the fashion is how often a higher law than righteousness; else had he promptly revoked the blessing stolen by Jacob's deceit, and given it where it justly belonged, to Esau. But, still, his old heart went out to Esau in his misery; and he gave him what blessing he felt he had left to give. Quiet, thrifty, well-to-do, too simple-minded and honest to be suspicious and jealous of his neighbors, yielding rather than aggressive, a man of peace and not of strife, he may be called a type of the average or the mediocre man.

"The God of Isaac." One might almost ask, What did he want of a God? Was not this world enough for him? Abraham could not do without one. For Abraham had great thoughts and high aspirations. His outlook went far beyond his flocks and herds, and the land in which he dwelt. Within him he felt that there was a soul to be fed, answered, satisfied, as only by a God a soul can be. Hence, God was a necessity for Abraham. He who least seemed to need a God, so strong, so masterful, so wise, so good was he in himself, could least of all do without a God. He must meet God everywhere, else were the universe around. and the life within him a hopeless riddle. But this might hardly be the case with Isaac. God does not seem an imperative necessity to all his life. We can easily imagine his being content with this life,- this world large enough, its good things good enough, its response to his questions satisfactory enough for him. We can conceive of his saying: "The present suffices me. Why trouble myself about the future? Another world? Let me make what I may of this." Had he been original enough, we could even conceive of his asking if man needed a God at all?

On the whole, Isaac is not an especially interesting character. He has none of his father's dignity and grandeur. Of himself, he will make no clear mark in the world. Most men will call him commonplace, perhaps a little dull. Why, then, was he put between Abraham and Jacob? Why was he not simply omitted? "The God of Isaac," what spe

cial value could that term have?

Does not what has now been said suggest a striking force

in it? Shall God be the God of only the good, the saintly, the heroic, the remarkable? How often men speak as though he should, as though none others could interest him, and only for such he could care. They who feel so are such as this way of feeling peculiarly imperils. In how many does it feed an already inordinate conceit? How many shy, obscure, diffident souls feel that they amount to nothing, that they are nobodies, for no man takes account of them? How easy it is for them to wonder if they are of any moment to God? They know that they need him. They need him as deeply as any can. They feel that, if man takes no note of them or despises them because they are commonplace and uninteresting, their one hope is in God. They know that it is not in themselves. Gladly would they be somewhat, but know not how to make themselves such. If God hold them not as such, their case is hard. On him alone rests their assurance of life, growth, attainment.

He cares for, His law is on

In view of such as these, how inspiring a thought is suggested in the words "the God of Isaac"! The God of Isaac will not disdain, overlook, or fail them. he observes, he has a purpose for them all. them all. He accepts, seeks, prizes the love and service of them all. He would "miss [his] little human praise," were the accustomed praise of the obscurest and most insignificant-seeming of them all withheld. None can be so commonplace, dull, uninteresting, homely, despised, or neglected as to be lost sight of by him. And this not only since Jesus Christ came, for it has always been,-only since his time brought into clearer light.

In "the God of Isaac," then, we have the God of the quiet, the obscure, the unnoted, of the "rank and file" of human kind, of the little child. And this God is not a different one from the God of Abraham, but the very

same.

3. What now of "the God of Jacob"? How can the God of Abraham, the eminently good, and of Isaac, the commonplace, be the God of Jacob too?

Surely, Jacob cannot justly be called a good man. Keen

he was, and sharp and quick of wit, but not brave, not high-minded, far from being a noble pattern of a man. He certainly is not dull. He may in some ways be thought striking, too striking, in fact, for one so little good to wholesomely be. True, he had his piety; but does it not look like the piety of a coward and a thief, the piety of dread? How cruelly, with what robber spirit, he imposed on the necessities of his older, simple-minded, honest, and kind-hearted brother? How knavishly he misused his trust to advance his fortunes at his father-in-law's expense! With what mean wickedness he cheated his blind old father, that he might rob his brother of the blessing that was justly his! It is amazing to think of such a one as he giving his name to and being looked upon as the head of a nation.

He becomes

But there is the word "the God of Jacob." One would not think Jacob would want a God. What could he do with one? Rather would he, we should think, want God out of the way. There would be no interfering with his schemes then. Could he but know there was none! But he did not know that. He feared that there might be one. He was afraid not to have one. Thus, in his fearing way, he testified how great was his need of one. Since he must have one, he must carefully cultivate him. thus conspicuous for devotion. Forget his God,-not he! He would not dare do that. His devotion might the better cloak his selfish schemings. It has atoned for them to many from that time to this, among them multitudes of so-called followers of Jesus, and has hidden from them the true character of the man. Worse than that, it has caused him to be held up to honor, and set forth as an example. Neither of these ought he to be. We ought not to call him good. His example is not one to follow.

Easy were it to say that a man like this does not deserve a good God; that one very harsh and rough would be good enough for him. And this may be true. Deserve a good God? Deserve a good anything? Ah! who does? Surely, Tennyson says rightly:

"For merit lives from man to man,

And not from man, O Lord, to thee,"

But, though deserving the worst, does not such a man need the very best? Would not a bad one make his case desperate? Who but a good one could save him unto worthiness?

Here is the glorious pathos of this word "the God of Jacob." God loves too well to refuse it for his own. Not from indifference to right and wrong does he permit the name, but because, after all, Jacob was a man. If bad, if mean, selfish, dishonest, cold-blooded, he was still a man. As such, he had a man's needs; ay, all the more and the sorer because of his badness. If Abraham or Isaac could do without God, Jacob certainly could not. God was his one redeeming hope. Knowing himself a sharper, he could not trust himself: he would deceive, he would outwit himself. His good brother he dreaded, as justly his enemy, because more than once, and outrageously, he had cheated him. Whom can he trust who is himself a knave? If in God, then, he had no hope, his case were dark indeed. Verily, he needed God with an intense and terrible need. He was too shrewd not to know it. Apparently, he knew it well. Though his religion was like himself, we need not doubt that it was real and genuine, so far as it went. It was not of the best kind. It was not high, beautiful, uplifting, pure. It did not ring with clarion cheer. It did not bloom with fragrant and delicate graces. It was not the religion of Jesus. But it was religion. It was the best he knew or could know then. Poor though it was, it kept him open to the thought of God. While a man holds to that thought, he is not hopelessly lost. It is easy for a man to let himself get lost. How commonly do bad men speak of God as only for the good, not for the bad! Good men too often foster the idea. In some places, the Bible fosters it. Do not preachers often the same? Does not the Bible say, "He scorneth the scorners," "To the froward I will show myself froward"? And are not men taught that the more they recede from God the more he recedes from them? On this basis, God becomes, so to speak, the religious luxury of the good merely; and, when the bad man awakes to his need of

God, he awakes also to the dreadful consciousness that for him God is impossible. He thinks that, because he has been God's enemy, God must be his enemy. Frightful, abominable mistake! As though God could be any creature's enemy! As though he could be enemy, save to that which . is hostile to the good of all!

This blessed thing is said in the ancient word "the God of Jacob." God is God not only of the good, but also of the bad. Thus in "the God of Jacob" there is the prophecy and promise of Jesus and his gospel, not always apprehended, but spoken always, and to be disclosed fully at last when he came who was "to seek and save that which was lost." In presence of this fact, is it wonder that "the God of Jacob," through its great unconscious prophecy, should get spoken with a pathos and a frequency such as "the God of Abraham" and "the God of Isaac " could scarcely equal?

In this threefold word of our text, then, we have not only indicated the God of each and all the nations; but in Abraham, the God of the greatly wise and true and good; in Isaac, the God of the obscure, the commonplace, the average; and in Jacob, the God of the selfish, the low, the lost in other words, the God of Righteousness, of Providence, and of Redemption.

All this lay in this ancient name for God. But more remained. When Jesus took up the time-honored designation, he crowned it with its final glory. Flashing on it one illuminating word, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," he disclosed in it an unconscious testimony to the immortality of man. In him, its sublime sweep comprises both the living and the dead, suggesting that in God there are no dead: "for all live unto him." Thus, in Jesus, God is the God of universal man,-in this world, in all worlds, now and in the "great unending future,"―our God forever and ever. What a divine wealth of meaning thus glorifies the ancient word "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"!

What has been said means more than it seems to mean.