(3.) What fearful consequences does bold impiety frequently draw after it! Discomfited rebellion does not always plague merely its original authors. We are at the present day suffering grievously under the curse inflicted on the builders of Babel. Difference of language has not only placed obstacles in the way of commercial intercourse, but has given occasion to contiguous or distant nations to consider each other as enemies. It has moreover, been the means of excluding the greater part of the world from all the advantages of revelation. And if a benevolent person, desirous of diffusing the knowledge of Christ among the heathen, engage in the arduous undertaking, he must first partially lose several years before he can attain competent knowledge of the languages in which he is to address them. Even then he labours under the greatest disadvantages in speaking to them; and after all he must limit his exertions to two or three nations at the utmost. Multitudes who would gladly encounter labour and fatigue in the service of their fellow-creatures are discouraged by these difficulties, and are compelled to restrain their benevolent wishes through a conscious incapacity to carry them into effect. Suffering then as we do for the transgression of these builders, we ought at least to shun a repetition of their sins and to beware of the soarings of an unsanctified ambition.

(2.) How liable are the schemes of un- | Governor of the universe is never at a godly men to be interrupted and defeat-loss for means to confound the devices ed in the midst of their execution. The of the wise or frustrate the counsels of builders of Babel had made considera- the ungodly. ble progress and were doubtless anticipating the satisfaction they should experience in its completion. But they were arrested in mid career. And thus it is that high-raised worldly expectations are generally disappointed. The eager aspirants for happiness form their plans; they prosecute their designs; they advance in their prospects; partial success animates them to more diligent exertions; but sooner or later God stops them in their progress, and either dashes all their labours to the dust, or says to them, 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.' When they are saying 'peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as a thief in the night, or as travail upon a woman with child.' Consider too the means which God took to effect his purpose in this instance. They were the most unlooked for that could be imagined. The people engaged in the work might conceive it possible that they should be stopped by quarrels among themselves, or by another deluge, or by fire from heaven; but could they have entertained the remotest idea of such an interruption as they experienced? And thus does God generally interpose to disappoint the expectations of worldly men! He has ten thousand ways in which to render their plans abortive or to embitter to them the very things in which they have sought their happiness. We have laboured for honour and distinction. He suffers us perhaps to attain our wishes; and then makes our elevation a source of nothing but disquietude and pain. Many have looked for enjoyment in the acquisition of a partner or a family, who after a time would give the world perhaps to loose the indissoluble knot, or to have been written childless in the earth.' In short the

(4.) How vain is it to fight against God. God had one purpose and they another. It was his intention that the earth should be peopled by their distributing themselves over its surface, while they presumptuously cherished the resolve to remain concentrated on a single spot. This was the issue joined, and how equitable, easy, and complete was the

1

the fall down to the termination of the world, man lives under one and the same system of divine grace, yet tha system divides itself into three successive dispensations, each differently characterized according to the condition of the world during the period in which

triumph of omnipotence! 'In the thing | observe, that although from the time of wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.' How signally did he overrule the event to compass the very ends which they were bent upon defeating! And with equal facility will he always ease and avenge him of his adversaries. The prophet Obadiah 3, 4, has furnished us with a thread of reflec-it prevailed and the object which it had tion which cannot fail to conduct us to the right use which we ought to make of this remarkable narrative. He has pronounced the application of the subject. 'The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.' Had the prophet stood by and witnessed the project in its proud advance and its disastrous termination, he could scarcely have painted their presumption, their folly, and their disgrace in more striking language. Let us then beware of engaging in any enterprise or indulging in any spirit which will expose us to a like discomfiture and humiliation.

CHAPTER XII.

more immediately in view. These, are (1.) the Patriarchal; (2.) the Levitical; (3.) the Christian; all which are really but component parts of one great system, of which Christ is from first to last the sun and the centre. As the Patriarchal dispensation was marked by a sufficient degree of the light of divine truth to have conducted all men to heaven, had they not wilfully perverted their ways and turned aside from the revealed will of God, its characteristic or genius therefore was universality. Adam after the creation and Noah after the flood, would severally communicate to all their children and their children's children the knowledge which themselves possessed respecting God's gracious purposes; and as no intimation is given that this knowledge was to be confined to a particular family, it was clearly intended to be universal, and if it failed of becoming so effectively, the fault was in man himself. But in respect to the Levitical dispensation the case was essentially different. A sin

The important objects which divine wisdom proposed to accomplish by calling Abraham out from among a na-gle people was to be chosen out of the tion of idolaters and making him the head of a peculiar chosen race, rendered it proper that his vocation and subsequent history should be detailed with great minuteness. Accordingly we find that while the history of the world from the creation to the flood, comprising a period of 1656 years, is despatched in the compass of six chapters, no less than nineteen chapters are devoted to the account of Abraham, although his life covered only the space of 175 years. -By way of introduction to the history of this remarkable personage we may

corrupt mass in order that they might be the depositaries of the truth, and as this nation was to be descended from a selected head, God was pleased at the proper time to call his servant Abraham from among the idolatrous Kasdim and to commit to him a fresh religious dispensation. Of this dispensation therefore particularity was the leading feature; and this is strikingly alluded to in one of Balaam's predictions delivered to Balak, Num. 33. 9, 'From the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him; lo, the people shall dwell alone,

CHAPTER XII.

L

Now the LORD had said unto
Abram, Get thee out of thy

a ch. 15. 7. Neh. 9. 7. Isa. 41. 2. Acts 7. 3. Heb. 11. 8.

country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

ceive, on any other ground, the reason of its selection.-As to the time of Abraham's receiving the call here mention

and shall not be reckoned among the nations.' The house of Israel was accordingly long kept in a secluded state, the depositary of God's word and prom-ed, although some commentators refer ises; but as the time drew near when the day-spring from on high was to visit the earth, this characteristic began to be withdrawn from the Levitical church, as far as it could be without destroying altogether its distinctive constitution. The Sun of righteousness was about to rise upon the Gentiles, and like the natural sun he was preceded by a twilight. Through the medium of the Babylonish captivity, the truth was carried far into the East. By the emigrations of numerous Jews into Egypt it was borne into that country, where, as elsewhere, the translation of the Scriptures into Greek, offered facilities for the acquisition of divine knowledge not hitherto enjoyed by the Pagans; and many foreign proselytes to the worship of Jehovah were received in increasing numbers into the pale of the Jewish communion. Thus the way was prepared for the last and crowning dispensation of God's mercy viz. that of Christianity, whose genius still more eminently than that of Pa triarchism is universal, and which is destined to work powerfully but silently till eventually the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

1. The Lord had said unto Abram. Heb. Abram, a word compounded of father and high, importing a high, i. e. an eminent or distinguished, progenitor of a race. If the name were bestowed by his parents, which is perhaps doubtful, it was prob-ably under the prompting of the spirit of prophecy, as it is difficult to con

it to the period of his sojourn in Haran, after his father's death, yet upon comparing the words of Stephen, Acts 7. 2-4, with the narrative of Moses, it would appear that the supposition is untenable. Stephen expressly says, 'The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charan (Haran), and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country,' &c. The rendering in our version, therefore, 'had said,' is undoubtedly correct, though it is still possible that the call may have been repeated during his sojourn at the latter place.-As to the manner in which the call was made, we have no other clew to it than is contained in the words of Stephen, who says that the 'God of glory' appeared to him, and as this phrase usually has reference to some visible manifestation of the divine glory, such as was witnessed in the Shekinah that dwelt between the cherubim and above the mercy-seat, it is not unlikely that some display of this kind was now granted to Abraham. Whatever it were, it was some efficient disclosure of the divine majesty and glory which at once sufficed to wean his heart from his former idolatries, and in connection with the command, to prompt him to abandon his country and kindred, and travel to a distant unknown region. A heart-affecting view of the divine glory has always a powerful loosening influence upon the ties which bind the heart to the world and to sin.-That the family of Terah was infected with the prevailing idola

2 And I will make of thee a | thee, and make thy name great; great nation, and I will bless and thou shalt be a blessing:

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that

e ch. 27. 29. Exod. 23. 22. Num. 24. 9.

curseth thee: f and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

f ch. 18. 18. & 22. 18. & 26. 4. Ps. 72. 17. Acts, 3. 25. Gal. 3. 8.

East exceedingly respect his memory to this day, and glory in their real or pretended relation to him. Throughout the visible church he has always been highly venerated; and even now Jews, Mohammedans, and many Gentiles vie with each other and with Christians, who shall most honour this ancient patriarch! Nothing could be more improbable at the time, than this event; yet the prediction has been fulfilling, most exactly and minutely, during the course of almost four thousand years!' Scott. -T Thou shalt be a blessing. That is, thou shalt be so signally and pre-eminently blessed, as to be, as it were, converted into a blessing; thou shalt be all blessing; a blessing in thyself, and a source of blessing to others. The phrase is in the highest degree emphatic, and in this sense the promise has been abundantly fulfilled; for all the true blessedness which the world is now, or shall be hereafter possessed of, is owing instrumentally to Abraham and his posterity. Through them we have a Bible, a Saviour, and a Gospel.surance is the highest pledge of friendThey are the stock on which the Christian church is grafted. Their very dispersions and punishments have proved the riches of the world. How signally then has this promise to the father of the faithful been fulfilled. What a far more illustrious greatness his, than that which has pertained to the kings and conquerors of the earth! While their great names have been acquired principally by deeds that have made them plagues and curses to mankind, to Abraham belongs the honour and happiness of having been great in goodness, great in communicating light and life to his species, Such was the hope of his calling; and yet, as if all this were not enough, it is added→→

3. I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. Heb.

those that make light of thee will I curse. This is language never used but of an object of special favour. It is declaring that he should not only be blessed himself, but that all others should be blessed or cursed as they respected or injured him and his seed. Of this the histories of Abimelech, Laban, Potiphar, Pharaoh, Balak, and Balaam furnish striking examples. The original, from the root, signifies to account and treat as light, vile, worthless, contemptible, an idea not perhaps exactly expressed by the English word curse, the leading import of which is impre cation of evil. But as such a contemptuous or disparaging treatment would be a direct affront to God himself, he here affirms that those who were guilty of it should incur his curse as a proper penalty; and the curse of heaven is but another name for the positive infliction of fearful judgments. See note on Gen. 3. 14. Such an as

ship and favour that can be given, and sets forth the privileges of the Lord's chosen in the most impressive light. The strictest leagues and covenants of k ngs and princes contain no stronger bond of alliance than the engagement to regard each other's friends and enemies as common friends and enemies.

בד

¶ In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Common usage as it respects the bearing of the Heb. preposition will allow us to render by thee instead of in thee; i. e. by or through thee as a medium all nations shall be ultimately blessed. The apostle's exposition Gal. 3. 8, 16, does not essentially militate with this, though it brings the promise into a narrower