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or gladness, was given to him because his mother, conscious of the infirmities of age, had privately laughed at the prediction of his birth, and because when her son was brought into the world, she said "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me." When Isaac had arrived at the maturity of manhood, Abraham, for the trial of his faith, received a command from God to offer his son as a sacrifice. It is impossible to conceive the emotions which must have been excited in the mind of the patriarch, by such a mandate. That Isaac, the only son of Sarah-the beloved of his mother-the child of his old age-the child of promise-the child specifically referred to in the covenant, and whose existence was essential to the fulfilment of the magnificent predictive declarations which related to the number of his posterity, to the inheritance of Canaan, and to the advent and merciful interposition of the Son of God-that Isaac should be rendered the victim, that he should be numbered with the dead, and that by his fatal sacrifice all the bright and glowing anticipations of his father should be blasted for ever, all this, so confounding to every calculation, so contradictory to every promise, so withering to the heart of parental love, must have given to Abraham an agonizing shock as paralizing to all his tenderest affections, as it was destructive to his dearest and most cherished hopes. But it A. C. 1871. was the command of God, and Abraham unhesitatingly obeyed. Convinced of the divine veracity, believing that nothing was too hard for the Lord, and assured that however inscrutable the injunction, the termination would redound at once to his own happiness, to the welfare of his child, and to the glory of his God, he instantly led his beloved Isaac to the summit of Moriah-the altar was arranged-the fire was prepared-the victim was bound-and it is difficult to affirm which was most admirable, the patient submission of the child, or the confiding faith of the father. But providence interposed. When the arm of Abraham was outstretched, and the fatal knife was about to be plunged into the heart of his son, the voice of a mysterious messenger was heard from heaven commanding him to restrain his hand, while his exemplary affiance in God was acknowledged and

applauded. A ram was found, was presented as a burnt-offering upon the altar, and the name of the place was called Jehovah Jireh, or "the Lord will provide." The divine covenant with Abraham was then solemnly ratified by the oath of God, and the identity of his race with the advent of the Messiah, and the blessing of the nations, was again clearly illustrated and confirmed.

Was the offering of Isaac by his father typical?

It ought by no means to be forgotten, that this transaction is as typically instructive, as its narration by the inspired writer is interesting and impressive. The offering of Isaac was symbolical of the atoning sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God; and it is a coincidence too remarkable not to excite observation, that it was in the immediate vicinity of the very scene of Abraham's trial and of his son's deliverance, that the cross of Christ nineteen hundred years afterwards was reared, and that his propitiatory sufferings were endured. To the whole scene additional interest, and to the typical representation more affecting impression, were attached, by the personal appearance of the Messiah as "the Angel of the Lord.' For it is incredible that a mere angel could have made the assertions which this awful Being uttered to Abraham-that a mere angel could have assumed divine prerogativesthat a mere angel could have arrogated the power of accomplishing the inscrutable purposes of the Deity— that a mere angel could have applied to himself the appellation "JEHOVAH," which both Jews and Gentiles justly consider the incommunicable name of God. The most monstrous conclusions cannot be escaped, unless it be allowed, that he who was the object of the covenant proclaimed it; that he who was the matter of the promise guaranteed its fulfilment; that he who was to be the blessing of the nations, appeared when the inestimable assurance of his subsequent advent was made, to connect positive fact with the infallible prediction, and himself to testify of the future operations and wonders of his grace.

SECTION III.

CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM.

GIVE an account of the marriage of Isaac.

SO

WHEN, in the one hundred and twentyA. C. 1859. seventh year of her age the ashes of Sarah had been committed to the cave of Macpelah, which had been purchased by her husband to be the burying-place of his family, the anxious solicitude of Abraham was excited for the marriage of the son whose preservation had been so extraordinary. In order to maintain the separation of his family, now distinguished by its connexion with the covenant and purposes of God, from the idolatrous nations by which he was surrounded, Abraham determined to send to his own relations in Mesopotamia for a wife for his son, having been informed that his brother Nahor had a numerous progeny. He therefore called his faithful servant Eliezer of Damascus, whom he determined to entrust with this commission, and made him swear that he would faithfully execute his intentions. The oath of Eliezer was ratified by the significant ceremony of putting his hand upon his master's thigh-a ceremony, which proved that the oath was the most sacred which could be taken, that it was an oath by that divine covenant of which circumcision was the sign, and that its violation involved the expulsion of the perjured person from all the blessings of the promise. Eliezer was conducted on his journey, and enabled to accomplish his important objects by the signal providence of God, overruling what appeared to be, and what some semi-deistical writers have asserted to have been, a combination of merely fortuitous circumstances. In answer to his

fervent prayer he was introduced to Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the son of Nahor; he made her a valuable present of the ornaments which females of rank were accustomed to wear; and by her he was taken to the residence of her family. When the servant of Abraham had stated his mission, and had de

tailed the extraordinary events which had occurred on his arrival in Mesopotamia, both Bethuel the father, and Laban the brother of Rebekah, were so convinced that the whole affair was under the direction of God, that they immediately acquiesced in his proposition, received the consent of Rebekah to become the wife of Isaac, accepted the liberal gifts of their kinsman, and dismissed her with blessings on her way to her destined husband. While Isaac was walking abroad in the calmness of the evening, he beheld at a distance his approaching bride, her modesty and her loveliness immediately engaged his affections, and he was comforted for the irretrievable loss which he had sustained by the death of his mother.

A. C. 1856.

Had Abraham any other descendants besides the posterity of Isaac and Ishmael?

When his son had been thus happily united to Rebekah, Abraham took for a second wife Keturah, by whom he had six sons whom he sent into the East, that they might not interfere with the hereditary privileges of Isaac, nor distract his family by dissension; who themselves became the origin of tribes or of nations, so that with the single exception of Noah, no man has lived since the deluge, whose descendants have been so numerous and so powerful.

What account is given in the Scriptures of the blessedness of Abraham after his death?

Full of years, of honours, and of usefulness Abraham was gathered to the grave. And he was elevated to a distinguished place in the kingdom of heaven. Amidst all the changes of his eventful life, he had been "looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" and when a hundred and seventy five years had rolled away, he entered into the blessedness of his everlasting rest. The authority of the great Prophet of the church decided "Abraham's bosom" to be synonymous with the happiness of heaven; long after his death, God spoke of him as actually and gloriously existing; the Saviour mentioned him in the immortality of his bliss; and it is represented as one part of the felicity to be bestowed upon the millions of the redeemed, to "sit down" with him,

when the warfare of mortality is done, in the everlasting kingdom of God.

Was Abraham possessed of extensive influence?

Abraham was a person of considerable consequence and power. When he pursued the army which had taken away captive his nephew Lot, he had three hundred and eighteen servants whom he armed for the rescue; and the children of Heth, when he was treating with them for the purchase of a burying-place, called him a mighty prince in their country.

By what was Abraham honourably distinguished?

The distinguishing characteristic of Abraham, was his unbounded and unwavering confidence in the truth, in the promises, and in the providence of God. His faith was no mere process of rational argumentation, it was no ingenious calculation from the events of the past to the probabilities of the future, it was simple, naked trust in the veracity of God. He believed in hope, he believed against hope, and it was counted to him for righteousness. It was this that led him forth from the protection of his paternal home to encounter dangers and difficulties in unknown and inhospitable climes; it was this which supported his mind during the trying delay which intervened between the promise of a son, and its actual accomplishment; it was this which enabled him to place the child of his old age upon the altar of sacrifice, " accounting that God was able raise him up, even from the dead;" and it was this which animated both his principles and his obedience, until the mandate of his God called him away to that glorious world, where both faith and hope are lost in eternal fruition and praise.

Give a general description of the character of Abraham.

His high and honourable integrity, his liberal and amiable hospitality, his virtuous chastity, his unaffected simplicity, the tenderness of his conjugal and parental affection, his undaunted courage when a suffering relative was in danger of slavery or death, the benevolence which led him to intercede for the most

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