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we live and move and have our being, and who crowns our lives with tender mercies; and we must faithfully acknowledge that Angel of the covenant, that divine and blessed Jesus, "who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity," and save us from all our sins. By his sacrifice and grace we shall be delivered from all evil, whether temporal, spiritual, or eternal, if we truly apprehend him by faith. He will thus become our guide unto death; he will supply all our need; he will defend us in every danger, and help us in every, yea in the last, extremity: the Lord shall deliver us from every evil work, and preserve us unto his heavenly kingdom.

SERMON II.

JACOB'S PROPHECY OF JUDAH.

GENESIS XLIX. 10.

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

IN our last sermon on this book we had a very interesting and affecting scene in the interview which Jacob had with Joseph and his two sons, and in the affectionate manner in which he invoked the blessing of God upon them; and I then observed to you that the words of the dying patriarch were prophetic. That observation applies still more to the language which he afterwards addressed to the whole number of his children. He had them all gathered together into his chamber, for the express purpose, as he informs them,

that he might tell them that which should befal them in the last days, that is, in future ages, according to the times in which God should fulfil his purposes and will. How far these several prophecies extend it is impossible to determine. Some of them certainly refer to the time of the Christian Era; and it may be that others of them have even yet to receive their accomplishment. Did we know the whole history of the tribes of Israel, as well as we do some particular parts of it, we should be able to point out the most minute coincidences between the prophecy and the events, in those which have been already fulfilled; and also to shew more exactly which of them still wait for their complete accomplishment.

Of the predictions declared of several of the tribes I shall take a shorter notice, in order that we may more largely consider those which relate more particularly to spiritual things, and especially to the things and times of the Gospel. Reuben, although the first-born, and therefore called by his father his might, the beginning of his

strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power, is nevertheless strongly reproved, and in fact degraded from the honours of the primogeniture, through one atrocious crime of which he had been guilty some forty years before. Simeon and Levi are also marked by their father's reprehension, for their fierce anger and cruelty in that revengeful and sanguinary scene when they slew Hamor the Hivite, and Shechem his son, and the men of the city, and plundered the city, and carried off all the wealth and the women and little ones, as has been recorded in the thirty-fourth chapter of this book. The dying patriarch expresses his abhorrence of their conduct, protests against being considered as in any way a party to it, and predicts the manner in which their posterity should live, dispersed and scattered among the other tribes.

But the prophetic declaration respecting Judah, to which we next come, we must consider much more fully, and especially the former part of it, as it is so manifest a prediction of the time of the coming of

Messiah. These are the words; "Judah, Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be in the neck of thy enemies: thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." The name Judah signifies Praise, and the patriarch declared that he should have great praise and honour among his brethren. The predictions relate to their posterity rather than to the individuals themselves. Jacob prophecied that this tribe should be generally victorious, that it should be superior to the other tribes, and be among them as the lion is among the beasts of the forest. Now this was remarkably the case through their whole history. There are many instances of it previous to the time of David; but then especially God made a covenant of perpetual sovereignty in his

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