on us.' Abraham reached the very verge of an act which, even if prompted by noble motives and by a Divine call, has by all subsequent revelation and experience been pronounced accursed. At that moment his hand is stayed; and the Patriarchal religion is rescued from this conflict with the justice of the Law or the mercy of the Gospel. A few words remain to be added on the relation of this crowning scene of the beginning of Sacred history to the crowning scene of its close. The thoughts of Christian readers almost inevitably wander from one to the other; and without entering into details of controversy or doctrine which would be here out of place, there is a common ground which no one need fear to recognise. The doctrine of the types of the Ancient Dispensation has often been pushed to excess. But there is a sense in which the connexion indicated thereby admits of no dispute, and which may be illustrated even by other history than that with which we are now concerned. Not only in Sacred, but even in Grecian and Roman history, do the earliest records sometimes foreshadow and represent to us the latest fortunes of the nation or power, then coming into existence. Whoever is (if we may thus combine the older and the more modern use of the word) the type of the nation or race at any marked period of its course, is also the type of its final consummation. Abraham and Abraham's son, in obedience, in resignation, in the sacrifice of whatever could be sacrificed short of sin, form an anticipation, which cannot be mistaken, of that last and greatest event which closes the history of the Chosen People. We leap, as by a natural instinct, from the sacrifice in the land of Moriah to the sacrifice of Calvary. There are many differences-there is a danger of exaggerating the resemblance, or of confounding in either case what is subordinate with what is essential. But the general feeling of Christendon has in this respect not gone far astray. Each event, if we look at it well, and understand it rightly, will serve to explain the other. In the very point of view in which I have just been speaking of it, the likeness is most remarkable. Human sacrifice, it has been well said, which in outward form most nearly resembled the death on the Cross, is in spirit the furthest removed from it. Human sacrifice, as we have seen, which was in outward form nearest to the offering of Isaac, was in fact and in spirit most entirely condemned and repudiated by it. The union of parental love with the total denial of self is held up as the highest model of human, and therefore as the shadow of Divine Love. 'Sacrifice' is rejected, but 'to do Thy 'will, O God,' is accepted.1 Questions have often arisen on the meaning of the words which bring together in the Gospel history the names of Abraham and of the true and final Heir of Abraham's promises. But to the student of the whole line of the Sacred history, they may at least be allowed to express the marvellous continuity and community of character, of truth, of intention, between this, its grand beginning, and that, its still grander end. 'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw 'it, and was glad.' 2 Heb. x. 5, 7. John viii. 39 56, 58. LECTURE III. JACOB. 'ABRAHAM was a hero, Jacob was Contrast of Abraham and Jacob. a plain man, dwelling ' in tents." Abraham we feel to be above ourselves, Jacob 'to be like ourselves.' So the distinction between the two great Patriarchs has been drawn out by a celebrated theologian.1 'Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their 'pilgrimage. So the experience of Israel himself is summed up in the close of his life. Human cares, jealousies, sorrows, cast their shade over the scene, the golden dawn of the Patriarchal age is overcast; there is no longer the same unwavering faith; we are no longer in communion with the 'High Father,' the 'Friend of God; we at times almost doubt whether we are not with His enemy. But for this very 2 reason the interest attaching to Jacob, though of a less lofty and universal kind, is more touching, more penetrating, more attractive. Nothing but the perverse attempt to demand perfection of what is held before us as imperfect could blind us to the exquisite truthfulness which marks the delineation of the Patriarch's character. Characters I. Look at him, as his course is unrolled through the long vicissitudes which make his life a faithful mirror of human existence in its most varied aspects. Look at him, of Jacob and as compared with his brother Esau. Unlike Esau. the sharp contrast of the earlier pairs of Sacred history, in these two the good and evil are so mingled, that at 1 Newman's Sermons, v. 91. It is a striking legend that Abraham died on the day that Esau sold his birthright (Beer's Leben Abrahams, 84). 6 1 first we might be at a loss which to follow, which to condemn. The distinctness with which they seem to stand and move before us against the clear distance, is a new phase in the history. Esau, the shaggy red-haired huntsman, the man of the field, with his arrows, his quiver, and his bow, coming in weary from the chase, caught as with the levity and eagerness of a child, by the sight of the lentile soup-' Feed me, I pray thee, with the "red, red "2 pottage,' yet so full of generous impulse, so affectionate towards his aged father, so forgiving towards his brother, so open-handed, so chivalrous: who has not at times felt his heart warm towards the poor rejected Esau; and been tempted to join with him as he cries with a great and exceeding bitter cry,' Hast thou but one ' blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father!' And who does not in like manner feel at times his indignation swell against the younger brother? 'Is he not rightly named 'Jacob, for he hath supplanted me these two times?' He entraps his brother, he deceives his father, he makes a bargain even in his prayer; in his dealings with Laban, in his meeting with Esau, he still calculates and contrives; he distrusts his neighbours, he regards with prudential indifference the insult to his daughter, and the cruelty of his sons; he hesitates to receive the assurance of Joseph's good will: he repels, even in his lesser traits, the free confidence that we cannot withhold from the Patriarchs of the elder generation. But yet, taking the two from first to last, how entirely is the judgment of the Book of Genesis and the judgment of posterity confirmed by the result of the whole! The mere impulsive hunter vanishes away, light as air: 'he did eat and 'drink, and rose up, and went his way. Thus Esau despised 'his birthright.' The substance, the strength of the Chosen Family, the true inheritance of the promise of Abraham, was interwoven with the very essence of the character of 'the 1 Esau (hairy), Arabic word. 'As if with a cloak of hair (Adrath Seir).'-Zech. xiii. 4. Edmoni (LXX. πuppáκns) is ́ red'haired' here, and in speaking of David. Edom (red), as of the hair of a cow (Num. xix. 2), or horse (Zech. i. 8; vi. 2). So also of lentiles (Gen. xxv. 30), of blood (Isa. lxiii. 2). Compare Scott's description of 'Rob Roy' (ch. 7). 2 Gen. xxv. 30 (in the original). ' upright man dwelling in tents,' steady, persevering, moving onward with deliberate settled purpose, through years of suffering and of prosperity, of exile and return, of bereavement and recovery. The birthright is always before him. Rachel is won from Laban by hard service, and the seven years 'seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her.' Isaac, and Rebekah, and Rebekah's nurse, are remembered with a faithful, filial remembrance; Joseph and Benjamin are long and passionately loved with a more than parental affection—bringing down his grey hairs for their sakes 'in sorrow to the grave.' This is no character to be contemned or scoffed at: if it was encompassed with much infirmity, yet its very complexity demands our reverent attention; in it are bound up, as his double name expresses, not one man but two; by toil and struggle Jacob, the Supplanter, is gradually transformed into Israel, the Prince of God; the harsher and baser features are softened and purified away; he looks back over his long career with the fulness of experience and humility. 'I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies ' and of all the truth which Thou hast shown unto Thy ser' vant.' 2 Alone of the Patriarchal family, his end is recorded as invested with the solemnity of warning and of prophetic song. 'Gather yourselves together, ye sons of Jacob; and 'hearken unto Israel your father.' We need not fear to acknowledge that the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac was also the God of Jacob. Esau, the likeness of the Edomites ; Most unworthy indeed we should be of the gift of the Sacred narrative, if we failed to appreciate it in this, its full, its many-sided aspect. Even in the course of the Jewish history, what a foreshadowing of the future ! We may venture to trace in the wayward chieftain of Edom the likeness of the fickle uncertain Edomite, now allied, now hostile to the seed of promise: the wavering, unstable dynasty which came forth from Idumæa; Herod the The word translated Gen. xxv. 27. 'plain' implies a stronger approbation, which the English version has softened, probably from a sense of the difficulty. |