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tune, only instructed to seek it amongst his kins-folk and relations; and he went to seek it upon so uncertain a foundation, that we find him most earnestly praying to God to be with him in the way that he was to go, and not suffer him to want the necessaries of life to support him, but to give him bread to eat, and raiment to put on; yet we see by letting himself for hire to Laban, he both married his daughters, and in a few years became the master of a very considerable substance. 4. We mistake therefore, not duly con sidering the circumstances of these times, in suppos ing that Hagar and Ishmael had been such sufferers by Abraham's dismissing them. At first it might perhaps be disputed, whether Ishmael the first-born, or Isaac the son of his wife, should be Abraham's heir; but after this point was determined, and GoD himself had declared that in Isaac Abraham's seed was to be called, a provision was to be made, that Ishmael should go and plant a family of his own, or he must have been Isaac's bond-man or servant, if he had continued in Abraham's family. Here then was only that provision made for him, which the then circumstances of the world directed fathers to make for their younger children, and not any hardship put upon either Hagar or her son. And through their wandering in the Wilderness until they wanted water had almost destroyed them, yet that was only an accident, and no fault of Abraham; and after it pleased Gon to extricate them.

Gen. chap. xxviii.
Gen. xxx. 43.

a Ver. 20.

Chap. xxi. 12.

out of this difficulty, we have no reason to suppose that they met with any further hardships; but being free from servitude, they easily, by taking wild beasts and taming them, and by sowing corn got a stock, and became in a few years a very flourishing family.

Abimelech saw the increasing prosperity of Abraham, and fearing that he would in time grow too powerful a subject, made him swear, that he would never injure him or his people. Some little disputes had arisen between Abimclech's servants and Abraham's about a well, which Abraham's servants had dug; but Abimelech and Abraham, after a little expostulation, quickly came to a good understanding, and both made a covenant, and sware unto each other.d Abraham continued still to flourish; and his son Isaac being now near a man, it pleased GOD to make a very remarkable trial of Abraham's fidelity. He required him to offer his son Isaac for a burnt-offering; which without doubt must at first be a great shock to him. He had before been directed to send away Ishmael, and assured that the blessings promised to his posterity were not to take place in any part of that branch of his family; but that Isaac should be the son of the promise, and that his descendants should be the heirs of that happiness aud prosperity, which God had promised him; and now GoD was pleased to require him with his own hands to destroy this his son, his only son Isaac. How could these things be? What would become of God's promises, if this child, to whom

d Gen. xxi. 22, &c.

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e Gen. xxii.

they were appropriated, were thus to perish? The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews gives a very elegant account of the method by which Abraham made himself easy in this particular: By faith (says he) Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called; accounting that GoD was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. He considered, that God had given him his son in a very extraordinary manner; his wife, who bare him, being past the usual time of having children; and that the thus giving him a son, was in a manner raising him one from the dead; for it was causing a mother to have one, who was naturally speaking dead in this respect, and not to be conceived capable of bearing; that God almighty could as certainly raise him really from the dead, as at first cause him to be born of so aged a parent. By this way of thinking he convinced himself, that his faith was not unreasonable, and then fully determined to act according to it; and so took his son and went to the place appointed, built the altar, and laid his son upon the wood, and took the knife, with a full resolution to kill the victim; but here his hand was stopped by a distinct and audible voice from heaven. The angel of the LORD called to him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham; and he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither

'Hew. xi. 27, 28, 29.

Hebrew xi. 11.

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do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest GoD, seeing thou hast not with-held thy son, thine only son from me. Abraham hereupon looked about, and seeing a ram caught in a thicket, took it, and offered that instead of his son. GOD. was pleased in an extraordinary manner to approve of his doing so; and by another voice from heaven, confirmed the promises, which had been before made to him. Abraham being deeply affected with this surprising incident, called the place Jehovah jireh in remembrance of it; and there was a place in the mountain called by that name many ages after. this Abraham went to live at Beersheba.

Soon after

Some writers remark upon this intended sacrifice of Abraham, in the following manner. They hint, that he was under no surprise at receiving an order to perform

h Gen xxii. 11.

j Ver. 16, 17. 18.

i Ver. 13.

Our English translation of the 14th ver. is very obscure As it is said to this day, in the Mount of the LORD it shall be seen. If we take the word to be a future teuse, the whole verse may be translated thus: And called the name of the place Jehovah jireh, because it will be said (or told hereafter that) this day the LORD was seen in the Mountain. The LXX. favour this translation. The render the place, και εκαλεσεν 'Αβρααμ το ονομα το τοπο εκείνε ΚύριΘ. ειδεν. ινα είπωσιν σήμερον εν τω όρει κύριος ώφθη the Hebrew words may be englished verbatim thus: and Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah jireh, which (i. e. place) in the mountain is called at this day Jehovah-jireh.

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it,' and think that we have no reason to extol him for this particular, as if he had hereby shewed an uncommon readiness and devotion for GoD's service. For they. say, that if he had really sacrificed his son, he would have done only a thing very common in those times wherein he lived; because it was customary, as Philo represents, for private persons, kings, and nations to offer these sacrifices. The barbarous nations we are told," for a long time thought it an act of religion, and a thing acceptable to their gods, to sacrifice their children. And Philo-Biblius informs us, that in ancient times it was customary for kings of cities, and heads of nations, upon imminent dangers, to offer the son, whom they most loved, a sacrifice to the public calamity, to appease the anger of the gods. And it is remarked from Porphyry, that the Phoenicians, when in danger of war, famine, or pestilence, used to choose by public suffrage, some one person, whom they most loved, and sacrifice him to Saturn; and Sanchoniathon's Phoenician History, which Philo Biblius translated into Greek, is, he says, full of these sacrifices. Now from this seeming citation of divers writers, one would expect a variety of instances of these sacrifices before Abraham's days; but after all the forwardness of these writers in their assertions

1 Lord Shaftsbury's Characterist. vol. iii. Misc. 2. Sir John Marsham's Can. Chron. p. 76.

Philo Judæus lib. de Abraham.

" Id. ibid.

• Sec Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. 4. c. 16.

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