of God, and humbly thanking him for his instruction in those matters which it was fitting for him to know. His confession and repentance was accepted for himself, and his intercession also for his three friends, against whom God's wrath was kindled, because they had not spoken of him the things that were right. Job having thus been tried in the furnace of affliction, as acceptable men for the most part are, was again restored to wealth and comfort; a new family arose around him, his latter end was blest more than the beginning, and he died at a good old age, comforted no doubt in his last moments by that joyful reflection upon a resurrection to come, which had sustained him in the time of his sore calamity. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."* May all the children of God encourage themselves with the same hope, in the midst of affliction and at the hour of death; and these words of Job raise their minds to a firm expectation of the life to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord! CHAP. VIII. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. IN the prophecy of Noah, Shem appeared to be clearly pointed out as the person in whose lineage the worship of the true God should be chiefly perpetuated, and in which, therefore, the promised Seed of * Job xix. 25-27. the woman was hereafter to arise. But Shem had five sons; and their families, after the division of the nations at Babel, became variously dispersed, and separated from each other; while in most of them the remembrance of the God of their fathers became less and less strong in every succeeding generation; and in spite of the evident demonstrations of his power exhibited in the destruction of mankind by the flood, and in the subsequent confusion of tongues, the worship of the creatures began by degrees to gain ground over that of the Creator, God blessed for ever. In order to supply, to a certain extent, a remedy to this disease of the soul, and to carry on more manifestly his gracious purpose of ultimate deliverance for the whole human race from the bondage of sin and Satan, it seemed good to Him to make choice of an individual of the race of Shem, descending through his third son, Arphaxad, namely, Abram, the son of Terah, then dwelling with his father in Ur of the Chaldees, to whom he would reveal himself in a more special manner, and communicate a variety of spiritual promises, embracing the assurance that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be hereafter blessed. The first revelation, as St. Stephen assures us in the seventh chapter of the Acts,* was made to him while he was in Mesopotamia, that is at Ur, before he dwelt in Haran. It was a direction to quit his country, his kindred, and if need were, his father's family, and to go unto a land which God would show him, accompanied by a promise of great blessings, as the consequence of his compliance. Abram, like St. Paul on a somewhat similar occasion, was "not disobedient to the heavenly vision:"† he set off, trusting to the guidance of heaven, and induced his father Terah, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot, to accompany him on his journey. When they arrived at Haran, owing perhaps to the increasing infirmities of Terah, they tarried there some time; and it was not until after his father's death, that Abram, being then seventy-five years old, renewed his progress westward, and entered the land of Canaan. He entered it towards its northern frontier, and having remained for a short time in an encampment between Bethel and Ai, where the Lord made him a specific promise, that to his seed he would give that land, and where he built an altar, and offered his devotions to him, he proceeded onward to the south; and finding the country in a state of famine, was induced to visit Egypt. Perceiving himself there in the power of the king of that country, and fearing that the beauty of Sarai, if she was known to be his wife, would excite the Egyptian to put him to death, in order to obtain her, he desired her to call herself his sister; the conse→ quence of which was, that Pharaoh sent and conveyed her to his palace, with the intention of making her his wife;" and entreated Abram well for her sake."* But the righteous Lord would not sanction either this arbitrary seizure on the one hand, or this cowardly equivocation on the other. He punished Pharaoh in such a manner as to make him restore Sarai to her lawful husband, with a just reproof for his disingenuous conduct, and to send him away in the undisturbed enjoyment of the goods he had acquired, insomuch that he was now very "rich in cattle, and silver and gold." "If this conduct of Abram was weakness and defect in faith-as who is perfect and sinneth not?-let it teach us to fear for ourselves; to watch and pray, lest we also enter into temptation. And if at any time, through frailty of Gen. xii. 16. the flesh, we happen to fall, let it also be an encouragement to us, that we shall not perhaps be cast away; that God is gracious, and may overlook our infirmities.' ."* Uniform consistency of character was a blessing to which Abram had yet attained. His faith in the first instance had been of the most remarkable nature-"by it, when he was called to go out into a place which he should hereafter receive for an inheritance, he obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went;" but though it thus enabled him to despise his present comforts, to expose himself to a variety of difficulties and hardships, for the promise of God, yet it was not enough, as we have seen, to make him look the danger of death steadily in the face, and preserve his integrity at the hazard of his life. He might possibly have thought, that having quitted the land promised as his inheritance, and gone down into Egypt, he could not claim the Lord's protection there, and on that account had recourse to the devices of human craftiness; but however this may be, we cannot doubt that when he returned to the place where he had first built his altar, and called there again upon the name of the Lord, he did so with deep and sincere repentance for the fault into which he had been betrayed. And may all we, who in like manner have been overtaken, in like manner betake ourselves to God in penitential supplication; let us call upon his name, and throw ourselves upon his mercy: let us return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon us; and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon. The devotions of Abram produced in him what real devotion at all times will-a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price; and this temper of mind speedily found an occasion for Wogan's Essay on the Proper Lessons. + Heb. xi. 8. 66 its exercise. Strife arose between the herdsmen of Abram, and the herdsmen of Lot: the land where they dwelt was not able to bear them, that they might remain together. How kind and generous in this state of things was the conduct of Abram! he had a promise of the whole land; he was the elder, and the uncle of Lot; but he gave up at once all these well-grounded claims to a preference, and said to his nephew, "Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee, for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself I pray thee from mẹ. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left."* God looked with approbation upon this rare want of selfishness, and immediately rewarded it, by a renewal of his promise of giving him the whole land, in more explicit terms than before : Arise," he said, "walk through the land in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee."+ Abram obeyed; and while Lot, without expressing any thankfulness, or showing any modesty in his choice, fixed upon the vale of Sodom, because of its beauty and richness, as his future residence, in spite of the morals of its inhabitants, he patiently removed his tent, and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, among the mountains of Hebron, and builded there an altar to the Lord. Lot in the mean time, who had gone down to enjoy the richness of his new dwelling-place, found himself involved in its misfortunes. A war between the five kings of the plain of Jordan and four eastern princes, terminated in the defeat of the former: Sodom was plundered, and among others Lot and his family were carried away captives. This fate had justly befallen him, for going to live in so wicked a city, which |