VI - The lives of the Patriarchs. (II V-2) 6 verse, of 1 Exodus. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. I have read these words, in order, that through them, I may be enabled to make some general remarks, on the lives, the habits and the acts of the patriarchs, and these. most certainly require attention, in order, to discover the amount of the privileges, which they enjoyed, and also, the uses, which they made of those privileges. Now, the whole family of God, had formerly, and have now, clear statement, and evidences, capable of proving the perfect truth of those statements, but they neither had, nor have, such a clear, and certain application of the gospel, to individuals, as may be capable, of - at once affording them assurance of their safety, and the peace, happiness, and (II R-3) security, consequent upon that assurance. Let us therefore consider, how. far the pledges and promises, (of the truth of which no doubt could possibly be entertained, inasmuch as this was a period, in which visions, and direct communications with God, were, by no means uncommon) were, in fact redeemed to the ancient Patriarchs, & in pursuance of this design, I should wish first to make a few remarks, upon the character of the blessings. And we shall therefore refer to the twenty sixth Chapter of Genesis, in which at the third verse, we find the blessing pronounced by the Lord upon Isaac. "Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee, for unto thee, and to thy seed I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father, &c. - We find, that this blessing was essentially the same with that at first pronounced upon Abraham, and which was transferred from father to son. by God himself. It was again transferred from Isaac to Jacob, twenty seventh chapter, 27 verse, But still, there remains a very great indistinctness, & generality, in the stating of all these blessings, which were transferred from Abraham to Isaac, and from Isaac, to Jacob, They are remarkable, because they combine such a remarkable degree of certainty, with so much generality. They were so vague, as to leave ample room for the patriarchs to exercise their faith and there was sufficient and certain evidence to afford ground for that faith, But when this faith however strong it might be, was only extended to the truth of the promises, and not to their application, it gave room for very great errors. as in the instance of Esau and Jacob. Esau was the elder, and Jacob the younger, but Jacob was the favou- (II V-3) rite of his mother, and she practised fraud to obtain for him a blessing, of which, although she knew the certain and positive truth yet the personal application of - which. she knew not, We have however, many instances of the same feeling, throughout all the lives of the patriarchs, occasioned by this imperfect kind of faith, but this does not, atall, excuse the proceeding. At the present time, we know the certainty of general salvation is attested by sufficient evidence, but still, it is difficult to apply it personally, to bring it home to ourselves, there we have doubts, and fearss, and faulterings, we believe, but we cannot apply, and we know but we cannot trust, It is this, which causes us now, not to be sufficiently attached to the word of God, we hear of the kingdom of God, and we believe in its truth, and yet we will not exert ourselves in order to obtain it. I call your, own experience to witness that this is the fact although it might be inferred merely from the nature of the human mind. Let us escape as much as possible from this kind of feeling which so frequently influenced the actions of the patriarchs, and let us endeavour to imitate their settled habits, not the incidental actions, which sometimes were contrary to those habits But it may be asked if this state of mind exists now, how can we escape from sin - Now, the promises say. the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, and our only inquiry must by, Have we acepted this blood, For the doubting state of mind must all be traced to unbelief There must be some doubt of the testimony of God, if we cannot make it ours. There cannot be entire belief in the truth combined, with want of faith in personal application But if, in some cases we find this state of mind on the part of the patriarchs, let us observe the particulars of some of the actions occasioned by that doubt. Jacob was instructed to practise fraud, in order to obtain the blessing of a God who was altogether [ho(?)]ly, and just, Rebecca must have had a strange idea of the blessing of God, to suppose that it was to be obtained in this manner, We must suppose that she was (II R-4) either altogether ignorant of the attributes of the God whose blessing she thus endeavoured to obtain, or else, that she had at the time entirely forgotten them We would bring this before you, in order to show how persons may be led away by their own views. Can we say, that there is nothing done among us at the present day, which resembles this action of Rebeccas. In these days, as we have before said <[b(?)]> men were frequently in direct communion with the. Almighty, yet this did not prevent these actions from taking place. & in the same way although we have seen the fulfilment of the promises yet this cannot prevent similar feelings. I will not say what they may be, every one must - know that <[?]> within himself, And we see that although the fraud might be said to have obtained a partial blessing, yet it was attended with infinite misery, one tormenting circumstance succeeded another, and at the end of his life he was obiged to confess, that "Few and evil have been the days of my pilgrimage. I am afraid that many parents at the present day, follow the example of Rebecca in endeavouring to provide rather <>for the present good of their children, than for the future benefit. Perhaps they would be warned, if they would consider the circumstances attendant upon the very partial blessings which Rebecca obtained for Jacob. Again. We cannot dwell upon all the circumstances of the life of Joseph, but it affords a sufficient number of instances of the same feeling, We find in the first place providence permitting him to be carried in to Egypt, in order to promote his future good and then the famine compelling his brethren, to go up into Egypt for corn and we must next consider what influenced the conduct of Joseph toward his brethren, (neither excusing their wickedness, nor forgetting to distinguish the acts of Joseph, from his habits) In the first place [5(?)] verse. of XLII chapter of Genesis, we are told that Joseph knew his brethren but they knew not him. and this may be easily accounted for if we consider, that when Joseph was last seen by his brethren, he was but a youth, and in (II v-4) consequence may be supposed to have altered much more, during the period of at least seven years which must since have elapsed & also the circumstance of Joseph were so completely altered as to render it difficult for his brethren to recognise him, while theirs remained exactly the same, But we find that although Joseph recognised them at once, yet he said that they were spies, and then adopts a test, swearing, by the life of Pharaoh, a profane and idolatrous. oath that "except your youngest brother. come hither ye shall not go forth hence Again, during a period of at the very least ( years, although his father was within a very little distance, he made no inquiry after him, it was at least 9 years, for the seven years of plenty had past away, and we find iin the 6th verse of the 45 chapter [F(?)]or these two years hath the famine been in the land, Therefore without reckoning the time which past between Josephs first being sold into Egypt, and the commencement of the years of plenty, and which may have been considerable, we find that during a period of nine years he showed no anxiety about the welfare of his father and made no inquiry after him. we might have expected that as soon as the famine commenced, he would at least then have informed his father of his prosperity and desired him to come up into Egypt in order that he might be able to assist him, but we find him doing nothing of the kind. This conduct {was(?)] not worthy of the rank to which he had attained although it was most likely this elevation which affected his principles and caused him to act in this manner. I know. that the history of Joseph has been commonly held up in quite a different light, It has been considered as an entertaining tale, and an excellent example, while, on the contrary, the view which I have taken of this subject appears to bring down his actions from ideal to real, and to the common level of human nature. and we find that the effect which it produced on his brothers was the same as that [with(?)] which it has struck me (5 verse of 50 chapter) And when Josephs brethren saw that their father was dead they said "Joseph will peradventure hate us and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him; They were more struck with the incident than with (II r-5) the habits, which was probably caused by their being as soon as they came into Egypt, sent into the Land of Goshen were being at some distance from the court they could not have an opportunity of witnessing the habits of Joseph. The impression on Jacob was, we find, the same,. Now I do not say this, in order to blot a character in other circumstances so fair, but in order to be enabled to derive benefit from it. Let us always flee from pride with abhorrence. Pride was Josephs bane, How much more consistent would it have been, had he sent to his fathers home, and communicated. with him, informed him of his prosperity and invited him to share it. But no, on the contrary he adopted the practises of the Pagan court in <[e(?)]> which he was, and instead of producing any thing like the object which I think erroneously he is said to have had in view, namely to soften his brethren and cause them to repent, he only made them fear him. And, had Joseph previously been told of the conduct which he afterwards observed toward his brethren he might have said like Hazael to the proohet of Damascus, "Is they servant a dog, that he should do this thing. Let us therefore never say, I can not, I will not do this, or that, but let us cast ourselves entirely on the will of God, and thus endeavour to escape from the short comings, and cling to the settled and exemplary habits of which an example is so constantly and steadily held forth to us as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path in the various and remarkable events, or the holy and faithful Lives of the Patriarchs.