5. Self-denial, in fact, or resolution, is the foundation of all sincere profession: this Abraham began his profession with, and proceeded to the noblest instances. The instruction our Savior gives herein, Matt. x, 37, 38, and xvi, 24, 25, amounts but to this: if you intend to have the faith of Abraham, with the fruits and blessings attending it, you must lay the foundation of it in self-denial, and the relinquishment of all things, if called to it, as he did. Wherefore, the faith of Abraham being every where in scripture set up as the measure and standard of the faith of believers in all ages, and the apostle in this place giving us an account of the beginning and progress of it for our example, there is nothing that belongs more directly to the exposition of the place, than a due observation of its nature, actings, and effects for our instruction, without which the mind of the Holy Ghost in the context is not understood, though expositors take very little notice of these things. Now the foundation of it is laid in this,―That the first act of saving faith consists in the discovery of the infinite greatness, goodness, and other excellencies of the divine nature, so as to judge it our duty, upon his call, his command, and promise, to deny ourselves, and to relinquish all things; and then, as occasion offers, to do so accordingly.

§7. 1. There is no claim of right, title, or possession, that can stand against the righteousness of God in the disposal of all inheritances here below at his pleasure. Whatever single persons, whatever whole nations, may think or boast of their title and right, as to God they are all but tenants at will; he can disinherit and disseisin them of all, as he seems good: and when he will do so, (of which he gives instances in all ages) no plea will be admitted against his right, or the exercise of it. So do kings hold their crowns, nations their soil, and private men their possessions.

2. God's grant of things to any is the best of titles, and most sure against all pretences and impeachments; Judges xi, 24, "We will possess what the Lord our God gives us to possess.

3. Possession belongs to an inheritance enjoyed. This God gave to Abraham in his posterity, with a mighty hand and stretched out arm; and he divided it unto them by lot.

4. An inheritance is capable of a limited season. So was it with this inheritance; for although it is called an everlasting inheritance, yet it was so only because it was typical of that heavenly inheritance which is properly eternal; and because as to right and title it was to be continued to the end of that limited perpetuity which God granted to the church state in that land; that is, to the coming of the promised seed, in whom all nations should be blessed; which the call and faith of Abraham principally regarded. Many incursions were made upon it, but they who made them were punished for their usurpation; yet when the grant of it to them expired, and those wicked tenants of God's vineyard forfeited their right to it by their unbelief, and murdering the true heir; God disinherited them, dispossessed them, and left them neither right nor interest in this inheritance as at this day. It is no more the inheritance of Abraham; but in Christ he is become heir of the world, and his spiritual posterity enjoy all the privileges of it. Nor have the present Jews any more title to the land of Canaan, than to any other country in the world. Nor shall their title be renewed upon their conversion to God; for their right was limited to that time wherein it was typical of the heavenly inheritance; that now ceasing for ever, there can be no special title to it revived.

§8. Hence we may infer,

1. That it is faith alone gives the soul the satisfaction in future rewards, in the midst of present difficulties and distresses. So it did to Abraham, who, in the whole course of his pilgrimage, attained nothing of this promised inheritance. And,

2. The assurance given us by divine promises, is sufficient to encourage us to the most difficult course of obedience.

VERSE 9.

By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

$1--3. Exposition of the words. $4. The matter contained in them. $5. (I.) The internal principle of Abraham's pilgrimage. $6. (II.) The external part of it. $7. (III.) Observations.

$1. HAVING declared the foundation of Abraham's faith, and given the first signal instance of it, he proceeds to declare his progress in its exercise:

(Пaрwandey) he sojourned; the original word (xaposиεw, commoror) signifies to abide as a stranger. Luke xxiv, 18; Σù μovov Tapoinɛis “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem?" A sojourner there for a season, not an inhabitant in the place? Wherefore he abode as a stranger, not as a free denison of the place; not as an inheritor, for he had no inheritance, not a foot breadth in that place, Acts vii, 5. Not as a constant inhabitant or house-dweller, but as a stranger that moved up and down as he had occasion. "In the land of promise;" (ɛis tyv yyv for ev ty vụ, land) in the land; see Acts vii, 6, "The land (εis no upis u malomere) wherein you now dwell." And from the use of the Hebrew particle () the Greek preposition (s) is frequently put for the other (ev) in the New Testament, and the reverse. Wherefore not the removal of Abraham in that land which he had mentioned in the foregoing verse, but

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his abode as a stranger, a foreigner, a pilgrim in it, is intended; and this was the land (Tys Tayyeλias) of promise; that is, which God had newly promised to give him, and wherein all the other promises were to be accomplished.

He sojourned in this place (ως αλλοτρίαν) as in a strange land. He built no house in it, purchased no inheritance but only a burying place; he entered, indeed, into leagues of peace and amity with some, Gen. xiv, 13; but it was not as one that had any thing of his own in the land. He reckoned that land at present no more his own than any other land in the world, no more than Egypt was the land of his posterity when they sojourned there, which God had said, was not theirs, Gen. xv, 13.

§2. The manner of his sojourning in this land was that (Ev onyvais naloinnoas) he dwelt in tabernacles. It was no unusual thing in those days, and in those parts of the world, for whole nations to dwell in such habitations. Why Abraham was satisfied with this kind of life, the apostle declares in the next verse; and he is said to dwell in tabernacles, or tents, because the largeness of his family required more than one, Gen. xxiv, 67; xxxi, 33; and with respect to their moveable conditions in these tents, God in an especial manner, was said to be their dwelling place, Psal. xc, 1.

$3. "With Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." It is evident that Abraham lived until Jacob was sixteen or eighteen years old; and therefore may be said to live with him, as to the time they both lived; but there is no need to confine it to the same time; the sameness of condition only seems. to be intended; for as Abraham was a sojourner in the land of Canaan without any inheritance or possession, living in tents; so it was also with Isaac and Jacob'

and with them alone; Jacob was the last of his posterity who lived as a sojourner in Canaan; all those after him lived in Egypt, and came not into Canaan until they took possession of it for themselves.

And they were (των συγκληρονομων της επαγγελίας της avlys) heirs with him of the same promise; for not only did they inherit the promise as made to Abraham, but God distinctly renewed the same promise to them both; Gen. xxvi, 24; xxviii, 13-15. So were they heirs with him of the very same promise, Psal. cv, 9—

11.

$4. The sense of the words being declared, we may yet farther consider the matter contained in them, We have here an account of the life of Abraham after his call; as to the internal principle of it, being a life of faith; and—as to the external manner of it, being a pilgrimage. "By faith he sojourned."

§5. (I.) As to the internal principle, it was a life of faith.

1. It had respect to things spiritual and eternal; for its foundation and object, he had the promise of the blessed seed, and the spiritual blessing of all nations in him; which was a confirmation of the first fundamental promise of the church concerning the "seed of the woman that was to break the serpent's head." And God entered expressly into covenant with him, confirming it with the seal of circumcision, wherein he obliged himself to be his God, his God Almighty, and all-sufficient, for his temporal and eternal good. To suppose that Abraham saw nothing in this promise and covenant but things confined to this life-nothing of spiritual grace, nothing of eternal reward or glory is so contrary to the analogy of faith, and to express testimony; so destructive of all the foundations of religion, so unworthy of the nature and properties of