for God's interposition, had performed his purpose. Therefore the Scripture reports it, as if he actually offered up his son; By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son. "Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works, when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar ?" says St. James. And hereupon, (as it follows, in ver. 23.) "he was called the friend of God." This is a title thrice given him in Scripture; viz. in this place, 2 Chron. xx. 7. and Isa. xli. 8. and implied in Gen. xviii. 17. "Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do ?" Where Philo adds. Tov píλov iμov, 'my friend.' 'Shall I hide from Abraham my friend?' &c. And by this periphrasis, "the friend of God," without any mention of his name, is he described in the Alcoran, the Turk's Bible. He was eminently approved as such, for this high act of obedience.

I will conclude this great example of self-resignation with that in Isaiah, "Who raised up the righteous man from the east, and called him to his foot?'"

Abraham was sequacious, and obeyed God in all things; who had him at his call, as the falconer hath a well-manned hawk, and calls her to his hand. And shall not the spiritual seed of Abraham (for so Christians are) be sequacious, and observant of every call of God; though he call them to such trials as are very difficult and ungrateful? Let us walk in the steps of the faith and obedience of our father Abraham; in readily sacrificing our Isaac, our delight and joy, that sin which is most beloved;

a Heb. xi. 17.

b James ii. 21.

c Isa. xli. 2.

"the sin of our souls," that sin which seems to bring us most profit, and most delight and pleasure. By thus doing, we shall be owned as the especial friends and favourites of God, as Abraham was; and receive the reward of such, as he did.

SECONDLY. The next example of self-resignation shall be that of upright and holy Job: and he will appear to be a most memorable and eminent one, by these following particulars.

First. He was a great man; great for estate and riches. We read in Job i. 3. that he had "seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she-asses, and a very great household," or store of servants; "so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east ;" that is, of Arabia; which lay eastward from the land of Canaan.

He was great also for wisdom, and, by that means, for honour and esteem; of which there is a particular account in chap. xxix. "The aged men,' when they saw him, "arose and stood up," ver. 8. "The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand upon their mouth. The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth, ver. 9, 10. Such a reverence had they for him, for

Micah. vi. 7.

the greatness of his wisdom and excellent accomplishments, that the ear that heard him, blessed him, ver. 11. "All gave ear to him, and waited, and kept silence at his counsel: after his words they spake not again; and his speech dropped upon them. And they waited for him, as for the rain; and opened their mouth wide, as for the latter rain," ver. 21-23. They received his discourse as a welcome and most desirable rain; and such especially was phethe latter rain,' before harvest, for making the corn more plump and fair.

Secondly. He was as good, as great, and honourable. Such was his humility, that he did not despise the cause of his man-servant, or maid-servant, when they contended with him, as we read in chap. xxxi. 13. and his sobriety and moderation of spirit is to be seen in the same chapter, ver. 25, &c. His charity and compassion, xxix. 13, 15, 16. xxx. 25. xxxi. 16, 17, 19, 20, 32. His great chastity, xxxi. 1, 9.-So far was he from making his great estate to serve sensuality and lust. His integrity and honesty, xxix. 14. xxxi. 7, 38, 39. His readiness to employ his power and interest for the relief, and not for the crushing, of oppressed innocents, xxix. 12. xxxi. 21. And this he did boldly and resolvedly, xxxi. 34. His exemplary piety in keeping himself from the idolatries of the Arabians, xxxi. 26, 27. His pious solicitude for his children, in their yearly feastings, lest they might have offended God in the heat of their banquets, i. 5. And in xxiii. 11, 12. we have him expressing the great devotion of his soul towards God, in the constancy and universality of his obedience. My foot," saith he, "hath held

his steps; his way have I kept, and not declined: neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips: I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." Yea, God himself gives this character of Job, ii. 3. "That there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil."

Thus was this excellent person a great pattern of all kinds of virtue in his flourishing estate. And he was no less a pattern of self-resignation in his afflictions and trials: for,

Thirdly. This great and good man was sorely afflicted and tried by God. There were three messengers that brought him the tidings of sad calamities, which befell him in his possessions; his oxen, asses, sheep, and camels, with his servants, being carried away by the Sabeans and Chaldeans, or consumed by fire from heaven: but the fourth messenger brings the heaviest news of all, viz. that all his sons and daughters were crushed to pieces, by the fall of the house wherein they were feasting, i. 18, 19.

This was dismal indeed; to lose all his children at once, and that not by a natural but violent death and to have them destroyed with a sudden destruction; and that also in the midst of their feasting and mirth. But besides, the more to aggravate his affliction, these several messengers came immediately one after another: while one was speaking, another came in; one wave, the more to overwhelm him, came upon the neck of the other; so that he had no respite, no time to

concoct his sorrows; no diversion, no time of breathing, to prepare himself to bear the next.

But, after all this, affliction comes nearer still, and more close to him. God permitted Satan to exercise his cruelty upon his body, which was stricken with "sore biles ;" and that all over, even from "the crown" of his head " to the sole of his foot," ii. 7. "ii. 7. He was full of anguish in every part. There was nothing about him left whole and entire, but the skin of his teeth, xix. 20. or, the skin about his gums or lips: nothing was whole about him, but his mouth to complain with. To have one such bile is very painful; but to have such angry and noisome things all over the body, how exquisitely tormenting must it needs be!

And in this sad plight " he sat down" (not on an easy couch, or soft bed, but) "among the ashes,” ii. 8. or, ἐπὶ τῆς κοπρίας, ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, ‘upon a dunghill, without the city,' as the Septuagint hath it, where he had none to dress his sores but himself; nor any thing, that we read of, to help himself with, but some piece of an earthen vessel cast on the dunghill. Instead of using oils and salves, that were proper for the mitigation of his pain, and the healing his sores; he scraped them, or squeezed out the raging matter of them, with a potsherd.

He was so changed by his blains and botches, and in so squalid a condition, that his "friends knew him not," ver. 11, 12. His "brethren went

a The word for biles in this place is nw which signifieth burning biles,' from the Chaldee to be hot.' They were inflaming ulcers. And here is added also y sore' or malignant.'