

Hagar had given this idea a settled prominence in his mind. And,

accordingly, in his instructions to the servant whom he sent to find a

wife for Isaac, two things were insisted on--1st, that she should not be

a Canaanite; and, 2nd, that on no pretext should Isaac be allowed to

leave the land of promise and visit Mesopotamia. The steward, knowing

something of men and women, foresaw that it was most unlikely that a

young woman would forsake her own land and preconceived hopes and go

away with a stranger to a foreign country. Abraham believes she will be

persuaded. But in any case, he says, one thing must be seen to; Isaac

must on no account be induced to leave the promised land even to visit

Mesopotamia. God will furnish Isaac with a wife without putting him into

circumstances of great temptation, without requiring him to go into

societies in the slightest degree injurious to his faith. In fact,

Abraham refused to do what countless Christian mothers of marriageable

sons and daughters do without compunction. He had an insight into the

real influences that form action and determine careers which many of us

sadly lack.

And his faith was rewarded. The tidings from his brother's family

arrived in the nick of time. Light, he found, was sown for the upright.

It happened with him as it has doubtless often happened with ourselves,

that though we have been looking forward to a certain time with much

anxiety, unable even to form a plan of action, yet when the time

actually came, things seemed to arrange themselves, and the thing to do

became quite obvious. Abraham was persuaded God would send His angel to

bring the affair to a happy issue. And when we seem drifting towards

some great upturning of our life, or when things seem to come all of a

sudden and in crowds upon us, so that we cannot judge what we should do,

it is an animating thought that another eye than ours is penetrating the

darkness, finding for us a way through all entanglement and making

crooked things straight for us.

But the patience of Isaac was quite as remarkable as the faith of

Abraham. He was now forty years old, and if, as he had been told, the

great aim of his life, the great service he was to render to the world,

was bound up with the rearing of a family, he might with some reason be

wondering why circumstances were so adverse to the fulfilment of this

vocation. Must he not have been tempted, as his father had been, to take

matters into his own hand? Fathers are perhaps too scrupulous about

telling their sons instructive passages from their own experience; but

when Abraham saw Isaac exercised and discomposed about this matter, he

can scarcely have failed to strengthen his spirit by telling him

something of his own mistakes in life. Abraham must have seen that

everything depended on Isaac's conduct, and that he had a very

difficult part to play. He himself had been supernaturally encouraged to

leave his own land and sojourn in Canaan; on the other hand, by the time

Jacob grew up, the idea of the promised land had become traditional and

fixed; though even Jacob, had he found Laban a better master, might have

permanently renounced his expectations in Canaan. But Isaac enjoyed the

advantages neither of the first nor of the third generation. The coming

into Canaan was not his doing, and he saw how little of the land Abraham

had gained. He was under strong temptation to disbelieve. And when he

measured his condition with that of other young men, he certainly

required unusual self-control. And to every one who would urge, Youth is

passing, and I am not getting what I expected at God's hand; I have not

received that providential leading I was led to expect, nor do I find

that my life is made simpler; it is very well to tell me to wait, but

life is slipping away, and we may wait too long--to every one whose

heart urges such murmurs, Abraham through Isaac would say: But if you

wait for God you get something, some positive good, and not some mere

appearance of good; you at last do get begun, you get into life at the

right door; whereas if you follow some other way than that which you

believe God wishes to lead you in, you get nothing.

Isaac's continence had its reward. In the suitableness of Rebekah to a

man of his nature, we see the suitableness of all such gifts of God as

are really waited for at His hand. God may keep us longer waiting than

the world does, but He gives us never the wrong thing. Isaac had no idea

of Rebekah's character; he could only yield himself to God's knowledge

of what he needed; and so there came to him, from a country he had

never seen, a help-meet singularly adapted to his own character. One

cannot read of her lively, bustling, almost forward, but obliging and

generous conduct at the well, nor of her prompt, impulsive departure to

an unknown land, without seeing, as no doubt Eliezer very quickly saw,

that this was exactly the woman for Isaac. In this eager, ardent,

active, enterprising spirit, his own retiring and contemplative, if not

sombre disposition found its appropriate relief and stimulus. Hers was a

spirit which might indeed, with so mild a lord, take more of the

management of affairs than was befitting; and when the wear and tear of

life had tamed down the girlish vivacity with which she spoke to Eliezer

at the well, and leapt from the camel to meet her lord, her

active-mindedness does appear in the disagreeable shape of the clever

scheming of the mother of a family. In her sons you see her qualities

exaggerated: from her, Esau derived his activity and open-handedness;

and in Jacob, you find that her self-reliant and unscrupulous management

has become a self-asserting craft which leads him into much trouble, if

it also sometimes gets him out of difficulties. But such as Rebekah was,

she was quite the woman to attract Isaac and supplement his character.

So in other cases where you find you must leave yourself very much in

God's hand, what He sends you will be found more precisely adapted to

your character than if you chose it for yourself. You find your whole

nature has been considered,--your aims, your hopes, your wants, your

position, whatever in you waits for something unattained. And as in

giving to Isaac the intended mother of the promised seed, God gave him a

woman who fitted in to all the peculiarities of his nature, and was a

comfort and a joy to him in his own life; so we shall always find that

God, in satisfying His own requirements, satisfies at the same time our

wants--that God carries forward His work in the world by the

satisfaction of the best and happiest feelings of our nature, so that it

is not only the result that is blessedness, but blessing is created

along its whole course.

Abraham's servant, though not very sanguine of success, does all in his

power to earn it. He sets out with an equipment fitted to inspire

respect and confidence. But as he draws nearer and nearer to the city of

Nahor, revolving the delicate nature of his errand, and feeling that

definite action must now be taken, he sees so much room for making an

irreparable mistake that he resolves to share his responsibility with

the God of his master. And the manner in which he avails himself of

God's guidance is remarkable. He does not ask God to guide him to the

house of Bethuel; indeed, there was no occasion to do so, for any child

could have pointed out the house to him. But he was a cautious person,

and he wished to make his own observations on the appearance and conduct

of the younger women of the household, before in any way committing

himself to them. He was free to make these observations at the well;

while he felt it must be very awkward to enter Laban's house with the

possibility of leaving it dissatisfied. At the same time, he felt it was

for God rather than for him to choose a wife for Isaac. So he made an

arrangement by which the interposition of God was provided for. He meant

to make his own selection, guided necessarily by the comparative

attractiveness of the women who came for water, possibly also by some

family likeness to Sarah or Isaac he might expect to see in any women

of Bethuel's house; but knowing the deceitfulness of appearances, he

asked God to confirm and determine his own choice by moving the girl he

should address to give him a certain answer. Having arranged this,

"Behold! Rebekah came out with her pitcher upon her shoulder, and the

damsel was very fair to look upon." In the Bible the beauty of women is

frankly spoken of without prudery or mawkishness as an influence in

human affairs. The beauty of Rebekah at once disposed Eliezer to address

her, and his first impression in her favour was confirmed by the

obliging, cheerful alacrity with which she did very much more than she

was asked, and, indeed, took upon herself, through her kindness of

disposition, a task of some trouble and fatigue.

It is important to observe then in what sense and to what extent this

capable servant asked a sign. He did not ask for a bare, intrinsically

insignificant sign. He might have done so. He might have proposed as a

test, Let her who stumbles on the first step of the well be the designed

wife of Isaac; or, Let her who comes with a certain-coloured flower in

her hand--or so forth. But the sign he chose was significant, because

dependent on the character of the girl herself; a sign which must reveal

her good-heartedness and readiness to oblige and courteous activity in

the entertainment of strangers--in fact, the outstanding Eastern virtue.

So that he really acted very much as Isaac himself must have done. He

would make no approach to any one whose appearance repelled him; and

when satisfied in this particular, he would test her disposition. And of

course it was these qualities of Rebekah which afterwards caused Isaac

to feel that this was the wife God had designed for him. It was not by

any arbitrary sign that he or any man could come to know who was the

suitable wife for him, but only by the love she aroused within him. God

has given this feeling to direct choice in marriage; and where this is

wanting, nothing else whatever, no matter how astoundingly providential

it seems, ought to persuade a man that such and such a person is

designed to be his wife.

There are turning points in life at once so momentous in their

consequence, and affording so little material for choice, that one is

much tempted to ask for more than providential leading. Not only among

savages and heathen have omens been sought. Among Christians there has

been manifest a constant disposition to appeal to the lot, or to accept

some arbitrary way of determining which course we should follow. In very

many predicaments we should be greatly relieved were there some one who

could at once deliver us from all hesitation and mental conflict by one

authoritative word. There are, perhaps, few things more frequently and

determinedly wished for, nor regarding which we are so much tempted to

feel that such a thing should be, as some infallible guide before whom

we could lay every difficulty; who would tell us at once what ought to

be done in each case, and whether we ought to continue as we are or make

some change. But only consider for a moment what would be the

consequence of having such a guide. At every important step of your

progress you would, of course, instantly turn to him; as soon as doubt

entered your mind regarding the moral quality of an action, or the

propriety of a course you think of adopting, you would be at your

counsellor. And what would be the consequence? The consequence would be,

that instead of the various circumstances, experiences, and temptations

of this life being a training to you, your conscience would every day

become less able to guide you, and your will less able to decide, until,

instead of being a mature son of God, who has learned to conform his

conscience and will to the will of God, you would be quite imbecile as a

moral creature. What God desires by our training here is, that we become

like to Him; that there be nurtured in us a power to discern between

good and evil; that by giving our own voluntary consent to His

appointments, and that by discovering in various and perplexing

circumstances what is the right thing to do, we may have our own moral

natures as enlightened, strengthened, and fully developed every way as

possible. The object of God in declaring His will to us is not to point

out particular steps, but to bring our wills into conformity with His,

so that whether we err in any particular step or no, we shall still be

near to Him in intention. He does with us as we with children. We do not

always at once relieve them from their little difficulties, but watch

with interest the working of their own conscience regarding the matter,

and will give them no sign till they themselves have decided.

Evidently, therefore, before we may dare to ask a sign from God, the

case must be a very special one. If you are at present engaged in

something that is to your own conscience doubtful, and if you are not

hiding this from God, but would very willingly, so far as you know your

own mind, do in the matter what He pleases--if no further light is

coming to you, and you feel a growing inclination to put it to God in

this way: "Grant, O Lord, that something may happen by which I may know

Thy mind in this matter"--this is asking from God a kind of help which

He is very ready to give, often leading men to clearer views of duty by

events which happen within their knowledge, and which having no special

significance to persons whose minds are differently occupied, are yet

most instructive to those who are waiting for light on some particular

point. The danger is not here, but in fixing God down to the special

thing which shall happen as a sign between Him and you; which, when it

happens, gives no fresh light on the subject, leaves your mind still

_morally_ undecided, but only binds you, by an arbitrary bargain of your

own, to follow one course rather than another. This matter that you

would so summarily dispose of may be the very thread of your life which

God means to test you by; this state of indecision which you would

evade, God may mean to continue until your moral character grows strong

enough to rise above it to the right decision.

No one will suppose that Rebekah's readiness to leave her home was due

to mere light-mindedness. Her motives were no doubt mixed. The worldly

position offered to her was good, and there was an attractive spice of

romance about the whole affair which would have its charm. She may also

be credited with some apprehension of the great future of Isaac's

family. In after life she certainly showed a very keen sense of the

value of the blessings peculiar to that household. And, probably above

all, she had an irresistible feeling that this was her destiny. She saw

the hand of God in her selection, and with a more or less conscious

faith in God she passed to her new life.

Her first meeting with her future husband is not the least picturesque

passage in this most picturesque narrative. Isaac had gone out on that

side of the encampment by which he knew his father's messenger was most

likely to approach. He had gone out "to meditate at even-tide;" his

meditation being necessarily directed and intensified by his attitude of

critical expectancy.

The evening light, in our country hanging dubiously between the glare of

noon and the darkness of midnight, invites to that condition of mind

which lies between the intense alertness of day and the deep oblivion of

sleep, and which seems the most favourable for the meditation of divine

things. The dusk of evening seems interposed between day and night to

invite us to that reflection which should intervene betwixt our labour

and our rest from labour, that we may leave our work behind us satisfied

that we have done what we could, or, seeing its faultiness, may still

lay us down to sleep with God's forgiveness. It is when the bright

sunlight has gone, and no more reproaches our inactivity, that friends

can enjoy prolonged intercourse, and can best unbosom to one another, as

if the darkness gave opportunity for a tenderness which would be ashamed

to show itself during the twelve hours in which a man shall work. And

all that makes this hour so beloved by the family circle, and so

conducive to friendly intercourse, makes it suitable also for such

intercourse with God as each human soul can attempt. Most of us suppose

we have some little plot of time railed off for God morning and evening,

but how often does it get trodden down by the profane multitude of this

world's cares, and quite occupied by encroaching secular engagements.

But evening is the time when many men are, and when all men ought to be

least hurried; when the mind is placid, but not yet prostrate; when the

body requires rest from its ordinary labour, but is not yet so oppressed

with fatigue as to make devotion a mockery; when the din of this world's

business is silenced, and as a sleeper wakes to consciousness when some

accustomed noise is checked, so the soul now wakes up to the thought of

itself and of God. I know not whether those of us who have the

opportunity have also the resolution to sequester ourselves evening by

evening, as Isaac did; but this I do know, that he who does so will not

fail of his reward, but will very speedily find that his Father who

seeth in secret is manifestly rewarding him. What we all need above all

things is to let the mind _dwell_ on divine things--to be able to sit

down knowing we have so much clear time in which we shall not be

disturbed, and during which we shall think directly under God's eye--to

get quite rid of the feeling of getting through with something, so that

without distraction the soul may take a deliberate survey of its own

matters. And so shall often God's gifts appear on our horizon when we

lift up our eyes, as Isaac "lifted up his eyes and saw the camels

coming" with his bride.

Twilight, "nature's vesper-bell," or the light shaded at evening by the

hills of Palestine, seems, then, to have called Isaac to a familiar

occupation. This long-continued mourning for his mother, and his lonely

meditation in the fields, are both in harmony with what we know of his

character, and of his experience on Mount Moriah. Retiring and

contemplative, willing to conciliate by concession rather than to assert

and maintain his rights against opposition, glad to yield his own

affairs to the strong guidance of some other hand, tender and deep in

his affections, to him this lonely meditation seems singularly

appropriate. His dwelling, too, was remote, on the edge of the

wilderness, by the well which Hagar had named Lahai-roi. Here he dwelt

as one consecrated to God, feeling little desire to enter deeper into

the world, and preferring the place where the presence of God was least

disturbed by the society of men. But at this time he had come from the

south, and was awaiting at his father's encampment the result of

Eliezer's mission. And one can conceive the thrill of keen expectancy

that shot through him as he saw the female figure alighting from the

camel, the first eager exchange of greetings, and the gladness with

which he brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah's tent and was comforted

after his mother's death. The readiness with which he loved her seems to

be referred in the narrative to the grief he still felt for his mother;

for as a candle is never so easily lit as just after it has been put

out, so the affection of Isaac, still emitting the sad memorial of a

past love, more quickly caught at the new object presented. And thus was

consummated a marriage which shows us how thoroughly interwrought are

the plans of God and the life of man, each fulfilling the other.

For as the salvation God introduces into the world is a practical,

every-day salvation to deliver us from the sins which this life tempts

us to, so God introduced this salvation by means of the natural

affections and ordinary arrangements of human life. God would have us

recognise in our lives what He shows us in this chapter, that He has

made provision for our wants, and that if we wait upon Him He will bring

us into the enjoyment of all we really need. So that if we are to make

any advance in appropriating to ourselves God's salvation, it can only

be by submitting ourselves implicitly to His providence, and taking care

that in the commonest and most secular actions of our lives we are

having respect to His will with us, and that in those actions in which

our own feelings and desires seem sufficient to guide us, we are having

regard to His controlling wisdom and goodness. We are to find room for

God everywhere in our lives, not feeling embarrassed by the thought of

His claims even in our least constrained hours, but subordinating to His

highest and holiest ends everything that our life contains, and

acknowledging as His gift what may seem to be our own most proper

conquest or earning.

XX.

_ESAU AND JACOB._

GENESIS xxv.

"He goeth as an ox goeth to the slaughter, till a dart strike

through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not

that it is for his life."--PROV. vii. 22, 23.

The character and career of Isaac would seem to tell us that it is

possible to have too great a father. Isaac was dwarfed and weakened by

growing up under the shadow of Abraham. Of his life there was little to

record, and what was recorded was very much a reproduction of some of

the least glorious passages of his father's career. The digging of wells

for his flocks was among the most notable events in his commonplace

life, and even in this he only re-opened the wells his father had dug.

In him we see the result of growing up under too strong and dominant an

external influence. The free and healthy play of his own capacities and

will was curbed. The sons of outstanding fathers are much tempted to

follow in the wake of _their_ success, and be too much controlled and

limited by the example therein set to them. There is a great deal to

induce a son to do so; this calling has been successful in his father's

case, what better can he do than follow? Also he may get the use of his

_wells_--those sources his father has opened for the easier or more

abundant maintenance of those dependent on him, the business he has

established, the practice he has made, the connections he has

formed--these are useful if he follows in his father's line of life. But

all this tends, as in Isaac's case, to the stunting of the man himself.

Life is made too easy for him.

Isaac has been called "the Wordsworth of the Old Testament," but his

meditative disposition seems to have degenerated into mere dreamy

apathy, which, at last, made him the tool of the more active-minded

members of his family, and was also attended by its common accompaniment

of sensuality. It seems also to have brought him to a condition of

almost entire bodily prostration, for a comparison of dates shows that

he must have spent forty or fifty years in blindness and incapacity for

all active duty. Neither can this greatly surprise us, for it is

abundantly open to our own observation that men of the finest spiritual

discernment, and of whose godliness in the main one cannot doubt, are

also frequently the prey of the most childish tastes, and most useless

even to the extent of doing harm in practical matters. They do not see

the evil that is growing in their own family; or, if they see it, they

cannot rouse themselves to check it.

Isaac's marriage, though so promising in the outset, brought new trial

into his life. Rebekah had to repeat the experience of Sarah. The

intended mother of the promised seed was left for twenty years

childless--to contend with the doubts, surmises, evil proposals, proud

challengings of God, and murmurings, which must undoubtedly have arisen

even in so bright and spirited a heart as Rebekah's. It was thus she was

taught the seriousness of the position she had chosen for herself, and

gradually led to the implicit faith requisite for the discharge of its

responsibilities. Many young persons have a similar experience. They

seem to themselves to have chosen a wrong position, to have made a

thorough mistake in life, and to have brought themselves into

circumstances in which they only retard, or quite prevent, the

prosperity of those with whom they are connected. In proportion as

Rebekah loved Isaac, and entered into his prospects, must she have been

tempted to think she had far better have remained in Padan-aram. It is a

humbling thing to stand in some other person's way; but if it is by no

fault of ours, but in obedience to affection or conscience we are in

this position, we must, in humility and patience, wait upon Providence

as Rebekah did, and resist all morbid despondency.

This second barrenness in the prospective mother of the promised seed

was as needful to all concerned as the first was; for the people of God,

no more than any others, can learn in one lesson. They must again be

brought to a real dependence on God as the Giver of the heir. The prayer

with which Isaac "entreated" the Lord for his wife "because she was

barren" was a prayer of deeper intensity than he could have uttered had

he merely remembered the story that had been told him of his own birth.

God must be recognised again and again and throughout as the Giver of

life to the promised line. We are all apt to suppose that when once we

have got a thing in train and working we can get on without God. How

often do we pray for the bestowal of a blessing, and forget to pray for

its continuance? How often do we count it enough that God has conferred

some gift, and, not inviting Him to continue His agency, but trusting to

ourselves, we mar His gift in the use? Learn, therefore, that although

God has given you means of working out His salvation, your Rebekah will

be barren without His continued activity. On His own means you must

re-invite His blessing, for without the continuance of His aid you will

make nothing of the most beautiful and appropriate helps He has given

you.