and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

Lot, his wife, and two daughters, go out of Sodom: but his wife looking back, contrary to the divine command, was turned into a pillar of salt; her body being instantly changed into a metallic substance, a kind of salt, hard and durable. Lot, with his two daughters, escape to Zoar, who by their incest with him conceived and bare Moab and Ammon. Abraham, it may be, having lived fifteen or twenty years in the plains of Mamre, removed into the more southern part of the land of Canaan, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar, which was about five miles from Mamre. The king of Gera, upon Abraham's calling Sarah his sister, takes her to his house, intending to make her, as it seems, his wife. The Lord is pleased to rebuke Abimelech in a dream, informing him that Sarah was Abraham's wife, by which she is marvellously preserved from being defiled by the king, who makes his apology to God, which is admitted. And having informed his servants, and courtiers, and counsellors of God's appearing to him in a dream, sent for Abraham, and expressed his resentment of his usage of him, which Abraham defended as well as he could. After all which, the king expressed great kindness to Abraham; he restored to him his wife; upon which Abraham praying for the king, the Lord removed his just resentment at taking Sarah from her husband, by healing Abimelech and his family of the disorder inflicted on them. It is to be conceived, that Abraham and his wife returned soon after this into Canaan, to Beersheba, and Sarah conceived and bare Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Abraham was now one hundred years old, and Sarah ninety, and it was twenty-five years since they departed from Haran, or Charran, and came into the land of Canaan, for then he was seventy-five years old. According to Archbishop Usher, Isaac was born in the year of the world, 2108, and before Christ, 1896: and as I hinted before, it is probable the place of his birth was at Beersheba. Isaac was the son of the free woman, and a child of promise, and after the Spirit; and his birth is set forth as an example of God's mercy to and increase of his church, by the covenant of grace in Christ, under the new testament dispensation, whereof Sarah was a figure. See Isa. li. 2, 3. Gal. iv. 24, 28. Though Sarah seems to have had her doubts at first concerning God's promise taking place in her, respecting her conceiving and bearing a son, yet through the influence of the Holy Ghost her faith revived, and it is thus written; "Through faith also Sarah herself conceived, and received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised." In Isaac, who was a type of Christ, Abraham saw Messiah and his day; and when he received the promise of him he laughed, and therefore his son was called Isaac, that is, laughter.

When Isaac was, according to Bishop Usher's reckoning, five

years old, he was weaned; at which time Abraham made a great feast at which, says a Jewish writer, the great men of that age, even Heber and Abimelech were. When Hagar's son was observed by Sarah to mock Isaac, which gave occasion to move it to Abraham; and it appears it was under a divine impulse that the bond woman and her son should be cast out of the house, and ejected from the family. Abraham, out of his great love to Ishmael, was exceedingly grieved at the speech made by his wife; but God, by an articulate voice, or by an impulse on his mind, causes Abraham to hearken to Sarah, saying, "in Isaac shall thy seed be called;" signifying, that he, and those who descended from him, should be in an especial manner reckoned the seed of Abraham, who should inherit the land of Canaan. And as I conceive by these words, particularly informing him, that from himself, in Isaac, and in his line of descendants, the Messiah should spring, that seed in whom all the elect should be blessed. But out of compassion to Abraham, the Lord promises to make of Ishmael and his descendants a great nation; because, adds God, he is thy seed; which promise concerning Ishmael was made good. Though east out, he and his mother, from Abraham's house, from having any share with Isaac in the promise of the Messiah, yet he lived to beget twelve princes, whose names were, Nebajoth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. See chapter xxv. verses 13, 14, 15. And from him in his posterity came the Arabs, Hagarenes, Saracens, and Turks.

Sarah, the mother of Isaac, and Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, were figures of the two administrations of one and the same covenant of grace, which were to take place in the world successively; and which following one the other, are by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews called the first and the second, the old and the new covenants; and the respective people under them were prefigured by these two women. Hagar, the bondwoman, represented the covenant made at Mount Sinai, in Arabia, under which the carnal Jews and their posterity were in a state of bondage: and Sarah, the free woman, represented the covenant of grace under the gospel dispensation, and the gospel church state, which is above, which is free, fertile, and numerous. As these two women were typical of the two covenants, so their respective offspring represented the two sorts of professors, legalists and evangelic christians. The believers in Christ are like Isaac, the children of promise; legalists are like Ishmael, men after the flesh, and of the same persecuting spirit with him.

Hagar and her son being dismissed from Abraham's house, wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, where the child being almost famished for want of water, the uncreated angel appeareth in the visible heavens, and called to Hagar, and comforted her with words of encouragement. He opened her eyes, and discovered to her a well of water. He blessed Ishmael with life, health, and strength,

and he lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Eygpt.

Abraham planted a grove at Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God. After these things, God was pleased to try Abraham's faith, by commanding him to offer up his beloved son Isaac, which he being about to execute, the angel of the everlasting covenant calls unto him out of heaven to forbear; expressing his pleasure in Abraham's readiness to obey, and renews the promise of the blessed seed. In Isaac, who was at this time an extraordinary type of Christ, Abraham had a fresh view by faith of the Messiah, and his day, of his sufferings, death, and resurrection from the dead, in a figurative manner, in the binding of Isaac, in the sacrifice of the ram, and in the receiving him as from the dead. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us, " by faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac ; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son; of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy. seed be called; accounting that God was able to raise him from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure." Josephus says, Isaac was twenty-five years old at this time. In this year of his age Archbishop Usher places this transaction, twenty-years after the weaning of him, in the year of the world, 2133, and before Christ, 1871.

The truly excellent Mr. Charnock considers Isaac's death as a type of Christ's: thus- He was in the purpose of his father, upon the command of God, cut off and Isaac bearing the wood, did figure the manner of Christ's death, viz. such a death wherein the bearing the wood was a customary part attending it; as in crucifying, the offenders bare the cross to the place of execution, as Christ did his. He was also a type of the resurrection of Christ. It was the third day from the command of offering him that Abraham received him to life, as new born and raised from the dead; and that in a figure of some nobler sacrifice and resurrection. See Heb. xi. 19. Moriah was the place appointed by God where Abraham was to offer his son; in one part of which in after time, were the temple, and tower of David; another part of the mount was without Jerusalem, and was called Calvary, upon which Isaac was sacrificed, as Hierom tells us, from the Jewish tradition.'

Upon Abraham's readiness to offer up his son Isaac, God binds himself by an oath that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in his seed, which he had before promised to Adam. The intent of which oath, the apostle, Heb. vi. 13, 19, 20. refers to the setting up of Christ as Redeemer, and more positively affirms this seed to be Christ, Gal. iii. 10. This oath to Abraham was pursuant to that promise to Adam, which expressed the bruising the seed of the woman, from whom the Messiah should descend: and now God by oath appropriates this seed to Abraham, to be offered up really, as Isaac was in a figure. And God by hindering Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, and shewing him a ram, he intimates there would be

some interval of time before the blessed seed should be offered. And the words which Abraham speaks, "God will provide himself a ram for a burnt offering," seems to be a prophetic speech of the death of this great sacrifice; though Abraham might not know at the time he uttered it the true design thereof, any more than many of the prophets did what they prophesied of. See 1 Pet. i. 11. And Mount Moriah is included in that prophecy; "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen," to be the place of the appearance of this seed. "In the mount the Lord shall be seen;" the particle (of) not being in the Hebrew text, which was the place of the sufferings of Christ. Abraham and his son return from Mount Moriah to Beersheba, which were forty miles distant from each other, and hears of the increase of Nahor's family.

Sarah being one hundred and twenty-seven years old, died at Kirjatharba, having lived with her husband a pilgrim sixty-two years, and before her departure from Haran, sixty-five; in all, one hundred and twenty-seven. She was buried in Hebron, in the land of Canaan, the same with Kirjatharba, two names from one place. Her cave cost about sixty pounds of our money, sterling. It is generally remarked by interpreters, that she is the only woman whose life is reckoned up in the scripture.

Abraham being concerned to get a suitable wife for his son Isaac, commits the affair into the hands of his eldest servant, causing him to swear not to take one from another people, not from among the Canaanites, but one of his own country, and among his own kindred, which the servant agreed unto, and faithfully accomplished. He went to Mesopotamia, or Haran, Naharam, Syria of the rivers, which lay between Tigris and Euphrates, and obtained a proper wife for his master's son. The journey which he took is computed to be four hundred and sixty-eight miles. Isaac three years after his mother's death was married to Rebecca, who twenty years afterwards bare him two sons, Esau and Jacob. The one was an elect, beloved, and chosen of God; the other rejected by him. He was then sixty years old.

Keturah, who was a wife to Abraham, was, as Dr. Clayton thinks, married by him twenty years after his marriage with Sarah; she being barren, and long before he took Hagar, though not mentioned till after the death of Sarah, that the thread of the story might not be broken in upon. The sons she bare him were, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. From Medan and Midian sprung the Midianites, so often mentioned in scripture.

Abraham died, according to Bishop Usher, in the year of the world, 2183, and before Christ, 1821, aged one hundred and seventy-five. Ainsworth observes, that Abraham lived a pilgrim in the land of Canaan one hundred years after he came out of Haran; that he attained not to the years of his forefathers, who all lived longer than he, as did also his son Isaac. That he left behind him Heber, that great patriarch and prophet, of whom he had the

surname to be an Hebrew, and from whom he was the seventh generation, as Enoch was from Adam. He outlived his wife thirty-eight years, and was buried with her at Hebron, which was sixteen miles from Beersheba. Ishmael died forty-eight years after Abraham, aged one hundred and thirty-seven.

Isaac, after the death of his father, dwelt by the well Beerlaharoi, which, says Ainsworth, in Greek, is the well of vision.' In Chaldee, 'the well at which the angel of life appeared.' It might appear to him a suitable place for his mind to contemplate upon, and call to remembrance the divine appearances of Christ, which he had been pleased to make to Abraham. It is not improbable that our Lord had appeared unto him, as we read, verse 11 of the 25th chapter, after the death of Abraham, that God had blessed his son Isaac; which Ainsworth understands of God's applying and confirming the promises made to Abraham, Gen. xii. 9. and xiv. 19. and xvii. 19. And Isaac conveyed the knowledge of it instrumentally, of the blessing contained in it to Jacob, which contained Christ, the seed of Abraham, with all the blessings and benefits of his future incarnation and salvation to him. And a famine coming on the land, somewhat like what had been one hundred years before, God commands Isaac not to go down into Egypt, but to remain in the land. So he sojourned at Gerar, which, though in the land of the Philistines, was a part of Canaan. It is deserving of peculiar regard, that it is expressly said, "the Lord appeared to him;" which, I confess, I always conceive to be the Second Person in God, who appeared in the human nature. And he renewed the covenant made with Abraham, concerning giving Canaan to him and his seed: and adds, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." So that it is most clear and evident, that the declaration of grace, which consisted in a revelation of Christ, and contained the promise of Him, was the foundation, spring, and centre, in which their faith rested, and on which it terminated. Not indeed, simply and only in the word of revelation, but in the person, covenant engagements, and future salvation of the Mediator, made known in the word, and by the Spirit, as also by the frequent appearances he made during the patriarchal period; which some consider and stile a preludium, or the first display of his incarnation, as well as of his being manifested in the fulness of time in the human nature. And that Isaac as well as Abraham was a believer in Christ, will appear from infallible testimony; we being informed by the apostle, he speaking of Abraham, says, "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac, and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." And afterwards says, concerning the antedeluvians, and postdeluvian patriarchs, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob; these all died in faith. Enoch was translated, but he is mentioned among the rest, he being a believer in Jesus.

(To be continued.)