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NOTES ON GENESIS

BY THE LATE
FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M.A.
OF BRIGHTON

NEW EDITION

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. Ltd.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1892

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PREFACE.

??»

The incomplete and fragmentary character of the
following notes has delayed their appearance in their
present shape, and has caused me to hesitate long as
to the expediency of publishing them. But the recep
tion already accorded to my father's writings has been
such as to confirm my own conviction that any
authentic record of his thoughts possesses an intrinsic
interest and value transcending the mere form in which
they are clothed ; and I believe that the " Notes on
Genesis '^ will not be found deficient in those qualities
which mark the works already published.
As to the circumstances under which the Lectures
were delivered, of which these are the rough notes, but
few words of explanation seem necessary. That they
were not undertaken until after long and systematic
preparation a reference to my father's letters will clearly

Vm PREFACE.
show. For the rest, no better plan, I think, can be
pursued than to quote the following passage from the
" Life " by Mr. Stopford Brooke.
"In Januaiy, 1850. Mr. Robertson went away to
recruit his health. On his return he commenced
lecturing in the afternoons on the Book of Genesis.
He met the difficulties of the earlier chapters with
mingled wisdom and freedom ; he fairly stated
the claims of scientific and historical truth, even
when they were in conflict with the narrative of
the sacred text ; and, while declaring that the
Mosaic cosmogony could not be reconciled with geo
logical facts, still succeeded in showing its inner
harmony, in principles, with the principles of scientific
geology. Neither did he shrink from putting his con
gregation in possession of the results of German criti
cism upon Genesis. He made them acquainted with
the discussion on the Jehovah and Elohim docu
ments, but he did not deny the Mosaic compilation of
these documents. He discussed fully the question of
the universality of the Flood. He spoke with a
boldness, adorned with a rare reverence, upon the
vexed and generally avoided subjects of the confusion

PREFACE. IX
of tongues, the destruction of the cities of the plain,
the temptation of Abraham. In no case, however,
was his preaching destructive, but constructive. Men
went away from his chapel opposed, it is true, to the
popular theory of Inspiration, but deeply convinced
of an inspiration. It was, indeed, impossible, in
treating of these matters to avoid the great question
of Inspiration and its limits. It was therefore intro
duced incidentally from Sunday to Sunday."
CHARLES BOYD ROBERTSON.
London : November, 18761

CONTENTS.

?»

PAGB

Lecture I. : Genesis i. 1-3 , , . . , , , i
Lecture II. : Genesis i. 26-31 . . . . • . 9
Lecture III. : Genesis ii. 4  16
Lecture IV. : Genesis iii  24
Lecture V. : Genesis xii  33
Lecture VI. : Genesis xiii  .39
Lecture VII. : Genesis xix  43
Lecture VIII. : Genesis xxi  50
Lecture IX : Genesis xxii  53
Lecture X. : Genesis xxiii  62
Lecture XI. : Genesis xxiv.  68
Lecture XII. : Genesis xxv.  71
Lecture XIII. : Genesis xxvi  •]•]
Lecture XIV. : Genesis xxvii  85

xii CONTENTS. PAGB
Lecture XV. : Genesis xxviii  loi
Lecture XVI. : Genesis xxix  no
Lecture XVIL : Genesis xxxi. 48-50  113
Lecture XVIII. : Genesis xx.xii.. xxxiii  116
Lecture XIX. : Genesis xxxv  121
Lecture XX. : Genesis xxxv. 29  126
Lecture XXI. : Genesis xxxvii  135
Lecture XXII. : Genesis xxxix., xL . . . .140
Lecture XXIII. : Genesis xli  146
Lecture XXIV. : Genesis xlii  152
Lecture XXV. : Genesis iii  156
Lecture XXVI. : Genesis xliv.  i6i
Lecture XXVII. : Genesis xlv.  165
Lecture XXVIII.: Genesis xlviii. 15, 16 . . . . 170
Lecture XXIX. : Genesis xlix  173
Lecture XXX. : Genesis L 12, 13  187
Lecture XXXI. : Genesis L 24-26  191

NOTES ON GENESIS.

LECTURE I.
Sunday Afternoon, February 17, 1850.
Genesis i. 1-3.
T T /"E began two years ago the practice of giving the Sunday
' ' morning to a sermon, and the afternoon to a lecture.
And the difference between the two was that in the morning we
took for our subject some single text and endeavoured to
exhaust it ; but in the afternoon a chapter, and endeavoured
to expound the general truths which were contained therein.
The sermon was hortatory and practical ; the lecture was
didactic. The first appealed rather to the heart and to the
conscience ; the second rather to the intellect and the analytic
faculty. In this way we have already considered in a series
of lectures the Books of Samuel and the Acts of the Apostles.
The book for exposition during the ensuing year is the Book
of Genesis.
The Book of Genesis may be ranged under two great divi
sions, the point of separation being found at the end of the
eleventh chapter. The first division gives the history of the
B

2 Notes on Genesis.
creation and first ages of the world ; the last that of Abraham
and his descendants. The first is a history not so much of the
Jews alone as of the whole human race. It belongs to a time
when the Jews were not yet a nation. We are told of the
world as it was before the time of Abraham ; and we are
taught that the individuals then living had dealings with God.
We are told of Adam who heard His voice in the garden, and
Enoch who walked with Him ; and all this assures our hearts
that God did not leave the world without any revelation save
that given to the Jews ; that on the contrary each individual
had a revelation given him ; and that consequently each will be
judged according to the light he has received.
Upon this first section of Genesis then we make to-day a few
preliminary remarks.
I. Of the creation two accounts are here given. The first
begins in the first chapter and extends to the third verse of the
second ; the second account occupies the rest of the second
chapter : and these two accounts differ from one another in
some particulars. Every one who is familiar with the phraseo
logy of Scripture knows that the language in the opening of the
second account, " These are the generations of the heavens and
of the earth, when they were created " (chap. ii. 4), indicates a
change of subject ; so that we are led to conclude that the one
account is supplemental tC the other. In the first we are told of
God as a creator ; in the second, of God as a moral governor.
In the first the name brought forward is God (Elohim) simply,
in the second it is the Lord God, i.e. Jehovah Elohim. In the
first we have simply a history of man's creation ; in the second
his moral history, the creation of both male and female, and

Lecture I. j
the institution of marriage. In the second we have some things
added ; but in the first the gradations in which things were
created. In the first we have the rest, the sabbath rest of
God; in the second it is not mentioned. So that it would
appear that Moses was inspired by God to make this second
account supplemental to the other, and that, properly speaking,-
we have only one.
II. We remark again that the accounts given of God in
this section of Genesis represent Him as a creator. In those
early times there was a vast amount of atheism. How the
world came into being was a question to all. Some spoke
of atoms having certain powers to unite, whilst others repre
sented that the world was Divine, but that there was no God,
no spirit. In opposition to these and other views, Moses, in
spired by the Divine Mind, came forward and declared the
everlasting distinction between the creation and the Creator,
between the creature and Him who formed it. The heavens
were not God, the planets and stars were not God ; they merely
came from the hand of God. Therefore we are taught here
a most important truth, the personality of God. Now for
personality we should say that there were necessary three
things, self consciousness, will, character. You may have self
consciousness, and yet not be a person. Suppose the lake
on which the sky is reflected were self conscious but incap
able of moving, it would have no personality. Suppose a
living thing with self consciousness and choice, and nothing
more, you will there only have got an animal; it would
have self consciousness and will, but not character. There
fore Moses tells us that God created the world in the first

4 Notes on Genesis.
place in His self consciousness, "in the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth '' ; in the second place by will, for
He said " Let there be light " ; in the third place filling it,
as He created it, with His character, for the Lord looked
upon His world "and behold it was very good." In other
words, he tells the personality of God.
III. Again we remark on the Divine origin of order. Before
the creation of the world all was chaos, darkness moved on
the face of the waters ; but with creation order began : and
if we look over this world of God's we shall see that all is
order therein. It may be that when we look on cultivated
land we think order man's production, disorder God's. When
the garden or the field has been once cultivated and then
passes to a state of nature, it appears chaotic to us, for we
have seen it otherwise ; but in the vast tracts of country un
touched by human art all is order and regularity for miles and
hundreds of miles. Nature is always at rest in its order, an»
God is in its order. When we look on it we know that there
is no state in the soul of man more undivine, more ungodly,
than disorder or confusion. Nothing less resembles the mind
of God than the mind of him who kneels down to pray with
troubled worldly thoughts. Order within the soul is the will
of God, and the soul that has it resembles the Divine creation.
IV. Again we observe the gradations of things made. We
are told that God proceeded from the less perfect to the
more perfect : first inorganic life, after that the vegetable, then
the animal, and then by degrees man, made in the image of
his Creator. We find the same principle in all that God does
now : in the passage of the caterpillar into the chrysalis and

Lecture L 5
then into the butterfly we have the image of God's continual
method of work. It is a method we find in our own life : we
find first of all the mere animal existence, then the develop
ment of the intellect, the thinking being, then the bringing
out of the conscience, and then the Spirit of God working out
the formation of the spiritual man. There is something in all
this that speaks to us of the slow progress of the mind. It
is a marvellous thing to look at human life, to mark the
number of years spent in mere animal existence, and then to
see that mind appears just for a few years in later hfe. But
slow as the progress is, it is progress. We are made conscious
of God's law, and the lesson we learn is that the man who is
not advancing is directly reversing the order of God.
V. We remark again that, next to the work of creation, the
first Divine motion was the creation of light : " Let there be
light " God said, " and there was light." God spoke His will,
and the heavens were made. He gave the word and they were
created. Man may tell us of the development of the world
from the theistical or atheistical point of view, but the
simplest and most religious way is to look at this world as
the expression of the will of God. It is sufficient if we feel
that the light reveals to us something of the will of the Eternal;
enough if the beauty of nature can speak to us of the mind of
God ; if the blue heaven above and the green earth below tell
of our Father's home ; if day and night, light and darkness are
symbols of the word God has spoken out of Himself in the
creation of the world. The ancients, seeing this Divine origiij.
of light, worshipped the sun and moon and hosts of heaven;
but they went too far in this direction. They isolated light as

6 Notes on Genesis.
alone Divine. Light standing as the symbol of all things
Divine, darkness became to them the symbol of the con
trary. Light was the realm in which God ruled. But this
was only half a truth, God created darkness as well as light,
and is as much a ruler of the darkness as of the light.
Darkness is given to us for repose. Man spends his days
in labour, in the fever of getting and spending ; but when
the shades of evening close in and the stars come out to keep
their quiet watch over the earth, man looking upwards sees in
the stars and the peace of night an emblem of the deep repose
of God, and his heart is kindled into adoration. With no less'
truth than beauty has it been said that the touch of darkness
produces worship in the soul of man ; that the broad band
which goes round the planet influences men, so that when
darkness is disappearing before the light, and light before the
darkness, men kneel down to worship, as if only in twilight and
darkness man could worship God. In the withdrawal of light
we have a revelation higher almost than that given us in light.
VI. Once more we have to make a preliminary remark.
There are men who look into this book, expecting it to teach
them all the truth respecting God's creation; but they find
that the records God has given in nature, drawn out and
systematised in the science of geology, cannot cohere with
the account of Moses. Upon this there have been two or
three modes of evasion tried : first that of those who refused
to recognise at all what this science taught; secondly, that
of those who, by spreading the six days of creation over an un
limited surface, and making them represent any space of time,
would have compromised the matter; the third and I believe

Lecture I. 7
the last expedient is to allow a chasm between the first and
second verses, between which time is given for all that geology
requires. But we need not resort to methods such as these.
There are two revelations : one God has written on the page
of creation, to be ascertained by investigation, and it is just as
inspired, just as true, just as much to be received as God's word
as the handwriting on the wall of Babylon ; the other revelation
is written in the page of Scripture. The first belongs to physical
phenomena, the second to the spiritual dealings of God with
man. For instance we are told that God created the firmament,
and placed it between the waters above and the waters below.
The account tells, in accordance with the knowledge of the
time, what the firmament then seemed to men ; it does not
pretend to state what it actually is. It uses the language of the
day ; and if God had a revelation to make now, it would be
given in the expression of the day : it would say ¦' the sun rises,"
though that is not scientifically correct. But this inconsistency
with physical truth does not invalidate the great broad spiritual
truths which revelation is meant to teach. Does it alter or
weaken the spiritual facts revealed in this account of creation :
that God does all by degrees, that He is the moral governor of
the world ; the spiritual truth that the introduction of a sinful
will produces immense gain in point of knowledge and im
mense loss in point of purity ; that the man who has done
wrong feels naked and ashamed in the sight of God ?
And now, my brethren, in conclusion, we are at the com
mencement of a new book. There is something solemn in a
commencement, because it reminds us of a close. Twice have
I begun and twice have I finished a book here. Twice have I

8 Notes on Genesis.
reminded you that many present at the beginning of my lectures
would never live to hear their termination. Again and again
has that prediction been fulfilled. The young, the vigorous,
the beautiful, have been taken away ; and many of us who ex
pected our summons are listening still. But do not forget that
ihere are those among us now who will not hear this course of
lectures close. Brother men, as we look back into those far
distant reaches of the past and speak of cities and peoples long
ago perished, should we not be reminded that life is but a span ?
May God grant me courage, perseverance, boldness, inward
strength to ascertain the truth and teach it ! May God give
my hearers the heart to attend with teachableness, and with the
love which covereth all things, even a multitude of sins !

LECTURE IL
Sunday Afternoon, March 3, 1850.
Genesis i. 26-31.
1~^HE subject of our exposition to-day will be confined to
the account which is given of the creation on the
sixth day. First however we shall recapitulate the spiritual
truths at which we have already arrived. The Mosaic account
then of the creation established these principles : i. That the
universe as it exists now is different from the universe as it
existed once ; in other words, things are not as they were.
2. That the creation of the world was not the work of many gods
but of One. 3. That it was a Person that effected this vast
work, and not some law of the universe gradually educing all
things from a power that was inherent in matter. 4. Respect
ing the character of the Creator the Israelite was taught that
He had formed all things good ; and here we have the founda
tion of all morality, the eternal difference between right and
wrong which existed in God before the world was, which God
could never change, and in obedience to which He created all
things, for He beheld His universe and pronounced it very
good. 5. The Israelite was taught also the divinity of order.
God was represented as evolving harmony from discord, as
repressing the unruly elements and bringing them into
obedience. And herein men were taught the Divine character
of order ; that it is the law of man's existence ; that the unregu-

10 Notes on Genesis.
lated or unruly heart is like the ship with an insubordinate
crew which is wreciced on the ocean ; that order is to pervade
the church, to rule the state, to regulate the family, to in
fluence man's personal happiness, his affections, his desires,
6. The Israelite was taught also this : that it was gradation that
regulated God's creation, to be traced not only in this that the
more perfect forms of life were created last, but also in the fact
that more work was done at the close than at the beginning of
the creative period. We are told that God did almost nothing
on the second day, except the separation of the waters which
were above from the waters which were below the earth, but on
the sixth all the animals were created and man the top and
crown of all things. And this is true of every work which will
stand the test of time. It must not be hastily done, but
thoughtfully planned and carried out with steady and increasing
energy. God who works for eternity lays His foundations deep.
He does not extemporize. It matters not whether it be in things
great or small : quick, mere outside work is done for time ; meant
for show, it falls speedily to nothing, there is in it notjjing
belonging to eternity. If then a man would follow God he
must be content to toil and toil to the last. 7. Once more,
the principle of the providence of the Almighty emerges from
the history of the creation. We read of man's creation and
the creation of the beasts. The vegetables He did not create
till the earth was dry ; the animals not till the vegetables were
prepared for their sustenance ; and man not till the kingdom
was put in order which man should rule. Now this is what
we call providence in God, foresight or prudence in man.
Thus we see how a mere earthly virtue may in another sense be

Lecture II. ii
a spiritual excellence, and it is the duty of man to rise into this
higher view. The bird, taught by God its instinct, produces the
nest before there are young to live in it. The animal too
can provide for its wants ; but when we come to man we should
find these earthly virtues rising almost into Divine attributes;
we should feel that the loss of them is a violation of the moral
law. The man for instance, who without any control over
his passions, any regulation of his will, has brought a family
into this world without the means to provide for them is
not to be looked upon merely as one who has erred against
worldly prudence, but as one who has sinned against the law
of the universe, who has committed a moral fault. The
religious society which prepares for itself a sphere larger
than it can manage, and then has the effrontery to tell us
that such imprudence is Christian faith and zeal instead of
neglect, has sinned against not merely common prudence but
Divine law. It is these spiritual truths that we extract from
the doctrine of this chapter.
Lastly, we have before endeavoured to show the real
nature and inspiration of Genesis. We have not tried to
make Moses' writings agree with the present state of science
and knowledge. Moses had not a scientific message to
deliver; but the marvel is this, that there is not one
spiritual fact that can be overturned. The cosmogony of
the Phoenicians was atheistical ; so was that of the
Egyptians; in North America the Indians have a cosmo
gony not atheistical but simply ludicrous. Now comes the
question, how is it that out of all these cosmogonies one only
is found that stands the test of great scientific principles?

12 Notes on Genesis.
Science declares that the God of the universe is a God of
order, that there has been gradation in the growth of the
world, that there is unity at the root of variety. Moses de
clares so also in the simple childlike language of those days
before science had existed.
We pass on now to the chief work of creation on the sixth
day, the creation of mankind. We are told that the language
in which that creation is spoken of, i.e. " Let us make man,"
implies the doctrine of a plurality of persons in the Deity ;
in other words, Moses, whose avowed object it was to teach the
unity of God, so far forgot himself as to teach the contrary. We
are told again that we are to found on this account the doctrine
of the Trinity. There is no reason, only ignorance, in such a
view. The Hebrew when he wanted to speak of anything
majestic spoke in the plural, not in the singular. He
spoke of " heavens " not of heaven. In the same way he
spoke of Gods, yet meaning only One. Exactly in the same
way the courtesy of modern ages has substituted " you " for
" thou " ; and here the very form of the writer's language
required that he should put "us" instead of "me" in
speaking of the majesty of God. Further, to look for the
Trinity here would be utterly to reverse the whole method of
God's revelation. We know from our ovra lives that God does
things gradually, and we conclude that He did the same with
His chosen people. He had to teach them first the unity of
the Godhead ; the nature of that unity was to be taught after
wards. Conceive what would have been the result in an age
of polytheism of teaching the Trinity. The doctrine would have
inevitably degenerated into tritheism. To how many is the

Lecture II. 13
blessed doctrine of the Trinity only tritheism now, nay more,
many pass it over altogether ; and if there are now but few to
whom it is a doctrine of spiritual comfort, could there have
been any had the truth been revealed by Moses ?
With respect to man himself we are told on the one side
that he is dust, " formed of the dust of the earth." The phrase
marks our affinity to the lower animals. It is a humbling thing
to see how little different the form of man's skeleton is from
that of the lower animals ; more humbling still when we com
pare their inward physiological constitution with our own.
Herein man is united to the beasts. But " God breathed into
man's nostrils the breath of life'' : herein he is united to the
Deity. The heathen, recognising in their own way the spiritual
in man, tried to bridge over the chasm between it and the
earthly by making God more human. The way of revelation
on the contrary is to make man more godlike, to tell of the
Divine idea yet to be realized in his nature. Nor have we far to
go to find some of the traces of this Divine in human nature.
I, We are told that God is just and pure and holy. What is the
meaning of these words ? Speak to the deaf man of hearing,
or the blind of light, he knows not what you mean. And so to
talk of God as good and just and pure implies that there is
goodness, justice, purity, within the mind of man. 2. We find
in man the sense of the infinite : just as truly as God is
boundless is the soul of man boundless ; there is something
boundless, infinite, in the sense of justice, in the sense of truth,
in the power of self sacrifice. 3. In man's creative power
there is a resemblance to God. He has filled the world
with his creations. It is his special privilege to subdue the

14 Notes on Genesis.
powers of nature to himself He has forced the lightning
to be his messenger, has put a girdle round the earth, has
climbed up to the clouds and penetrated down to the depths of
the sea. He has turned the forces of nature against herself;
commanding the winds to help him in braving the sea. And
marvellous as is man's rule over external, dead nature, more
marvellous still is his rule over animated nature. To see the
trained falcon strike down the quarry at the feet of his master,
and come back, when God's free heaven is before him ; to see
the hound use his speed in the service of his master, to take a
prey not to be given to himself ; to see the camel of the desert
carrying man through his own home : all these show the
creative power of man and his resemblance to God the creator.
4. Once more, God is a God of order. The universe in which
God reigns is a domain in which order reigns from first to last,
in which everything has its place, its appointed position ; and
the law of man's life, as we have seen, is also order.
But in the case of man two mistakes are possible. The
man of unruly passions may say, God endowed me with these
inclinations, I have a right to obey them. I answer thus : It
is true, man cannot have a higher rule of life than this, to live
according to his nature ; but the question is. What is the whole
nature of man ? The mainspring is a most important portion of
the watch; but will it, unregulated, fulfil the watch's object?
Man gives way to his passions, and says, I am living according
to my nature. Brother men, is your nature then the nature
of the beasts ? have you no higher nature than that ?
The next mistake is made when spirituality is over re
garded ; when it is supposed that a man is to live some

Lecture II. IS
imaginary life above all the lower passions. The perfect
nature, the true order of man's life, is when the two are
harmonised and one made superior to the other, when the
flesh is subdued to the spirit and the spirit rules. We need not
entrance ourselves into devotion ; we need not give ourselves
up to fasting. It is not a morbid way of looking upon our
nature that God requires. These lower feelings become
sublime, not by being crushed, but by being subdued to the
spirit and made its instruments. For instance, many have
thought that there is nothing more humihating than eating
and drinking ; but when we go to the labourer's cottage and
watch the wife engaged in the preparation of her husband's
meal we feel that these exertions have been ennobled by their
object, for they are made the channel of a holy love ; nay, we
have the highest authority to say that a cup of cold water given
in love to a thirsty man tends to the elevation of our lower
nature. My Christian brethren, the question which is every
moment determinmg itself is this, whether we are rising in
spiritual excellence, or sinking to the level of the brutes that
perish ; whether anarchy or the true order reigns in us.

LECTURE IIL
Sunday Afternoon, March lo, 1850.
" These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they
were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."
— Genesis ii. 4.
THE first account of the creation concluded with a cir
cumstance which we had not time to expound, the
sabbath rest of God when all the earth was complete. We
are told, God rested on the seventh day from all His works ;
in which we are to guard ourselves from attributing too literal
a meaning to the expression used. We are not to understand
that God ceased iVom creation, for creation is going on every
day. Nature is God at work , and, speaking humanly, just as
the work of nature seems to be accomplished when winter be
comes spring, when old passes into new ; so, when Chaos took
form and order, and beauty and harmony had been established,
God seemed to be at rest. And this expression, the Rest of
God, is not used singularly here. When we say that God
was angry, God repented, we use a similar language. But
though creation ceased not, from that moment new creations
ceased. The forms and types then established became the
models according to which God has been creating ever since.
This is the rest of God, the Sabbath of the Everlasting.
Our next question is, what did this statement mean to the
Israelites? We find that whatever Divine commands Moses
gave the Israelites, he communicated to them their grounds.

Lecture III, 17
If he required them to believe in the unity of God he gave
them an historical revelation that this same God had been
believed in by their fathers. If he commanded them to
take Canaan he told them their fathers had possessed it,
and that its present possessors were usurpers and interlopers.
In the same way when he gave them the law of the Jewish
sabbath he gave them along with it its basis, that is, the
revelation of God's Sabbath. At the time of the Israelitish
captivity in Egypt we find not a trace of the sabbath. It
was a new thing when Moses gave it by God's command
as a law unto the Israelites ; and he made it the seal of a
covenant which marked them out from other nations. On
what did it rest? It rested upon something greater than
mere human will, or even Divine will, and that something
was an eternal necessity of man's nature, derived from a
similar necessity in the nature of his Maker. And this is
the only ground on which our obligation to keep the sabbath
day can rest. We cannot place it on the ground of the Mosaic
law. We have abrogated almost all that belonged to the sabbath
day. We have taken away "every manner of work." We
have changed many other important particulars. From sunset
to sunset we have altered to from midnight to midnight.
And then, instead of "the seventh day,'' we have left only
this "one day in seven"; and the sceptical mind requirest
some proof of the moral obligation of keeping one day without
work when we have admitted all the rest of the covenant to
be ceremonial. We must take higher ground, and tell the
doubter that there is an eternal necessity for the recurring c

1 8 Notes on Genesis.
sabbath. It is just on this, only on this perpetual necessity
of a sabbath, that our observance of the sabbath must be
founded, in this requirement of physical rest by our nature,
in the fact also that it is only by means of these stated
returns of particular seasons that man can, in rest from
temporal concerns, fix his attention on his Maker.
There is a further necessity for a similar outward form in the
mode of worship on the sabbath, which illustrates the primal
necessity of having a day set apart. Thoughtful men have
often asked why they cannot go out and have their worship in
the great temple of the universe. The man who argues so
knows not his own nature. There is a temple of God's uni
verse, and those who deny it forget a grand and spiritual truth ;
but the feeling gained in this temple of God is one thing, that
gained in the church of God is another. We may in like
manner worship God all the week, but the emotion of worship
on the sabbath when we lay aside work is different from the
emotions felt towards God in the midst of work.
At the same time the mode of observing the sabbath must
manifestly vary according to the age of the individual, ac
cording to the place where he lives, and the age of the world
in which he lives. That rest which is fit for the old is not
fit for the young; that which suits the intellectual does not
suit the unlearned. The man who has strained his intellect
all the week, can we not understand that if he took his spade
and indulged in mental relaxation for two hours whilst dig
ging in his garden, he would be observing the sabbath?
There is a difference also in the kind of rest made by national
custom and by ranks and by occupation ; that which will do

Lecture III. - 19
for the rich man will not do for the poor ; that which will
do for the Jew will not do for the Christian. The stern
old Jewish sabbath is extremely difficult for one of us to
comprehend. We know indeed that national habits make
a difference when we compare what the Jew and the English
man thinks sabbatical rest to be. Conceive a man making
the sabbath day a day of absolute rest, going so far as to
permit no music, take no walk, enjoy no relaxation, thrown
on himself; and yet such was the manner in which the Jewish
sabbath was kept. And it was this difference from our
more easy and lax modern manners that made the Israelites
the spiritual teachers of the world. They were the least
accustomed of all nations to abstract thought, and yet it was
this stern rule which made such men as Moses, Paul, and
David. We pass on now to the second account of the creation.
It is, observe, a second account, not a continuation of the
first. The writing tells of a different age ; it speaks of a different
composer. And the very superscription is the recognised mode of
language used to indicate a change of subject. Evidently this
account goes back on the last. At the end of the first, all was
created : at the beginning of the second, man is not made, nor
are the beasts. We find very important differences between
these two accounts ; for example, in their history of the
creation of man, male and female. In the first the order
of man's creation is narrated ; in the second, his spiritual
history. In the first, God is a creator ; in the second,
God is the moral governor of the universe. Yet let

20 Notes on Genesis.
us not suppose for one moment that these are two
separate accounts thrown together with no object. They
are manifestly linked together, each is supplemental to the
other. In the first, we have these spiritual truths — the unity
of God, His personality. His order : in the second, His deal
ings with nature and with the mind of man. God gives man
law, and annexes to his obedience and disobedience reward
and punishment.
We make three remarks on this second account. The first
is with reference to the reason given for man's creation, that
there was a man wanted to till the ground. We should not
have said that of man. We should have held another view,
and looked upon ourselves as the rulers of this world for whom
all things were created, were it not for this verse which teaches
us the truth. In the order of creation man is the highest;
but the object for which man is created is that he should, like
all the rest, minister to the advance of all things. That is our
position here ; we are here to do the world's work.
The next thing we have to observe is the unity of the
human race. On this point we do not decide dogmatically, nor
take it for granted that it is distinctly revealed that there was
only one pair of the human race, if science can prove that
there were several pairs created instead of one. All that
we are told in the first account is that God, in the beginning,
created them male and female. All that we are told in the
second is that He placed Adam and Eve in paradise. Theo
logically, the unity of the human race is of great importance.
There was a time when scientific men believed the human
race must have been derived from different parents. They

Lecture III. 21
saw so great a difference in races of men that they tried to
prove the Bible account untrue. It seems to me, however, that
science now compels us to pronounce that the human race
must have had a single origin. The differences of race
which seem insuperable on the supposition of one origin
vanish by change of mental culture and of climate; and
the wisest philosophers have come to this conclusion, that
there is no reason why the most degraded of the human
species should not have come from the same stock as the
most polished Europeans. This question derives its interest
from the importance of the doctrine of the equality of the
human race. That doctrine has no doubt been misused and
perverted, so that there is a prejudice against it and against
him who dares to believe in the equality of man. We do not
mean to say that men are all spiritually or intellectually equal ;
much less do we mean to say that the way to find the truest
and wisest senators to rule the land is by giving every man the
power of voting; but we mean by equality that there is no
eternal difference between men. Between the highest and the
lowest animals there is an everlasting difference, but none be
tween the highest and lowest men ; and it is only as this is
reahzed that we can ever feel the existence of our common
humanity in Jesus Christ. Nor is history a silent witness
of this truth. The descendants of the wild tribes who in
former ages invaded these shores in their war ships are now
ruling these civilized realms of ours. On the other hand,
Greece, once mistress of arts, is now bereft of her ancient
perception of beauty; and Rome, once the iron kingdom,
lies like a wreck upon the ocean of this world. In these

22 Notes on Genesis.
changes produced by time we have a sort of proof of the
equality of men.
The next thing to observe is this, that we have here a hint
respecting immortality. It must have struck every attentive
reader of the Scriptures, that in the Old Testament there is so
little allusion to futurity. That it was a matter of doubt we
learn from this fact, that when the Redeemer came to this
world it was a question whether the sacred writings did pre
dict a resurrection or not. It was held moreover as a specu
lation by one of the most gigantic minds of the age just past,
— by Warburton, — that, the Divine legation of Moses was
proved by the fact that the Israelites received it though he
sought their submission by no promise of future rewards,
by no threats of future punishment. This tells of the ex
ceeding faintness with which that doctrine must be spoken
of in the Pentateuch, if spoken of at all. And here we
come into apparent contradiction with the Church of England ;
/or the Seventh Article declares " that both in the Old and
New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by
Christ. Wherefore they are not to be heard which feign that
the old fathers did look only for transitory promises.''
Now, if we can reconcile these two things we shall be able
to understand and get a deep glance into God's revelation of
futurity. You will not find in the Old Testament a decided
revelation of the life to come, but you will catch there many
ghmpses from which such a doctrine might have been elaborated.
When God speaks of Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, there is apparently in such a passage no mention of the
life to come ; yet from it Christ derived this most important

Lecture III. 23
truth, that God is not the God of the dead but of the living,
the Everlasting is He to whom they live still. Just such is the
hint we find in this second chapter of Genesis. We are told
in a phrase that declares the dignity of man's nature that God
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And when the mind
of the Israelite began to brood on this he would remember that
there was also a sad, dark intimation, "Dust thou art, and unto
dust thou shalt return," apparently a denial of immortality. But
then there were aspirations in the soul that never could be
quenched; and this yearning aspiration would bring him back
again to ask : " Dust is not all ; the breath of God, what has
become of that ? " And that he would argue thus, my Christian
brethren, is by no means a fancy ; the phrases excite thought,
they direct it in a certain manner ; they are vague, but they
have an aim. And comparing them with our higher knowledge
we understand that God's revelation is made in this gradual
way ; that slight hints of a truth are first given, and that then
it is defined more and more clearly.

LECTURE IV.
Sunday Afternoon, March 31, 1850.
Genesis iii.
TTT'E have contemplated man in the state of innocence,
^ ' that bright and blessed condition represented as the
garden state : a state in which he had everything which
belonged to domestic happiness, in which the earth itself was
one great garden, every flower his to pluck, every fruit to taste ;
his life was a life of blessedness and rest with God. But now
the scene changes. Over all has come a dark, dense cloud,
a shadow of sadness, the shadow of death. The garden state
is no longer his state, this world is no longer paradise, it has
become earth. There are in it thorns and briers ; its sweets
must be extracted by toil and anguish. This is the penalty of
sin, of man's first disobedience, of the crime which showed his
heart was not altogether right with God. There is however
this difference between criminality and sinfulness. Criminality
is the transgression of a law, sinfulness is want of harmony of
mind, not necessarily a state in which man is committing actual
offences, but one in which the heart is no longer in harmony
with the universe ; and this sinfulness is an extinction of
original nobleness. With a deep significance was it written
that there was a flaming sword forbidding man's return to Eden;
for it manifestly implies that there were longings, a desire to go
back Nay tliere is a feeling in every one of us, more or less.

Lecture IV. 2$
till the gospel of Christ has in all its power and strength
enabled us to rise to holiness, that the earth is not what it
was ; that a glory has passed away, that the innocence of
childhood is gone, that there is none of us who is what he
might have been, that life and its temptations have acted
injuriously upon a spurit originally created and destined for
union with God.
We shall consider first the moral and then the penal results
of the fall.
I. Its moral results.
They are those which tell upon the character or inward
being of a man, those which are exerted from within a man's
own constitution ; the penal, those which are executed on him
from without. In murder the penal consequence is the de
struction of life upon the scaffold ; the moral, the injury that
is done , to a man's inward constitution, the remorse, the
hardness, the degradation of character which he endures. Of
these moral consequences there is (i) Separation from nature.
This we find in the verse " they knew that they were naked "
(ver. 7). The deep spiritual meaning here is that it is not pos
sible for a man to sin without becoming thereby separated from
nature. Things naturally innocent and pure become tainted
by sin. The worst misery a man can bring on himself by
sin is that those things which to pure minds bring nothing
but enjoyment are turned for him into fuel for evil lusts and
passions, and light the flames of hell within his soul. And
such a difference there is between the things we call modesty
and prudery. In modesty things are passed over which to
others are impure ; but in prudery there is a prurient love of

26 Notes on Genesis.
evil, so that those things are reckoned evil which have in
them nothing that is impure.
Another of these moral consequences is separation from
God. Adam and his wife heard the voice of the Lord God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day ; and they
hid themselves from His presence, for they were afraid. We
have in this an account adapted to oriental nations, for in
eastern countries it is customary to walk out in the evening
to catch the fresh breeze. We are told that God did this,
that is, a human feeling is attributed to God. Let the sceptic
enjoy his merriment. To us there is something most touch
ing in the statement that to our first parents in the most
hallowed hour of the whole day the voice of God seemed
like the thundering of the Divine anger. A child might
interpret that rightly to himself When he has done wrong he
is afraid, he dares not hear a sound ; a common noise, in the
trembling insecurity in which he lives, seems to him God's
voice of thunder. To the apostles the earthquake at Philippi
was a promise of release from prison ; to the sinful jailer a
thing of judgment and wrath : " Sirs, what shall I do to be
saved ? "
And here I interrupt myself for a moment that we may
remind ourselves of one of those things which whenever
they take place require to be brought before the congrega
tion. One of our members since last Sunday has heard this
voice in the coolness of the evening. He had told me not
three hours before of his anticipations of that voice, and
that he was expecting a gradual extinction of his sight. Within
three hours the summons came and he was in a state of

Lecture I%V. 27
entire unconsciousness. Since then his voice has been heard
once in the monosyllable "Pray," once in thanks for some
service rendered him ; twice has he grasped my hand convul
sively with a deep look of gratitude as I knelt beside his bed
in prayer. The summons was given him, he was not afraid.
To those now enjoying life I would say. Or ever the silver
cord be loosed and the golden bowl broken, and the seal
of the eternal stamped on you for ever, dare you meet your
God ? dare you hear His voice ?
The third of these moral consequences of sin is selfishness.
The culprits are occupied entirely with their own hearts ;
each denies the guilt which belongs to each ; each throws the
blame upon the other ; Adam says it was Eve, Eve that it
was the serpent. And this is the very central principle of sin :
properly speaking there is no other sin but selfishness. The
agriculturist distinguishes between two sorts of roots : those
which go deep down into the ground without dividing; and
those which divide off into endless fibrils and shoots. Selfish
ness is Hke the latter kind ; it is the great root of sin from
which others branch out. It produced in our first parents
falsehood ; and all transgression, if we look but rightly at it,
is falsehood. If the mason's work will not stand, it is false
to the universe ; if a man does not succeed in what he
undertakes, he is false. It produced in them also cowardice.
We talk with contempt of mere animal courage : yet there is
in it an unselfishness, it may be, a reckless fearlessness ; it
is at least the pursuit of something higher than pleasure, and
looked at rightly, all goodness is courage. What is purity but
the bravely bidding away from the mind all that can destroy

28 Notes.on Genesis.
the soul? What is truth but the daring of all consequences ;
the ti-uth, which will not merely be true when falsehood is un
necessary, but which is true under all circumstances ? What
again is persevering goodness in anything but this brave un
ruffled power of saying again and again to any interruption
the unswerving No, and not a wavering Yes? And, my
brethren, there is one special way in which this shows itself,
a dai-ing to acknowledge that we have done wrong. There is
indeed a daring which will rise in physical dangers ; but he
is the true brave man, woman, or child, who dares to say " I
have erred, forgive me."
II. Penal consequences of sin.
These divide themselves into two branches, i. Those in
flicted on the man. 2. Those inflicted on the woman.
I. Those inflicted on the man.
(i) The ground was cursed for his sake. " Thorns also and
thistles shall it bring forth unto thee ; in the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread" (ver. 18, 19). AVe must not suppose
that for the first time then the law of labour entered into the
world, but that then for the first time it was felt to be a curse ;
we must not suppose that thorns and weeds had no existence
before the fall, but only that before that they had not seemed
thorns and weeds to men. Every one knows that there is
no weed grown in all God's earth that has not its appointed
virtue, whilst science shows us daily that those once thrown aside
as weeds are blessings to the world. The law of labour also
is a curse only to those who will not submit to it ; to others it
is one of the best blessings of life. Adam's occupation before
the fall was to dress the earth, and no doubt he found enjoy-

Lecture IV. 29
ment in his work ; and God's arrangement for us now is this :
for every mouth to be fed, for every body to be clothed, a pair
of hands ; for every intellectual work, a brain. Therefore it
comes to pass that if any man living in this world is doing no
thing, he has taken away one pair of hands, one brain, from the
work of God, and left it to the performance of another.
(2) Death: "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return."
Here again we must not think that if man had not sinned
his body would not have passed away, that death would not
have been. No ; but that death by sin became death ; other
wise it would have been simply a transition to a higher state of
being. What is it that makes the thought of death so horrible?
Is it not the weeping of friends around, is it not our own
want of faith ? All these things make it a thing to be feared.
Sin is the sting of death : take away sin, and you take away
with it death's terrors; death becomes then as gentle as a
sleep. Stephen fell asleep. " The sting of death is sin, but
thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ." He hath blessed death.
2. Those inflicted on the woman.
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow," etc. (ver. 16.) Com
pare this punishment pronounced on the woman with that on
the serpent as given in verses 14 and 15, and this apparently
starthng difference is brought out. The penalty inflicted on
the weak seems terrible ; the penalty inflicted on the other is
merely this, that he shall go upon the dust, no pain at all
is imposed. Here is presented to us one of the mysteries of
Nature : the difference made between tempted frailty and
that selfish oppression which tempts frailty. The one suffers

30 Notes on Genesis.
terribly, is made an outcast from society, and endures the
torments of a rebuking conscience ; the other is often admired
and seems free from all the stings of remorse. And upon all
this the world looks with a strange indifference, and takes its
stand with the oppressor. Let men say, and truly, that it is
necessary to guard by the exaction of a. penalty against the
sin of frailty, we are bound also to retort the charge : if the
consequences of frailty be terrible, it is the part of every brave
man to avoid tempting frailty. If it be necessary to guard the
keeper of the casket by penalties and pains, I ask what is the
guilt and what the penalty belonging to the stealer of that
casket ? There is no ground whatever, no principle of justice,
on which that infernal law of society can be defended which
only punishes the feeble. When we turn to the life of Christ
we find the voice of the Redeemer against it. He stands by
the side of the weak and not of the strong. He shows no
sympathy with those who have tempted frailty ; He says :
" Better that a millstone should be hanged about his neck,
and that he should be cast into the sea, than that he should
offend one of these little ones." And we know how He
treated the frail, the publican and the sinner. On the one
side then we have the voice of the Redeemer representing
the voice of God, and that voice is on the side of frailty;
but on the other hand we have the voice of Nature, also the
word of God, and this voice appears to be against the
frail : for it shows us frailty visited by terrible punishment
whilst the oppressor goes free. How are we to reconcile
this apparent contradiction? We turn to this third chapter
of Genesis and we find our answer. God has two penalties

Lecture IV. 31
for sin : one, the punishment of the offender, which is
remedial, sharp, terrible, purifying ; another, the expression
not of His paternal love but of His everlasting wrath ; no pain
in that. Better for the punished if there were ! Look at this
sin of Eve's. It was not a sin of sensuality. The temptation
appealed not to her sensual but rather to her higher nature.
The food was pleasant to the eye and to be desired to make
one wise. Yet at the very instant she thought she was to be
as God, knowing good and evil, she found herself, not as she
had anticipated on the confines of heaven, but on the brink of
hell. The chastisement which fell on her was terrible, but it
was the remedial chastisement of love. It is that which
frailty wants, and it is redeemed through it. Look at this
penalty on the woman, what was its nature ? In sorrow she
was to bring forth children, and her desire was to be to her
husband, and he was to rule over her. This penalty of suffer
ing for others, which is the very triumph of the cross, know
we not its blessing ? Know we not that in proportion as we
suffer for another we love that other ; that in proportion as the
mother suffers for her child she is repaid by that love ? Know
we not that that subjection which man calls curtailment of
liberty is hi fact a granting of Uberty, of that gospel liberty
which is born of obedience to a rule which men venerate and
love? Indignation rises within the soul of every true man that one
who has done unjust and oppressive wrong should go unrepre-
hended ; that the daughters and wives of men calling them
selves Christians are permitted to sit by such a man and to
receive his patronage, when those to whom he has done the

32 Notes on Genesis.
wrong are unheeded, cast out to perish. It is all just. The
chain has bound itself around that man. Suffering will not hurt
him ; he will go on through this world happy. God has punished
him, not with an ordinary punishment, but with the worst of
punishments, a degradation worse than the agonies of hell
itself, the punishment of being degraded and not knowing his
own degradation. Would you give a man a penalty more
terrible than this — to go upon the dust, to lead a degraded
life day after day ? If I speak to a man who has been per
plexed by the moral government of the universe, to a man
to whom this solution will give a burst of joy, because there is
in it a vindication of the righteousness of God ; to him I say
the penalty is just which annexes suffering to frailty^ and the
serpent degradation to the reptile tempter.

LECTURE V.
Sunday Afternoon, June 2, 1850.
Genesis xii.
" I ""HE eleventh chapter concludes that first great division of
-L the Book of Genesis, in which we are given the history
of the human race, a universal history; in the succeeding
chapters the history ceases to be world wide, and becomes
national. We do not and dare not say that God gave no
revelation to any other nation except the Jews ; all we know is
this, that that given to the Jews is the only one of which we
have any continuous record. Now the history of the Jews,
at least the character of that history, is manifested in the
character of the person from whom their national history
begun. It is common to find that a nation imbibes the spirit
of its founder. Nimrod, the founder of the Ass3a-ian monarchy,
was a conqueror, and the Assyrians were pre-eminently a con
quering nation. But in the founder of the Jewish nation we
find, not a conqueror, nor a lawgiver, but a saint, remarkable
only for this, that he lived with God ; and therefore we may
expect to meet with what is really the case, not a profane
history, but the history of piety.
The subject of this chapter divides itself into two branches :
I. The journey of Abram into the land of Canaan,
II. His journey into Egypt.
I. Abram's journey into the land of Canaan. D

34 Notes on Genesis.
Observe here the gradual revelation and accomplishment
of Abram's destiny. To understand this we must refer to
the preceding chapter, where we learn (ver. 31) that Terah
went up from Ur with his sons to go into Canaan, and
when they came to Haran they dwelt there, and Terah died
there. Abram was therefore now completing and fulfilling
what Terah had begun ; so that what at first seemed only a
human plan is now clearly seen to be a Divine interference,
for Abram's journey was made we are expressly told at the
call of God. And this is the history of every one of us :
gradually and slowly our destiny opens to us. Our Redeemer
and Master teaches us not to be over anxious for the morrow,
for we cannot discern its duties ; all that belongs to us is to
do the duty that lies before us to-day, and we may be sure of
this, that when we have done the duty that is close before us
we shall understand and see clearly the duties that lie beyond.
Observe again the number of the ties that were rent asunder
when Abram left for Canaan. God told him to leave his
country and his kindred and his father's house ; till at last
he was left in the world solitary. It matters not how this
intimation was given to Abram ; it is sufficient for us to know
that it was given, and that he therein recognised the voice of
God and immediately obeyed it. There is many a man called
as Abram was, whose duty demands of him to quit the party
with whom he has hitherto worked, to act again and again in
such a way that those who have loved him will shrink firom
him ; and, as it was with Abram and with Christ, he will find
himself alone and solitary. There are many times when it
must be so with us. We must learn to bear to live alone, not

Lecture V, 35
with regard to external things, but in our inward spirits. Let us
not be anxious to hear the hum of applauding voices round us,
but be content to travel in silence the way which our Master
travelled before.
Observe again the twofold nature of the promise given
by God to Abram ; it was partly temporal, partly spiritual.
The temporal promise was that he should have a numerous
posterity, and that they should inherit Canaan ; and the
spiritual promise was that he should be blessed (ver. 2). Now
this record was of great importance to Moses, who gave it to
the people of Israel. He was about to take Israel away from
Egypt, and therefore he had to make them understand that
the land they were going to was their own land, from which
.they were unlawfully kept out. In proof of this he could refer
to this promise of God to Abram. Moses was revealing to
the Israelites, surrounded by nations who worshipped many
gods, the one true God. He could tell them that it was no
new God that he was thus teaching them to worship, but One
who had appeared to their forefather Abram.
Observe once more the manner of Abram's journey through
Canaan. As he went along he erected altars to commemorate
the mercies of God and to remind his posterity that this was
really their own land. Here we have that strange feeling of
human nature, the utter impossibiUty of realizing the invisible
except through the visible. Churches, what are they built for ?
To limit God and bind Him down to space ? or to explain God
to us, to enable us to understand Him, and to teach us that
not there only but in every place He is present? Consider
then what the land of Canaan became. Gradually it was

36 Notes on Genesis.
dotted over with these stones, teaching the Israelites that it was
a sacred land. What these stones did for the Israelites our
memory does for us ; it brings back in review our past life.
Remember, I pray you, what that life will be to you when it all
appears again. Blessed, thrice blessed, is the man to whom life
is, as it was to Abram, dotted over with memorials of com
munion with God. But your life — that guilty thought and act,
that unhallowed feeling — dare you see it come before you
again? I pray you remember that this return of all the past to
memory, in the day when God shall judge your life, is no dream,
but one of the things that must be hereafter.
II. Abram's journey into Egypt.
At the court of Pharaoh Abram gained two of the most useful
lessons of his life. He learnt that it is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps ; he became aware of his own weakness,
and no doubt was cast henceforth in still more humble de
pendence upon God. And he learnt that all things work
together for good to them that love God. We are ready
enough to acknowledge that great things are in the hand of
God; but we do not allow that the small circumstances of life,
without which the journey to Egypt would not have been pos
sible, are also under the guidance and direction of an all-wise
God. But Abram found out this; for he came back from
Egypt " very rich" in catde, rich still more in a deepened faith
in God and His law. The last was a spiritual possession
strangely gained. It was gained in the midst of trans
gression ; it is the glory of God to bring good out of evil.
The transgression of Abram's was the saying that Sarah was
his sister when she was his wife, and the saying was not

Lecture V. 37
distinctly false, but rather an evasion, for she was his half-
sister. Now we do not say that every evasion is wrong. For
example, when an impertinent question is asked respecting
family circumstances or religious feelings it is not neces
sary that we should tell all. There are cases, therefore, in
which we may tell the truth, though not the whole truth.
It was even so with our Redeemer ; for when asked by the
Pharisees how He made Himself the Son of God, He would
give them no answer. But it will be observed that Abram's
evasion was nothing of this kind, it was a deception. It was not
keeping back part of the truth when the questioner has no right
to ask ; it was false expediency. It was a right expediency in
Samuel when he permitted Israel to have a king, and the law
of Christian expediency is to select the imperfect when the
perfect cannot be had. It will be observed however that the
expediency of Abram was altogether different. It was not the
selection of the imperfect because the perfect could not be had,
but it was the cnoice between telhng the truth and saving his
life; and Abram chose the falsehood that he might save his
life — that is, he used an expediency which had nothing to do
with Christian expediency. Of two blessings let the temporal
blessing be the higher, and the spiritual blessing the lesser; still
they are not commensurate. Man must not stop to ask himself
which is best, right or wrong; he must do right. It was on
this principle that the blessed martyrs of old died for the truth;
it was but an evasion that was asked of them, but they felt
that there was no comparison between the right and the wrong
in the matter. " I have a life, you may take that : I have a
soul, you cannot destroy that." It was thus they felt and acted.

38 Notes on Genesis.
There is but one apology that can be offered for Abram, and
that is, the low standard of the age in which he lived ; it must be
remembered that he was not a Christian.
Lastly, we observe this, that Abram brought upon himself
a rebuke from Pharaoh, the man of God was rebuked by the
man of the world : a thing singularly humiliating. It is
common to find men of the world whose honour and in
tegrity is a shame to every Christian ; and common enough to
find men of religious feeling and aspiration, of whom that same
world is compelled to say that whenever they are tried in busi
ness there is always a something found wanting. Salvation con
sists in this union of moral with spiritual character. Morality is
not rehgion ; but unless religion is grafted on morality, religion
is worth nothing. Listen to the words of an apostle, " What doth
it profit if a man say he hath faith and have not works, can
faith save him?" Unless to faith is added virtue, we have
not salvation.

LECTURE VI.
Sunday Afternoon, June 9, 1850.
Genesis xiii.
WE have already entered into a class of subjects entirely
different from that which has previously occupied our
Attention. We have been dwelling on the history of the world :
we have now to consider the history of individuals. It follows
that for some time to come our expositions will necessarily
have more of a simple, humble, personal, practical character.
At the commencement of this chapter we have an account
of the return of Abram from the land of Egypt, rich. It has
been observed that the blessedness of the Old Testament is
prosperity, while that of the New Testament is affliction. Let
not men say from this that the law of God is altered ; it is we
who have altered in conceptions of things. There was a time
when men fancied that afflictions were proofs of God's anger,
but the revelation of God in Christ has since manifested to us
the blessedness of affliction ; for it is the cross that God bestows
as His highest reward on all His chosen sons. But the chief
subject of this chapter is the separation which took place
between Abram and Lot. Let us observe the causes which
rendered necessary this separation.
I. Prosperity. Poverty and trial made Abram and Lot
cling closely to each other; but the moment they reached
prosperity a cause of separation arose between them. And
this is the experience of life ; the enlargement of a man's

40 Notes on Genesis,
possessions is very often the contracting of his heart We
learn from this the great doctrine of compensation; for
almost every blessing must be paid a certain price. If a man
would be the champion of the truth, he must give up the
friendship of the world. Be sure of this, there is no rich and
prosperous man we look at who has not paid his price — it
may be in loss of domestic peace, in anxiety, or in enfeebled
health ; be assured that every earthly blessing is bought dearly.
II. The quarrelling among the servants ; and this quarrel
arose partly from disobligingness of disposition. Here we
find the Christian community resembling the Jewish. There
is a constant strife now among servants as to whose duty it is
to do certain things, arising from the same indisposition to
oblige one another. Then observe how by degrees Lot and
Abram are drawn into the quarrel, and how again we find
human nature the same in all ages. The bitterness between
child and child, between husband and wife, are often to be
referred back to the bitterness between domestic servants.
Again, the scandal of this disagreement passed on through
the land ; the Canaanite and the Perizzite heard of it. Here is
a lesson both for Christian masters and servants. Our very
doors and walls are not sufficient to guard domestic secrecy ;
if there has been scandal in a place, that scandal is sure to be
heard. And if Cliristian men and women listen to the gossip
of their servants, I pray you with whom does the guilt lie?
On the other hand, servants who wish to be servants not
after the flesh but after the spirit, with good will doing service, -
as to the Lord and not unto men, should recollect that they
are admitted into secrets which they must know, but that.

Lecture VI. 41
there is an honour which should bind their tongue. They are
trusted ; they should let that trust be kept sacred for the Lord.
Now see how this separation between Abram and Lot,
which might have resulted in a lifelong estrangement, was all
put a stop to by Abram, first of all by his unselfishness. " Is
not the whole land before thee ? separate thyself I pray thee
from me. If thou wilt take the left hand then I will go to the
right ; or if thou depart to the right hand then I will go to the
left" (ver. 9). This was noble, and it was an unselfishness
that arose from his spiritual character, for he was not merely
a generous man, but generous because religious. Secondly,
his condescension stayed the quarrel. He was the elder, and
therefore had the right to demand acknowledgment from Lot;
but he waived his right. What a lesson for us : men often wish to
make up a quarrel if the other would but come, half way ; other
wise they think it would be against their honour to be reconciled.
Brethren, a man's honour is not what men think of him. His
honour consists in what he is. If in a quarrel one thing which
should have been done has not been done, in the sight of God
you are a dishonoured man. The third way in which Abram
prevented this from becoming a settled quarrel was his wisdom
in seeing that separation of place would prevent separation
of heart. It is a lesson that we learn late in life. When once
words of anger have been spoken we cannot recall them. It
is wise to remember, when you are angry, that a quarrel may
often be prevented by leaving the room when the unkind
word is rising to the lip.
The chapter ends with a touching account of the Lord speak
ing to Abram. He had just lost his friend, and it was a moment

42 Notes on Genesis.
in which you would have expected to find him left in bitterness ;
but instead of this the voice of God is heard telling him that the
world is his. This is marvellously true to life. The promise was
in the truest and most spiritual sense fulfilled here. Was it not
fulfilled when he lifted up his spiritual eyes, and saw the garden
of the Lord his Father's house, and if his Father's, might he not
look upon it as his own too ? Thus it is with us ; when all is taken
from us, then it is that we meet God more closely than before.
God is not found in the crowd, but in silence, in solitude.
Lastly, contrasted with the unselfishness of Abram we see
the selfishness of Lot. One would have fancied that an offer
so generous as that of Abram would have transformed the heart
of any man. But no ! Lot does not seem to have been
touched by it. He chose the rich land. It was nothing to
him that the inhabitants were sinners before the Lord exceed
ingly ; but in the end it mattered much. The result of his
choice was the degradation of his family, the ruin of his happi
ness, so that he was left at last a bereaved old man. Yet this is
just the way of the world now. Even religious men sometimes
give themselves up as Lot to tne love of the world ; they will
settle in a foreign country, notoriously licentious, merely that
they may enjoy the scenery or live more economically; they
will sacrifice their daughters for titles and wealth. But let every
man and woman be assured of this, that God has terrible
modes of retribution. In the choice of homes, of friends, and
in alliances, he who selects according to the desires of the
flesh and of the eye, and the pride of life — God has in store
for that man retribution. If he will not be drawn by the cords
of love, he must be driven by the rod of correction.

LECTURE VIL
Sunday Afternoon, July 28, 1850.
Genesis xix.
THE nineteenth chapter of Genesis contains the conclusion
of the dismal history of the cities of the plain. The
guilt of Sodom and Gomorrah had been long ripe for judg
ment. They may be likened to a tree seared and blasted by
the autumn winds, but having a few leaves on the topmost
branches withered and dead ; the next powerful gust of wind
will dash them all to the earth. There are three subjects for
our consideration in this chapter.
I. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
II. Lot's deliverance.
III. The fate of Lot's wife.
I. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The doom of Sodom and Gomorrah was already fixed when
God spoke with Abraham ; but there had been delay, partly
for Lot's sake, and partly for Divine reasons. The sun rose
brightly that morning ; but before it had sunk below the
western horizon the blood was cold in many a breast that
burned with unhallowed fire, and many a pulse had ceased
to beat that a few hours before throbbed with selfish pas
sion. Down came the burning red rain of fire from heaven,
the fearful expression of the wrath of God. This strange
flood of fire did for the bodies of men what death does for

44 Notes on Genesis.
the soul. The attitude in which it found every man, there
it sealed him. And so with death ; it is the fixing of the
form of the spirit in which each man dies, so to remain for
ever. There is development, but no change in all the future.
At the same time, when the cold hand of death changes the
outward form, it but impresses on the spirit that form which
is to remain for ever.
Let us now look at the agency which effected this destruc
tion. The Bible refers it to the immediate action of God ;
and the truth of Scripture, it is thought by some, depends on
establishing the miraculous character of the fall of these cities.
A man goes now to the scene of the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and tries to establish the fact that it was nothing
but a natural volcanic eruption ; and by getting rid of the super
natural agency he thinks he has got rid of God Himself
Another goes to the same place, and in his zeal for the super
natural wishes to make out that the veracity of the Bible
depends on this kind of occurrence never having happened
before. Do we mean then that only the marvellous incidents
of nature, — the fall of a Sodom and Gomorrah taking place
at an appointed time, — only the positive miracles, are God's
doing, and not the commonplace events of every-day life?
Nay, God holds all the powers of nature in His hand ; small
events may be so directed by Him that we shall think them
accident; but for all this it is no less certain that the most
trifling act of every-day life is directed by Him. What we
have to say is this : we agree with the supernaturalist in saying
that God did it ; we agree with the rationalist in saying that it
was d^ne by natural means. The natural is the work of God.

Lecture VII. 45
Again, Scripture uses this destruction as the type of eternal
punishment. It is written in Isaiah, "And Babylon, the glory
of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall
be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." And
again, St. Peter saith in his Second Epistle, "And turning
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned
them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those
that after should live ungodly." And again, in the Epistle
of St. Jude we read, " Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the
cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to
fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." So that
throughout the Bible this destruction is used as the natural
and symbolical expression of eternal punishment and God's
judgment on the wicked. What this eternal punishment is, is
described in the Revelation. There we read of the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone. Our education has
gradually got rid of belief in the literalness of these words.
Every one knows that they are sjmibohcal ; but with this it
has unfortunately got rid of the deep truth which lies beneath
these images. There is no lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone ; but there is the hell of doing wrong, the infinite
maddening of remorse. When we remember what we mighths.\&
been, and what we never can become, then we crave for a drop
of water to cool our tongue, and there is no water to be found.
That is the world of fire, that is Ihe lake which burneth for
ever. The law is written on our own hearts and the world
around us. Sin, and you will suffer. As surely as the stone
that is thrown up falls down to earth again, so surely does the

46 Notes on Genesis.
penalty of an evil act come back, even after the lapse of cen
turies. Say you that, after a time, misery does its work ? True,
suffering sometimes does the work of repentance ; but it oftener
hardens the soul, and the sinner and sufferer sends back to
Heaven the rebellious scream of defiance to his God. Sin
always carries its penalty, but misery does not always lead to
repentance. II. Lot's deliverance.
Lot was a religious man, but a selfish man : selfish in the
choice of the rich land to dwell in when he and Abraham
separated; his prayer also was selfish, it was not like Abraham's
prayer offered up for Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot only peti
tioned that God would save the city of Zoar, that he might
there find a refuge. Here we perceive Lot's constant appeal to
self interest, selfishness clung to that man's very soul. We
should expect that after all the marvellous mercy shown by
God to Lot, he would have been ready to go wherever He
commanded. But no ; Lot asks that Zoar may be saved. And
God marvellously accepts this demand. Now this shows how
God deals with the soul. We use large language ; we
talk of self sacrifice, self devotion, and yet there has always
been the secret reservation of some small Zoar; still God
accepts. He leaves us some human affection, something
to remind us of our earthly home. He weans us by degrees,
that so, step by step leaving earth behind, we may ascend
the mountain top, and want nothing but the lovely love of
God. III. The fate of Lot's wife.
There was a great difference between the feelings of the

Lecture VII. 47
elder and the younger branches of Lot's family on leaving their
home. His sons and daughters left it in apparent obedience,
but with the spirit of the inhabitants of the plain; it was not
so with Lot's wife. It is not the character of age to accommo
date itself readily to fresh circumstances. The old man does
not feel inchned to launch himself afresh on the great ocean of
the universe, to seek new fortunes. He does not easily make
fresh acquaintances or transplant himself quickly from old
haunts and homes. To youth there is a future ; to old age
there remains nothing but the present and the past.
Therefore, while youth went on with its usual elastic step
of buoyancy and hope. Lot's wife lingered ; she regretted the
home of her vanity and luxury, and the lava flood overwhelmed
her, encrusted her with salt, and left her as a monument. The
moral we are to draw from that is not left us to choose. Christ
says, " Remember Lot's wife." It is worse to turn back, when
once on the safe path, than never to have served God at all.
They who have once tasted of the power of the world to come,
let them beware lest they turn again. Sin is dangerous, but
relapse is fatal. That is the reason why God so marvellously
smooths the way for youth. Early joy enables the young man
to make his first steps surely, with confidence in his Maker ;
love, gratitude, and all his best emotions are thus called forth.
But if afterwards he falls, if he sinks back again into the world
of evil, think you that his feelings will spur him on again in
God's cause? Nay, because the first time there was hope,
the next all the hope is washed out ; the stimulus of feehng
is weaker because experience has broken down hope; he
knows now what those resolves were worth ! There is a great

48 Notes on Genesis.
difficulty in quitting evil after long habit. It becomes a home,
and hohness is dull and cheerless and dreary. Youth then is the
time for action — earnest, steady advancement, without looking
back. St. Paul says, in his Episde to the Hebrews, " Let us
therefore fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into His
rest, any of you should seem to come short of it;" and again he
shows us the evil of drawing back, " Now the just shall live by
faith : but if any man draw back. My soul shall have no plea
sure in him." Our solemn watchword then should be. For
wards !
Finally learn from this chapter that God knows how to
deliver the godly out of temptation. Abraham did not fall into
temptation ; temptation came upon him. It was not so with
Lot; he surrounded himself with temptation. Twice the
mercy of God rescued His strange infatuated servant. But
the last time every tie was shattered, his home was in ruins, his
wife dead, his children left him ; and there Lot stood, at last, on
the verge of the grave, an old broken-hearted sorrow-stricken
man. Truly God knoweth how to deliver His people out of
temptation, but it is often, as in Lot's case, an awful deliver
ance. And Abraham rose the next morning, full of anxiety,
and turned his eyes towards Sodom and Gomorrah, now only
one molten sea of fire. He contemplated the melancholy
scene before him and felt with how fearful and solemn a gaze
we should look on the miseries and punishments of those who
do not fear God. It was then Abraham began secretly to
understand the mystery of God's will and dealings with man ;
it was then the agonizing suspicion of God's justice, with
which he had wrestled, found its solution. Lot was saved,

Lecture VIL 49
the righteous were not destroyed with the wicked. The
strange mystery of this hard, cruel, uninteUigible world became
plain ; and the voice of his inmost heart told him, " All is
right ! "
This then explains those two magnificent contradictions,
which, taken separately, are unintelligiDle, Dut which together
form the basis of our faith : " God is love," but " our God is
a consuming fire."

LECTURE VIII.
Sunday Afternoon, August 4, 1850.
Genesis xxi.
WE omit the 20th chapter. The subterfuge was the
same as that recorded in the 12th. The rebuke
again came to the man of God from a child of this world.
And this teaches us the difference between religious feeling
and moral principle. It is one thing to have spiritual desires
and aspirations ; quite another to be true to them in practice.
The chapter before us admits of two divisions.
I. The birth of Isaac.
II. The destinies of Ishmael.
I. Birth of Isaac.
Observe first the words of Sarah (ver. 6). " God hath
made me to laugh, so that all that hear sliall laugh with me."
Evidently she is thinking of a former occasion when she
greeted with the laugh of scepticism the prophecy which now
had fulfilled itself Quite different was Abram's laugh
(chap. xvii. 5-17). It took place in a dream. It expressed
his feehng of contentment. Let me be satisfied, it said,
and not aspire to higher things than those given me.
Observe secondly the circumcision of Isaac, This was a
sign of the covenant love of God towards the child, stamped
upon him. Circumcision was an Egyptian not a Jewish rite.
It was therefore an adopted ceremony, and a religious signifi-

Lecture VIII. 51
cation was now thrown into it. So it is with our rites of
baptism, of the Lord's day, of the Supper of the Redeemer.
These institutions were in existence before the time of Christ ;
He made them new by connecting them with new ideas. It
is wise thus to vitalize existing forms, to infuse into them fresh
meaning. We do not want new ones, the old are good enough
for us ; what we want is, to throw into the old a new life in
order that that which is dying out may become alive. Circum
cision was a coarse rite given to a coarse nation, a sign that
they could understand; notwithstanding, they forgot that it was
only a symbol. Prophet after prophet testified against this.
As, soon as the form began to lose its meaning and became
substituted for the spiritual reality, it was proclaimed by our
Master and His inspired servants that both were dead. And
the fate of that institution is the fate of all form when it be
comes nothing but form ; and men are wanted now who will
say out with apostolic authority, baptism is nothing, the Lord's
Supper is nothing, unless a living spirit be within them.
II. The destinies of Ishmael.
At the weaning of Isaac there was a feast. Hagar and
• her son heard the merriment, and it was gall to their wounded
spirits ; it looked like intentional insult ; for Ishmael had been
the heir presumptive, but now by the birth of Isaac had
become a mere slave and dependant ; and the son of Hagar
mocked at the joy in which he could not partake. Where
fore Sarah said unto Abraham, " Cast out this bondwoman
and her son" (ver. 10). These were harsh words: it was
hard for one so young to have all blighted; it was grievous
in Abraham's sight to witness the bitter fate of his eldest bom.

S3 Notes on Genesis.
And yet was it not the most blessed destiny that could happen
to the boy ? The hot blood of the Egyptian mother, which
coursed through his veins, could not have been kept in check
in the domestic circle among vassals and dependants ; he was
sent to measure himself with men, to cut out his own way in
the world, to learn independence, resolution, energy; and it
is for this reason that to this very day his descendants are so
sharply stamped with all the individuality Of their founder.
In them are exhibited the characteristics of Abraham and
Hagar, the marvellous devoutness of the one with the fierce
passions of the other, and together with these the iron will, the
dignified calmness of self dependence wrought out by circum
stances in the character of Ishmael.
And how often is it that in this way the darkest day is the
beginning of the brightest life. Reverses, difficulties, trials, are
often amongst God's best blessings. From the loss of property
is brought out very often the latent energies of character, a
power to suffer and to act which in the querulous being with
out a wish ungratified you would have scarcely said had
existed at aU. The man compelled to labour gains energy,
strength of character, the development of all that is within
him. Can you call that loss ? The richest resources are not
from without, but from within. " Man's life consisteth not in
the abundance of the things that he possesseth."

LECTURE IX.
Sunday Afternoon, August ii, 1850.
Genesis xxii.
THIS chapter contains the history of the temptation of
Abraham.
In the life of every one there has been one trial, one crisis,
to which great issues are attached. Such was the trial we
are to consider to-day, and therefore we call it the trial. Not
that it was Abraham's only trial, but the chief one ; for in
truth aU his life had been full of trials : trial, when he left
his father's home to seek the land of Mesopotamia ; trial
in the land of Egypt, owing to the fears he entertained for
Sarah's safety ; trial when he parted with Lot ; trial in the
dreadful struggle of unbelief in God's dealings respecting the
destiny of Sodom and Gomorrah ; trial when, with the
bitterness of a father's heart, he was forced to banish Hagar
and her child ; trial in his final separation from Ishmael ;
trial, and the worst trial of all, the black spot in his existence,
when he remembered in his old age that he had no heir —
a thought which corroded all his joy. Such was the inner
history of one enjoying outward prosperity and peace, but
whose inward Ufe was full of struggles and suffering.
God tempted or tried Abraham. Christ was tempted in the
wilderness. Life is all temptation. It is sad to think it so ;
but surelv we would not have it otherwise. For dark and hard

54 Notes on Genesis.
as the dispensation seems, trial here is indispensable for the
purifying of the soul. There is no strength or real goodness
of soul except that which is wrought out of circumstances of
temptation; there is no strength in cloistered virtue, no vigour
without trial. It is thus we can understand Abraham's life. In
some of these trials he fell, and in others he came off victorious.
He was by no means a perfect man, no specimen out of a
romance. His was a real life. Out of failure was organized
strength. Trials do not become lighter as we go on. The
text says, "And it came to pass, after these things, that God
did tempt Abraham." What, no repose ? No place of
honourable quiet for the "friend of God," full of years?
No. There are harder and yet harder trials even to the
end. The last trial of Abraham's was the hardest of
all to bear. And this is the history of our existence.
For the soldier engaged in this world's warfare, there is an
honourable asylum for his declining years ; but for the soldier
of the cross there is no rest except the grave. Conquer, and
fresh trials will be yours, followed by fresh victories. Nay, even
Abraham's last victory did not guarantee the future. There
is a deep truth contained in the fabled story of old, where a
mother, wishing to render her son invulnerable, plunged him
into the Styx, but forgot to dip in his heel by which she held
him. We are baptized in the blood and fire of sorrow that
temptation may make us invulnerable ; but let us remember
that trials will assail us in our most vulnerable part, be it the
head, or heart, or heel. Let us therefore give up the idea of
any moment of our lives coming when we may lay aside our
armour and rest in perfect peace.

Lecture IX. 55
Our subject divides itself into three branches,
I. The difficulty and its explanation.
II. The nature of the trial.
III. The spirit in which it was sustained.
I. The difficulty and its explanation.
God seems to have required of Abraham what was wrong.
He seems to have sanctioned human sacrifice. My reply is,
God did not require it. You must take the history as a whole,
the conclusion as weU as the commencement. The sacrifice of
Isaac was commanded at first, and forbidden at the end. Had
it ended in Abraham's accomplishing the sacrifice, I know
not what could have been said ; it would have left on the
page of Scripture a dark and painful blot. My reply to God's
seeming to require human sacrifice is the conclusion of this
chapter. God says, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad."
This is the final decree. Thus human sacrifices were distinctly
forbidden. He really required the surrender of the father's will.
He seemed to demand the sacrifice of life.
But further still. God did not demand wh^t was wrong. It
did not seem wrong to Abraham. It is not enough defence to
say God did not command vsrrong. Had God seemed to com
mand wrong, the difficulty would be as great. Abraham's
faith would then have consisted in doing wrong for the sake of
God. Now it did not. Abraham lived in a country where
human sacrifices were common ; he hved in a day when a
father's power over a son's life was absolute. He was familiar
with the idea; and just as familiarity with slavery makes it
seem less horrible, so famiharity with this as an established and
conscientious mode of worshipping God removed from Abraham

5 6 Notes OH Genesis,
much of the horror we should feel Let all this be borne in mind
while we examine the history of Abraham's trial. For unless
this was the case, Abraham did not show faith in obeying, but
only a servile obedience to God's commands. For consider : if
God's voice told Abraham to transgress the first rules of con
science, ought he not to have refused to obey God when He
gave such a command? and ought he not to have reckoned it
a horrible temptation of the devil ? Faith would have been
shown in disobeying the voice, and saying. This voice within
me is God's, and that is not ! Nay, it is of prime importance
that we should remember that Abraham's moral conscience
was not outraged by the command. There is no conflict
more horrible than when two duties clash, as, for instance,
in the case of Jephthah's vow, and of Herod's oath to the
daughter of Herodias. It is more hideous still, if God's
command, backed by a miracle, orders man to do that which
His voice within forbids. I can see no escape then but
insanity. Such might have been Abraham's case.
I dwell on this, because there is a possible delusion which
it enables us to meet. To some men's minds, the idea presents
itself of sacrificing conscience as a duty. They argue thus : —
If it be noble to sacrifice life for God or man, how much more
so is it to sacrifice your soul ; to tell a lie to save a life, to
speak falsely in order to establish a doctrine, to sacrifice
virtue for the sake of one loved, to surrender political principle
to save one's party ! On this principle, men in ancient times
performed pious frauds. This temptation to sacrifice con
science is often felt by those who are weakly good. Observe,
had Abraham outraged. his conscience, it would not have been

Lecture IX, 57
faith, but sin ; and I say, reject such a thought as a Satanic
temptation. He who sacrifices his sense of right, his conscience,
for another, sacrifices the God within him ; he is not sacrificing
self II. The nature of the trial.
We remark, first, this trial was made under aggravated cir
cumstances. The words in which God's command was couched
were those of accumulated keenness. God said, " Take now
thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee
into the land of Moriah," etc., etc. He with whom all thy
future is connected — thy son, long expected and waited for,
thine heir, full of promise and so dear to thee ! We can fancy,
as the voice went on, that it seemed as if God took malignant
pleasure in dwelling on every item of the suffering He was in
flicting on Abraham. We can fancy Abraham crying in the
bitterness of his soul, " Anything else but my only son. O
Lord, not that !" Now the dreadfulness of all this was that
Abraham had to think that God required this of him. He might
have said, " My theology tells me God is love ; that He is my
Father. I see no love in this demand. He seems to be
nothing but an insatiate tyrant, demonstrating in this command
the tyranny of His strength ! "
My Christian brethren, forgive this blasphemy. I only put
into words the rebellious feelings of many a heart if it had
dared in the trial hour to say out all. Let any one re
member the hour when he lost the friend he loved dearest
and best on earth; and if he should recollect that he submitted
to the trial with coldness and anger, he will be able to ap
preciate the manly resignation of Abraham. To subdue the

58 Notes on Genesis.
father in the heart, that a Roman has done, and calmly
signed his son's death-warrant; but to subdue it, not with
Roman hardness, but with deep trust in God and faith m
His providence, saying. It is not hate but love that requires
this — this was the nobleness, this the fierce difficulty of
Abraham's sacrifice ; this it was which raised him above the
Roman hero.
We remark, secondly, Abraham was to do this ; his son was
to die by his own hand, not by a delegate. It would have
been a kind of relief to him, to have given the boy to the
herdsmen that they might sacrifice him, that the father
should not be asked to hear the dying shriek of the son. It
would have been a relief, as in Moses' time, to have put the
child into the river and trusted to circumstances to deliver it.
But Abraham was not allowed to act as the Israelitish parents
did in their semi-obedience to the kingly command, leaving
matters to take their chance, hoping for some accident at
last. He was to preclude escape. We do our sacrifices in a
cowardly way ; we leave loopholes for escape. We do not
with our own hand, at His call, cut asunder the dearest
ties. We do not immediately take the path of duty, but wait
till we are forced into it ; always delaying in the hope that
some accident may occur which will make it impossible.
Then conscience says, with a terrible voice : You must do it
and with your own hand. The knife must be sharp and the
blow true. Your own heart must be the sacrifice, and your
own hand the priest. It must not be a sacrifice made for you
by circumstances.
III. How the trial was met.

, Lecture IX. 59
First. Without ostentation. Abraham rose early in the
morning, and saddled his ass ; and when he arrived at the foot
of Mount Moriah, he left the servants and went on with Isaac
alone ; he wanted no witness to the deed. Had the sacrifice
taken place, he would have come back alone; there would have
been none to blazon out the deed'; none to tell how it was
done, how the father's lip trembled while the Hebrew's hand
was firm. It had to be done in secret, God alone seeing.
There was no boast; no consciousness that he was doing a
great and noble act; no analysis of feeling. The men who
make sacrifices are not those who talk about them. Love of
display, so common and so bad, is that which mars our sacri
fices. Those are true sacrifices which have been done alone
and are hidden from the world. The world knows too much
of our feelings, and deeds, and sacrifices, and therefore the
Redeemer demanded quietness, calmness, and secrecy with
respect to our alms, prayers, and sacrifices.
Secondly. Abraham was in earnest.
We remark two things particularly : Abraham did not tell
Sarah. Had he told her, the mother's heart would have pleaded,
her love would have marred the act, her shrieks would have
roused her neighbours, and the deed would not have been
done. Do we not know how when a painful deed has to be
done a man tells some weaker being, — his sister, or his mother,
or his wife, — hoping secretly that they wUl dissuade him from his
purpose, and prevent the doing of that which it would be a
shame for him to prevent. They will hinder him, or perhaps
with entreaties and tears excuse him to himself It was not
30 with Abraham. He did not tell Sarah; he did not tell

6o Notes on Genesis,
Isaac ; he kept the matter secret in his own bosom, simply be
cause he was in earnest. Abraham meant his son's life. There
are many who were once perchance just on the brink of a noble
deed, and they take credit to themselves that had no circum
stances intervened the deed would have been done. Remember,
their deed was not done. Are we sure they ever really meant to
do it ? In Abraham there was really the belief that he would
come back childless. Had he expected what took place, it had
been no sacrifice. Some persons make sacrifices, expecting to
be repaid. They say and teach : Do right, and you will not
be the worse ; give up, and somehow or other God will make
it up to you. True, " he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the
Lord." But if you do it with that feeling, your reward is lost; it is
not religion but mere traffic, barter ; you only sacrifice Httle, in
order to gain much. If you make a sacrifice, expecting that God
vidll return you your Isaac, that is a sham sacrifice, not a real
one. Therefore, if you make sacrifices, let them be real. You
will have infinite gain : yes; but it must be done with an earnest
heart, expecting nothing in return. There are times too when
what you give to God will never be repaid in kind. Isaac is
not always restored ; but it will be repaid by love, truth, and
kindness. God will take you at your word ; He says, " Do
good and lend, hoping for nothing in return."
Let us consider three things, in conclusion.
First, the Christian sacrifice is the surrender of will.
God did not require Abraham to shed his son's blood; but
He required the surrender of his will. He demands the entire
surrender of ourselves to His Divine will ; and when that is
freely, unhesitatingly given, then He saith, " Now I know that

Lecture IX. 6i
thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son,
thine only son, from Me." This explains to us the great prin
ciple of the atonement. The death of Christ was the world's
Atonement ; He made the great sacrifice for us all. This was
acceptable to God, not because He delights in the shedding of
blood ; but because He demands the surrender of will, the
blending as it were of the human with the Divine. "Lo, I come ;
in the volume of the book it is written of Me, to do Thy will,
O God ! " The surrender of will is the Christian's sacrifice.
Secondly, for a true sacrifice, there must be real love.
God says, " thy son whom thou lovest.^'' Some people would
have been inclined to say, Abraham did not love his son ; or
he could not have sacrificed him ! But I say, had Abraham
not been willing to part with Isaac into the hands of God, his
love even to Isaac would have been feeble. He who prefers his
dearest friend or his well-beloved child to the call of duty will
soon show that he prefers himself to his dearest friend, and
Would not sacrifice himself for his child. A man does not
really love his friend who does not love his honour more.
Third, we must not seek for sacrifices.
We often say. What shall I do for God ? Every earnest mind
wishes to sacrifice to God. Be not anxious ; you need make no
wild, romantic efforts to find occasions. Plenty will occur by
God's appointment, and better than if devised by you. Every
hour and moment our will may yield as Abraham's did, quietly,
manfully, unseen by all but God. These are the sacrifices
which God approves. This is what Abraham meant when he
said " My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt
offering."

LECTURE X.
Sunday Afternoon, October 20, i850.
Genesis xxiii.
WE now find ourselves in the midst of the history of
Abraham, and to-day our attention must be drawn to
him beside his wife's grave. From this dates the first fact that
hallowed the land of Israel. There is something touching in
this; the land became holy first by a grave. And this teaches
us that life is to be looked upon more properly as a grave than
as a home, for in it are buried all our hopes and promises, to
rise again in after life purified and ennobled. The chapter
before us admits of two divisions.
I. The circumstances that attended the death of Sarah.
II. Those connected with her burial.
I. The circumstances that attended the death of Sarah.
The first thing which strikes us in connection with the
death of Sarah is the rapid succession of events. Only a few
chapters back we were reading of Sarah's marriage, and the
birth of her child : now we are told of her funeral. Of course
there is some illusion here. From the comprehensive character
of the Bible biographies related in short chapters, much must
necessarily be omitted ; we get results rather than the train of
circumstances that led %o them. Yet really this represents life.
Life is but a few chapters. We stand by the font, are
surprised when we find ourselves by the altar, astonished

Lecture X. 63
when we come to die. Death is the solemn thought of the
world. Let it be ever so vulgarized or common; still, be
neath the tent of the eastern emir or in the crowded cemeteries
of the capital, death is an awful arresting thing. While civiliz
ation has robbed other horrors of their wonder death is still
the insoluble event. But here we have something more than
death, we have separation. Abraham and Sarah had lived
together for long, but they were parted at last. The shock
was broken in Abraham's case by its naturalness. The dis
solution of the aged is expected; and often the survivor dies
soon. Two results this separation had upon Abraham. First : it
realized and forced upon him the thought of his own mor
tality, for we find him saying to the children of Heth that
he is a stranger and sojourner in the land. Thus it is with
us. Death becomes awfully credible when those we are
accustomed to live with die. We feel then as those tell
us they have felt who have experienced an earthquake. The
earth, the most stable of things, becomes to them unstable,
and to us the solid life becomes hollow, and " I may be the
next" is the first thought. Death comes home to us when
we are the next to go.
Next, this separation had another result on Abraham. It
made him realize his immortality. What is our evidence of
a future Hfe ? It is our affections. Surely not that life must
per se continue. Our bodies perish : mind may perish as well.
It is not life, mere life, that must last. It is not more difficult
to conceive life ceasing than life beginning. Once we were not,
soon we shall not be. Why not ? It is by our infinite aftec-

64 Notes on Genesis.
tions reaching out after the infinite, that we feel that there
must be a future. The immortal part of us, severed, bleeding,
seeks when one we love is dead with its quivering feelers for
the lost part. We are Sadducees till we lose one we really
and deeply love ; then, when our hearts are widowed, we
strain our eyes and see beyond. So we may think that
Abraham's grief (" and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah
and weep for her," ver. 2) enabled him to pierce the veil that
separates this life from the next. And this leads to another
circumstance attending Sarah's death, Abraham's tears. Ob
serve here the beautiful simplicity of Scripture, which counts
it not a thing unmanly to own that Abraham, the stem,
iron hearted saint, had wept. "Joseph lifted up his voice
and wept"; Jacob, Peter, Christ, are all said to have wept.
Contrast this with the conventional feeling which represents
grief as unworthy of manhood, chokes tears as feminine, or re
bukes them as inconsistent with submission to the will of God.
Again, in those tears of Abraham was anguish ; but there
might have been remorse. Apparently Abraham had nothing
to reproach himself with. Quarrels in his married hfe are
recorded ; but in all he behaved with tenderness, concession,
and dignity. In all thmgs he had supported and cherished his
wife, bearing, like a strong man, the burdens of the weak.
But oh, let us beware. There are bitter recollections which
enhance the sorrow of bereavement and change it into agony,
recollections which are repeated to us in words which remorse
will not cease to echo for ever and for evei. " Oh, if they
would but come again, I'd never grieve them more." It
is this which makes tears scald ; to how many a grown heart

Lecture X. 65
have not those childish words of the infant hymn gone home,
sharp with an undying pang !
II. The circumstances connected with Sarah's burial.
Observe in the first place the honour which the ancients paid
to the dead. What does this prove ? It proves that they too
had a secret glimmer of immortality. Children cannot believe
the dead extinct ; they talk of them as scarcely gone. So it
was in the childhood of the world. The Egyptians anticipated
reanimation. Simple early nations always seem to have felt
'he dead living still.
Observe again, under this division, the transaction with the
children of Heth. It is often supposed to have been an in
stance of extraordinary liberality on their part ; but it was not
so. It was an eastern custom, as all travellers know, that of
exchanging gifts ; but they were gifts which entailed an obli
gation. The receiver found himself pledged to give at least as
large an amount as he had received. Here therefore in the
words of Ephron to Abraham, " Nay, my lord, the field give
I thee, and the cave that is therein I give it thee" (ver. 11),
we have simply a conventional mode of speech. Abraham
asks for a burying place. It is offered as a gift. Abraham
understands what is meant, refuses, and pays for the ground.
Ephron after a show of reluctance consents to receive payment;
but all was well understood and common.
Here is a scriptural precedent for exactitude in business
Notice the strict attention which Abraham paid to having
the contract drawn up m due form; for the 17th and i8th
verses of this chapter are evidently an extract from some
legal document. They read like a deed of conveyance F

66 Notes on Genesis.
The boundaries of the field are accurately defined, and all
the perquisites going along with it — the trees, and cave.
Abraham acts throughout as a man of business ; it was
not pride on his part, but justice and prudence. He
could afford to pay, and why should he receive? From a
friend, well ; but from a stranger it was neither just nor
prudent. And this exactitude was of more religious import
ance than at first sight appears. It was a means of preventing
future misunderstandings. Quarrels arise often from false
delicacy. It is painful to speak of terms, to introduce into
questions especially so delicate as this bartering and bargain
ing about money. One party in an agreement knows he means
generously, and trusts the other. But each forms a different
estimate of rights ; one exaggerates, the other depreciates, the
service done. It is from such undefined boundaries and
limitations, from non-distinctness between the mine and the
thine, from the use of such phrases as "what you please,"
that quarrels and dissensions most frequently occur. There
fore Abraham reads a lesson to men of business, and to
those whose habits are not those of business. Doubtless there
is a Christian way of bearing the consequences of neglect —
it is, not to dispute at all ; but it is better, if possible,
to arrange so that no cause for dispute should arise; and
Abraham says as it were to each of us. Let every agreement be
distinctly and accurately made, for the sake, not of interest, but
peace and charity.
Observe also how courteous phrases contain a higher ex
cellence than they mean. "What is that betwixt me and
thee?" The children of Heth had no intention whatever o^

Lecture X, 6j
being taken at their word, any more than a man has now
when he calls himself your humble servant or bids you
command him. We must go back to an earlier age when
phrases were coined and meant something, when gifts were
gifts and nothing was hoped for in return, in order to catch
the life that was once in our conventional phraseology. So
now language preserves, as marble preserves shells of hoar
antiquity, the petrified phrases of a charity and humbleness
which once were living. They are dead, but they do at least
this, they keep up memorials of what should be. So that the
world, in its daily language of politeness, has a record of its
duty. Take those phrases, redeem them from death, live the life
that was once in them. Let every man be as humble, as
faithful, as obedient as his language professes, and the kingdom
of God has come !
Lastly, we find in connection with Sarah's burial a Divine
provision for the healing of Abraham's sorrow. He was com
pelled to exert himself to obtain a place to " bury his dead out
of his sight." Had he not had to rouse himself and procure a
grave for Sarah, he would have brooded over his grief This
is the merciful plan of compensation which God has provided
for us; the necessities of life call us from our sorrow. All
these merciful provisions plainly show us that we are in a
Father's world.

LECTURE XL
Sunday Afternoon, October 27, 1850.
Genesis xxiv.
WE come to-day to the subject of marriage. There are
two aspects in which it may be viewed — as a natural
institution, and as a religious ordinance. In the Old Testa-
nu^nt we see it as a natural institution ; in the New it is
brought before us in a religious light, for we are there shown
its spiritual significance, it is there likened to Christ and the
church. Now, what is remarkable here is, that the union of
Christ and the church is not illustrated by marriage, but mar
riage by this spiritual union, that is, the natural is based upon
the spiritual. And this is what is wanted ; it gives marriage a
religious signification and it thus becomes a kind of semi-
sacrament. Now there are two points in which this illustration
holds good : first, in the nature of the union, for in marriage,
as in the union between Christ and His church, like is joined
to unlike. The other point of resemblance is in the principle
of sacrifice, for as no love between man and wife can be true
which does not issue in a sacrifice of each for the other, so
Christ gave Himself for His church and the church sacrifices
itself to His service. Theonly true love is self devotion. Thus
we see how all, even the every day affairs of married life, must
fail without this principle of the cross of Christ. In the subject
of this chapter there are three things that we must notice.

Lecture XI. 69
I. The embassy of Abraham's servant.
II. The discharge of that mission.
III. The arrival of Rebekah at her husband's home.
I. The embassy of Abraham's servant.

Here observe, in the first place, that (this delicate mission.
was delegated to a servant or slave, because Isaac, according
to the notions of those days, was too inexperienced to go
himself The choice, however, was not left to the ser^-ant,
it was rather left to God. Abraham said to the servant :
" The Lord before whom I walk will send His angel with thee
and prosper thy way " (ver. 40). We next observe theJ.QUching
confidence which subsisted between master and servant. And(
in this we learn (ver. 40) in what true liberty consists : this
man was a servant, — a slave if you will ; and yet he enjoyed
far greater liberty than our modern servants, who are free
to go where they please; his freedom consisted in that glorious
principle of obedience through love which makes a man free
at once and which we have so grievously forgotten. "The
third thing that we notice in this embassy is that the
servant was enjoined by oath to undertake his master's
commands. This was allowable in Judaism; but Christ
says, " Swear not at all." Our nay is to be nay and nothing
else but nay, and our yea yea; the word of the Christian
is to be so true that no oath could add to its security.
But what Abraham meant to express was this, that Tie?
would hold the man firm to his word by religious fear and
duty. There are two ways of speaking truth : many a man
may be true from expediency, and this may last so long as
he sees he shall gain by being true; but as soon as an oppor-'

70 Notes on Genesis.
I tunity appears for winning something by falsehood without any
I immediate evil consequences, then his truth is at an end.
'.Truth, to be constant, must lean upon a religious basis.
y — ^i. The discharge of the mission : observe here the servant's
expectation of Divine help. He at once knelt down and
asked for guidance (ver. 12, 13, 14). What a lesson may we
not gain from that ! If, however, we were exactly to imitate
this act of Abraham's servant, we should be wrong, though it
was right in him. For he prayed that the woman he was to
choose might appear to him at the well. This would be wrong
in us, for this reason, that Jesus condemned the use of signs ;
with us it would be an appeal to chance, but in the case of the

servant it was done in faith. We next observe the principle
on which the selection was made ; the qualities required were
amiability, sincerity, and modesty. In this we see the in
spired judgment with regard to woman's character; it was
formed of qualities of the heart rather than of the intellect;
Vjuahties belonging less to the duties of public than to those of
(igmestic life ; for God has given to women to shine, not so
much in brilliancy of mind as in warmth of affection.
III. Rebekah's arrival. She found Isaac engaged in prayer
and meditation ; two things from which we have sadly fallen. We
are not the giants in prayer that our fathers were. We read here
that as soon as Rebekah knew that her husband was coming
she alighted from her camel, and took a veil, and covered her
self And this, brethren, is what we so much want ; I know it
to be the bane of domestic life, the want of modesty and deli
cacy ; without Rebekah's veil affection becomes alienated, and
often turns to hatred ; love, to be constant, must be kept pure.

LECTURE XIL
Sunday Afternoon, November 3, 1850.
Genesis xxv.
A T the close of the last chapter Abraham was in years ;
•^^- Isaac in the prime of life, and lately married to Rebekah.
At the close of this Abraham is gone, Isaac stricken in years,
and the offspring of his marriage grown men. And such is life;
one generation passing off the stage, another coming on. As
the sun passing over the world gilds mountain top after mount
ain top, valley after valley, then leaves all in gloom ; so each
man has his hour and day of work, then " the night cometh,
when no man can work." The chapter for to-day is divided into
two branches. The first, from verses i to 18, gives an account
of a generation whose history is retrospective ; that history is
represented by the closing years of Abraham's life. The
second division, from verses 18 to 34, treats of a generation
whose history is prospective ; that history is represented by
the birth of Esau and Jacob.
I. History that is retrospective.
Our first remark here is the arising of new hopes in the
declining years of Abraham. Sarah is dead ; and when
Abraham bowed himself before the sons of Heth his heart
seemed buried in Sarah's grave. Isaac was married, and all
Abraham's care seemed to centre in him. Yet here we find
Abraham contracting a new alhance, busied about life, entering

72 Notes on Genesis.
with energy into a fresh sphere of duties. We collect from that
the imperishable nature of hope. No natural sorrow is eternal,
When Paul and Barnabas parted, one would have thought
that their hearts so violently torn asunder would have beei.
long ere they had healed, but soon we find each twining round
a new friend with as much warmth of affection as before. Out
of the grave fresh hopes bloom ; for our affections are not
meant to rest in their objects, but to pass on from one thing
to another. They are prospective. They exist here in train
ing for nobler uses. They are perennial, and unless exhausted
by misuse grow ever fresher and stronger to rest on God at
last. We also notice that Abraham established the right of
primogeniture. He gives all that he has to Isaac, gifts only to
the rest. Two nations only among the ancients kept up the
notions of family, the Romans and the Jews. In all other
nations a man rested on his own title to consideration, on his
own merits. In these two a man gathered family associations
and national ones as his race went on. The Jews said, we are
Abraham's seed, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and there was an advantage in their feeling children of this long
ancestry, because those who have a great past get out of self
They are pledged not to dishonour their ancestors. Many, by
the mere stirring of such a memory, are dignified. They who
have no past have a certain vulgarity, or uneasiness ; or else
personal pride differs from the dignity which knows whence it
comes. And this, in a way, is the Christian's advantage. We have a
past. We stand upon a past; it is a righteousness not our
own which has shed its lustre on us. We do not make our

Lecture XIL "Jl
own destiny or heaven. These are gifts given us, advantages
and privileges, but we have no merit in possessing them.
Hence the Christian's sense of dignity is humble, for it is not
personal but derived.
It may be that the privilege of having a past genders pride
in us. There is a corrective to that given us in this chapter,
for we are told here that the elder shall serve the younger.
The whole Bible contradicts the extravagant pretensions of
hereditary birth. Consider Cain and Abel ; David and Eliab ;
Ishmael and Isaac ; Esau and Jacob ; Reuben and Judah.
The whole Jewish system, built on the system of family, was
yet contradicted at every stage; for was not Cain's offering
rejected, while that of the younger, Abel, was accepted ?
Again, was not Isaac set before Ishmael? The children of
Abraham are the spiritual seed; noble, if noble in character;
but if untrue to the past only to be counted the more ignoble.
We are great in being Englishmen; but unless children in
spirit of those who have shed lustre on the English name, our
advantages are our shame.
And so it is with us as members of the church, and as
Christians. Again we notice Abraham's experience. He stood now an
old man on the brink of the grave. Let us hastily recapitulate
his history, so chequered by vicissitudes. He began his
wanderings at Charran ; then seeking a new country, he entered
Canaan, feeding his flocks there as long as pasture lasted, and
then passed on. After that we find him still a wanderer,
driven by famine to Egypt ; then returning home, parting with
Lot, losing his best friend, commanded to give up the dearest

74 Notes on Genesis.
object of his heart, and at last at the close of life startled
almost to find that he had not a foot of earth in which to
make for his wife a grave. Thus throughout his life he was a
pilgrim. In all we see God's blessed principle of illusion by
which He draws us on towards Himself The object of our
hopes seems just before us, but we go on without attaining it ;
all appears failure, yet all this time we are advancing surely
on our journey and find our hopes realized not here but in
the kingdom beyond. Abraham learnt thus the infinite nature
of duty, and this is what a Christian must always feel. He
must never think that he can do all he ought to do. It is
possible for the child to do each day all that is required of
him ; but the more we receive of the spirit of Christ, the larger,
the more infinitely impossible of fulfilment will our circle of
duties become.
We also observe this in Abraham, that he was not a hero
but a saint. There have been three ages of the world, i.
That in which power was admired, when strength, personal
prowess, was the highest virtue ; then God was described as
"a man of war." 2. That in which wisdom was reverenced.
Then we have Solomon the wise, instead of Saul the strong;
and then the wisdom of God is felt to be in contrivance,
rather than in power. 3. That in which goodness was counted
best. Then God and nature were felt to be on the side of
right, and virtue was counted better than wisdom ; that is the
age in which Christianity can begin, the fulness of times is
come. And it is three such seasons that we personally go
through. In boyhood we reverence strength. In youth, intel
lect. In riper years, the milder graces of the heart. Now what

Lecture XII. 75
is remarkable is, that Israel began with, not a hero, nor a
wise man, but a saint. Abraham is not the warrior, nor the
sage, but the father of the faithful. Hence the perennial, pro
gressive character of the Jewish religion. It is not a thing
that can come to an end. Abraham, the man of faith, is the
forerunner of the Lord of I..ove.
II. The history that is prospective, represented by the birth
of Esau and Jacob. Observe here how again the Jewish race
is divided.All the previous history has been a division into, two hues.
First, the line of Abraham divides into that of Israel and
Ishmael : Israel is chosen, Ishmael rejected. Then the line
of Israel subdivides into those of Esau and Jacob ; Jacob is
chosen, and Esau rejected.
And such has been God's way. Of the Jews carried away
captive into Babylon only a remnant returned. All those
belonging to the visible church are not members of the true
invisible church. There will be at the end of the world, we
are told, one taken and the other left. Many are called but
few chosen, a chosen few like the three hundred separated from
Gideon's army. Of these two boys, Esau and Jacob, we see
in one the gross man of the world, in the other a character
far higher, though mixed with a certain craft or cunning.
This sin was not repressed in youth, and it grew up with him
into manhood. It is always so : unless the evil propensity is
checked in childhood it will increase as life goes on, and
that most wise saying is verified, " the child is father of the
man." Esau is called in the Epistle to the Hebrews a profane,
that is a worldly person. His life was one of impulse.

76 Notes on Genesis.
wanting in reverence, without any sensitive appreciation of
things not level to his senses. Imprudent, incontinent, un
able to restrain himself, he sacrificed the future to the present ;
he looked not beyond the passing hour ; he sold his soul for
pottage. We can scarcely account for his being the best
beloved of his father, except on the principle of like joining
to unlike.

LECTURE .XIII.
Sunday Afternoon, November 17, 1850.
Genesis xxvi.
THE chapters which have come before us in our exposition
have generally afforded us one connected subject, but it
is not so with this chapter. It contains many unconnected cir
cumstances, and therefore our exposition this afternoon must
necessarily be of a somewhat desultory character. There are
three points upon which we shall have to touch : first, the
famine ; secondly, the falsehood of Isaac ; and thirdly, Isaac's
prosperity. I. The famine.
Here the first thing that suggests itself is the apparent con
tradiction of the promise given to Abraham, for instead of the
land of abundance and rest Isaac found famine and unrest. Let
us endeavour to understand that, and then we shall better un
derstand this life of ours ; for our life is to us a Canaan, a land
of abundant promise.s, and especially so in youth. But we have
not been long in this land of promise before we begin to dis
cover that it falsifies itself, and then there arises in our mind
the question that must have presented itself to Isaac, Has
God broken His promise? We say God's promise, because
the promises of life are all permitted by Him. The expect
ation of happiness is God's creation ; the things which
minister to happiness are scattered through the world by God.

78 Notes on Genesis.
Bui if we look deeper into it we shall perceive that God does
not deceive us. True it is, that Isaac was disappointed ; he
got no bread, but he did get perseverance. He did want
comforts, but with this want came content, the habit of soul-
communion with God. Which was best, bread or faith?
Which was best, to have abundance, or to have God?
Tell us then : had God broken His promise ? Was He not
giving a double blessing, far more than He promised? And
so it is with us. Every famine of the soul has its correspond
ing blessing ; for, in truth, our blessed hours are not those
which seem so at first ; and the hours of disappointment,
which we are tempted to look upon as dark, are the ones in
which we learn to possess our souls. If, in the worst trial
earth has, there does not grow out of it an honour which could
not else have been, a strength, a sanctity, an elevation ; if we
do not get new strength, or old strength restored, the fault is
ours not God's. In truth the blessed spots of earth are not
those which at first sight seem so. The land of olive and
vine is often the land of sensuality and indolence. Wealth
accumulates and engenders sloth and the evils which follow in
the train of luxury. The land of clouds and fogs and unkindly
soil, which will not yield its fruit unless to hard toil, is the land
of perseverance, manhood, domestic virtue, and stately and pure
manners. Want of food and of the necessaries of life, I had
well-nigh said that these things are not an ill, when I see what
they teach ; I had well-nigh said I do not pity the poor man.
There are evils worse than famine. What is the real misfortune
of life ? Sin, or want of food ? Sickness, or selfishness ? And
when I see Isaac gaining from his want of food the heart to

Lecture XIII, 79
bear up and bear right onward, I can understand that the
land of famine may be the land of promise, and just because
it is the land of famine.
We observe in the second place, respecting this famine, that
the command here given to Isaac differed from that given
to Abraham and Jacob. Isaac evidently wished to go down
to Egypt; but God forbad him (ver. 2, "Go not down into
Egypt"), although He permitted Abraham and commanded
Jacob to go thither. The reason for this variety is to be
found in the different characters and circumstances of these
men. In the New Testament we find the same adaptation of
command to character. The man of warm feelings who came
to Jesus was told that " the foxes have holes, and the birds
of the air have nests : but the Son of Man hath not where to
lay His head." When the man from whom the legion of
devils was cast out besought Jesus that he might be with Him,
he received a similar rebuff; but the man of lukewarmness, who
wanted to return to bury his father and mother, was not per
mitted for an instant to go back. The reason of the difference
is this, that the man of impetuosity and forwardness needed to
be restrained, whUe the lingering and slow man needed some
active measure to stir him forward. It is almost certain that
Abraham, being a wise man and a man of faith, was permitted by
God to judge for himself, and that Isaac was required to turn
back that he might learn the duty of trust, and that Jacob
was commanded to go forth in order to cure his love of the
world and to teach him that life is but a pilgrimage. Hence
we arrive at a doctrine : duties vary accordmg to differences
of character. The young rich man had a call to give up all ;

8o Notes on Genesis.
that is not every man's duty. One man may safely remain in
a place of idleness and luxury, having a martyr's spirit; whereas
to another his own temperament, soft and yielding, says as
with God's voice. Arise for thy life, look not behind thee,
escape to the mountains. Hence too we learn another lesson :
the place in which we are is generally God's appointed place for
us to work in. Isaac was prohibited from going forth. He was
commanded not to wait for another set of circumstances, but to
use those he had, not in some distant moment, but here, now,
in the place of difficulty. And you : do not wait then for a more
favourable set of circumstances ; take them as they are, and
make the best of them. Those who have done great things
were not men who have repined that they were not born ii.
another place or age, but those who did their work from day to
day. It is not in moving from place to place that we find rest,
in going down into Egypt because present circumstances seem
unfavourable. No. Here where we are placed, even in the
land of famine, in the dearth and darkness, we are to toil.
II. Isaac's falsehood : ver. 7.
The history of Uriah and David makes it easy to understand
how such falsehoods came to be spoken ; for in those un
scrupulous days a stranger ran a risk of being put to death on
some pretext that a royal tyrant might take his wife in mar
riage. We find that Abraham committed this very sin of lying
twice before. Now in Isaac's case this certainly would account
for, though by no means excuse, his lie. He had before him the
example of his father's cowardly falsehood. And he copied it.
We are thus ever prone to imitate the characters of those we
admire. Their very failings seem virtues ; and hence comes a

Lecture XIII, 8i
solemn consideration, that a good man's faults are doubly
dangerous ; the whole weight of his authority is thrown into
the scale ; his very virtues fight against God. Another thing
which will help to explain Isaac's act is an idiosyncrasy of
character. He was possessed of a kind of subtilty, an over
fine edge of mind; and the tendency of this is toward craft
and cunning. Such characters see both sides of a question ;
go on refining and refining, weighing points of subtil casuistry,
dhtil at last they become bewildered and can scarcely see the
border line between right and wrong. It requires characters
like Abimelech's, rude, straightforward, to cut asunder the
knot of their difficulties.
Observe again how this tendency to falsehood through
over refinement is seen in Jacob also, Isaac's son : thus it is
that characters are handed down from father to son.
Remark too another quality which accompanies such charac
ters as Isaac's, want of courage : " lest I die for her." Con
templative men, who meditate at eventide, who are not men
of action, want those practical habits which are oftentimes the
basis of truthfulness.
It is a want especially remarkable now. Never was there
a day in which this tone of mind was more common or
more dangerous. Our day is not remarkable for devoutness ;
and the men who are so are not remarkable for manliness.
They have somewhat of effeminacy in their characters, are
tender, soft, wanting a firm, broad footing on reality. It is
just to such minds as these that the Church of Rome offers
peculiar attractions. She appeals to all that craves for awe,
reverence, tenderness, mystery. Men get to live in mystery
G

82 Notes on Genesis.
and shadows, and call it devoutness. Then in this border
land, between reality and unreality, — this cloud region as it
were, — truth itself melts away by degrees. Is it not an
indisputable fact that, so soon as men leave our Church for
Rome, their word is not to be trusted; that they get a
double dealing spirit, a habit of casuistry, and of tampering
with truth on plausible and subtle pretences which is a dis
grace to Englishmen, not to say Christians? Therefore, let
religious life strengthen itself by action. We want a more
real life. A hfe merely prayerful, spent in dim religious
lights, amidst the artistic parts of religion, architecture,
chantings, litanies, fades into the unreal and imaginary.
And the unreal and merely imaginative soul passes into the
false soul.
III. Isaac's prosperity : ver. 12,13,14. " And Isaac sowed
in that land and received in the same year, an hundredfold :
and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great and
went forward, and grew until he became very great, for he
had possession of flocks and possession of herds, and great
store of servants. And the Philistines envied him." Observe,
Isaac's prosperity was not unalloyed. He suffered from envy.
Be sure of this, that for every blessing man pays a price.
If the world has gained in medical skill, it has lost that
simple life which made it unnecessary. If we heap posses
sions round us, we lose quiet, we get anxiety. Every man
pays a price for his advantages, for talents, for property, for
high station ; he bids adieu to rest, being public property.
It was so with Isaac. He had great possessions, " and the
PJiilistines envied him." We are told that he met the envy

Lecture XIII. 83
with patience, and removed from well to well. At last the
Philistines desisted. Thus patience wears the world out.
Endurance, meekness, the gospel spirit, this is the only true
weapon against the world. Hence, Christianity can have no
addition. It is final. There is nothing beyond this — " Love
your enemies.'' Isaac like Christ had conquered by meek
ness ; and then it was that there was shed abroad in his
heart that deep peace which is most profound in the
midst of storm, "the peace of God which passeth all under
standing," God was with him (ver. 24): "And the Lord
appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of
Abraham thy father : fear not, for I am with thee and will
bless thee and multiply thy seed for My servant Abraham's
sake." The waves which lash the surface of the sea are only
on the surface ; below, the deeps are calm. And Isaac quietly
leaving place after place felt the deeps of his soul untouched.
What was the loss of a well, or ten wells, to him with whom
God was, for his portion, his exceeding and all-sufficient great
reward ?
Again mark another instance of this forgiving spirit of
Isaac in his conduct to Abimelech. A wrong had been
done him, and he forgave it on Abimelech's entreaty. Ob
serve, however, it was no weak forgiveness. There are men
who forgive everything, because they cannot feel strongly,
like Cranmer ; gentle without sense of wrong ; only apathetic.
Isaac was different by temper. He keenly felt the wrong,
could resent it, and be indignant. When Abimelech came
to him with his friends he answered them, "Wherefore
come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away

84 Notes on Genesis.
from you?" (ver. 27.) It was not feeling, but principle, that
made him forgive. So too Christ's was no feeble voice.
He could be indignant, and yet pity and forgive. He
had a keen sense of injustice : " Why smitest thou Me ?"
Yet His last word was, " Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.''
This reconciliation between Isaac and Abimelech was
pledged in a feast. They both sware unto one another : so
is our reconciliation with God pledged in the Christian
feast of the Lord's Supper.

LECTURE XIV.
Sunday Afternoon, December i, 1850.
Genesis xxvii.
IN chapter xxv. we find Abraham preparing for death by a
last will, making Isaac his heir and dividing the remainder
of his property in legacies among the children of Keturah.
In this chapter the heir himself is preparing to die. The
rapidity with which these chapters epitomize life, bringing its
few salient points together, is valuable as illustrative of what
human existence is — a series of circles intersecting each other,
but going on in a line. A few facts comprise man's life. A
birth, a marriage, another birth, a baptism, a will, and then a
funeral ; and the old circle begins again.
Isaac is about to declare his last will. It is a solemn act
in whatever light you view it, if it were only for the thought
that we are writing words which will not be read till we are gone.
But it is solemn too, because it is one of those acts which tell
of the immortal. First, in the way of prophetic prescience. Is
it not affecting to think of a human being, not sick, nor in pain,
with his natural force unabated, calmly sitting down to make
arrangements for what shall be when he is in his last long sleep ?
But the immortal is traceable in the act also, in that a dead man
rules the world, as it were, long after his decease. Being dead,
in a sense he yet speaketh.. He is yet present with the living.
His natural existence is protracted beyond its span. His will

S6 Notes on Genesis
is law, a kind of evidence of his immortality ; for the obedi
ence of man to v/hat he has willed is a sort of recognition of
his present being.
Isaac was not left without warnings of his coming end. These
warnings came in the shape of dimness of eyes and failing of
sight. You can conceive a state in which man should have no
warnings, and, instead of gradual decay, drop suddenly,
without any intimation, into eternity; such an arrangement
might have been. But God has in mercy provided reminders ;
for we sleep in this life of ours a charmed sleep which it is hard
to break. And if the road were of unbroken smoothness, with
no jolt or shock or unevenness in the journey, we should move
swiftly on, nothing breaking that dead slumber till we awoke
suddenly, like the rich man in the parable, in heaven or in hell
"lifting up our eyes." Therefore God has given these re
minders : some of them regular, such as failing of sight,
falling out of hairs, decay of strength, loss of memory, which
are as stations on the journey, telling us how far we have
travelled ; others irregular, such as come in the form of sick
ness, bereavement, pain ; like sudden shocks which jolt,
arouse, and waken. Then the man considers, and, like IsaaCj
says, " Behold, I am old, I know not the day of my death."
The chapter before us contains too much for one exposi
tion ; we will therefore take but the first portion of it, in
which we find these two branches.
I. Isaac's preparation for death.
II. The united treachery of Jacob and Rebekah.
I. Isaac's preparation for death.
Here notice, first, his longing for the performance of Esau's

Lecture XIV. 87
filial kindness as for a last time. Esau was his favourite son ;
not on account of any similarity between them, but just because
they were dissimilar ; the repose and contemplativeness and
inactivity of Isaac found a contrast in which it reposed in the
energy and even the restlessness of his firstborn.
It was natural to yearn for the feast of his son's affection for
the last time, for there is something peculiarly impressive in
whatever is done for the last time. The simplest acts contract
a kind of sacredness : the last walk in a country we are
leaving ; the last time a dying man sees the sun set ; the
last words of those from whom we have parted, which we
treasure up as more than accidental, almost prophetic ; the last
winding of a watch; the last act at night; the signature of a
will. In the life of Him in whom we find every feeling which
belongs to unperverted humanity the same desire to hallow
a last act is found ; it is a trait therefore of the heart which
is universal, and because universal, natural and right. "With
desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I
suffer. For I say unto you, I will no more drink of the
fruit of the vine till I drink it with you new, in My Father's
kingdom.'' It was the last supper.
Secondly, Isaac prepared for death by making his last
testamentary dispositions. They were made, though ap
parently premature, partly because of the frailty of life and
the uncertainty whether there may be any to-morrow fcr
that which i? put off to-day ; partly perhaps because he
desired to have all earthly thoughts done with and put away.
Isaac lived thirty or forty years after this ; but he was a man
set apart, like one who, in Roman Catholic language, has

88 Notes on Genesis.
received extreme unction and has done with the world. And
when he came to die there would be no anxieties about the
disposition of property, to harass him. For it is good to have
all such things done with before that hour comes. Is there
not something incongruous in the presence of a la\vyer in
the death room, agitating the last hours ?
The first portion of our lives is spent in learning the use of
our senses and faculties, ascertaining where we are, and what.
The second in using those powers, and acting in the given
sphere, the motto being, "Work, the night cometh." A third
portion, between active life and the grave, like the twilight
between day and night, (not light enough for working, nor yet
quite dark,) nature seems to accord for unworldliness and me
ditation. It is striking doubtless to see an old man, hale and
vigorous to the last, dying at his work, like a warrior in armour.
But natural feeling makes us wish perhaps that an interval
might be given ; a season for the statesman, such as that which
Samuel had on la)dng aside the cares of office in fne schools
of the prophets, such as Simeon and Anna had for a life of
devotion in the temple, such as the labourer has when, his long
day's work done, he finds an asylum in the almshouse, such
as our Church desires when she prays against sudden death ; a
season of interval in which to watch, and meditate, and wait.
II. The united treachery of Jacob and Rebekah.
It was treachery in both, in one sense the same treachery.
Each deceived Isaac and overrecahed Esau. But it would be
a coarse estimate to treat the two sins as identical. This is the
coarse common way of judging. We label sins as by a cata
logue. We judge of men by their acts ; but it is far truer to

Lectitre XIV. 89
say that we can only judge the acts by the man. You must
understand the man before you can appreciate his deed. The
same deed, done by two different persons, ceases to be the same.
Abraham laughed, and so did Sarah : one was the laugh of
scepticism, the other the result of that reaction in our nature by
which the most solemn thoughts are balanced by a sense of
strangeness, or even ludicrousness. The Pharisees asked a
sign, in unbelief; many of the Old Testament saints, in faith
A fine discrimination is therefore needed, to understand the
simplest deed. A very delicate analysis of character is neces
sary to comprehend such acts as these and rightly apportion
their turpitude and their palliations.
In Rebekah's case the root was ambition. But here is a trait
of female character: it is a woman's ambition, not a man's.
Rebekah desired nothing for herself, but for Jacob ; for him
spiritual blessing, at all events temporal distinction : doing
wrong, not for her own advantage, but for the sake of one she
loved. It is a touch of womanhood.
The same is observable in her recklessness of personal conse
quences. So that only he might gain, she did not care : " upon
me be thy curse, my son." And it is this which forces us, even
while we most condemn, to compassionate. Throughout the
whole of this revolting scene of deceit and fraud we never can
forget that Rebekah was a mother; hence a certain interest in
and sympathy with her are sustained.
We mark another feminine trait; her act sprang from devotion
to a person rather than to a principle. A man's idolatry is for
an idea, a woman's for a person. A man suffers for a monarchy,
a woman for a king. A man's martyrdom differs from a

90 Notes on Genesis.
woman's. Nay, even in their religion personality marks the
one, attacliment to an idea or principle the other. Woman
adores God in His personality; man, in His attributes: at
least, that is on the whole the characteristic difference.
Now, here you see the idolatry of the woman, sacrificing
husband, elder son, principle, her own soul, for an idolized
person. Remark that this was, properly speaking, idolatry.
For in nothing is a greater mistake made than in the concep
tion attached to that word in reference to the affections. A
mother's affection is called by many rehgious people idolatry,
because it is intense. Do not mistake. No one ever loved
child, brother, sister, too much. It is not the intensity of
affection but its interference with truth and duty that makes it
idolatry. Rebekah loved her son more than truth, that is,
more than God. This was to idolize ; and hence Christ says,
" If any man love father or mother more than Me, he is not
worthy of Me."
There are persons who would romantically admire this devo
tion of Rebekah, and call it beautiful. To sacrifice all, even
principle, for another; what higher pfoof of affection can there
be ? O miserable sophistry I The only true affection is that
which is subordinate to a higher. It has been truly said that in
those who love little love is a primary affection, a secondary one
in those who love much. Be sure he cannot love another
much, " who loves not honour more." For that higher affection
sustains and elevates the lower human one, casting round it a
glory which mere personal feeling could never give.
Compare, for instance, Rebekah's love with that of Abraham
for his son. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son to duty ;

Lecture XIV. 91
Rebekah sacrificed truth and duty to her son. Which loved a
son the most ? which was the nobler love ? Even as a question
of permana ice, which would last the longer ? For consider
what respect this guilty son and guilty mother could retain for
each other after this ! Would not love dwindle into shame,
and lose itself in recriminations ? For affection will not long
survive respect, however it may protract its life by effort.
Observe, again, monsters do not exist. When you hear of
great criminality, you think of a nature as originally monstrous,
not like that of others. But none are liars for the sake of lying.
None love cruelty for cruelty's sake. It is simply want of
principle which makes glaring sins. Best affections, noble ideas,
perverted ; that is the history of many crimes. See here. No
touch of compunction from first to last. The woman is all
unsexed. No thought of her defrauded eldest son, none of her
deceived husband ; inflexible pursuit of her object, that is all.
It is wonderful how ambition and passion dazzle men to all
but the end desired. Wonderful how the true can become false,
and the tenderhearted hard and cruel, for an end. Nor is this
lesson obsolete. Are there no women who would do the same ?
None who would sacrifice a son's principles or a daughter's
happiness to a diseased appetite for distinction ? None who
would conceal a son's extravagance, foster it, furnish it with
means unknown to her husband, act in an underhand way
in what is cafled the manceuvring of fashionable life, do
that for family advancement from which the strong sense
and principle of a father would revolt? And all this, not
because they are monsters or demons, but because their pas
sion for distinction isinflrmed and their affections unregulated.

92 Notes on Genesis.
Secondly, look at Jacob's sin. He was not without ambi
tion ; but he had not that unscrupulous, inflexible will which
generally accompanies ambition and makes it irresistible.
A bad man naturally he was not ; nor a false man ; but
simply a pliable and weak man. Hence he became the tool of
another, the agent in a plan of villany which he had not the
contrivance to originate. He was one of those who if they
could would have what they wish innocently; he would not
play false, and yet would unjustly win. He was more afraid of
doing the deceit than anxious that the deceit should not be
done. He had obtained the birthright and doubtless often
longed for the blessing, though of himself he was not yet bad
enough to form a plan like his mother's. It is from allowing
ourselves to think of a forbidden thing that we get to long for
it, and then gradually all obstacles in the attaining of it are
taken away as soon as occasion presents itself This is the
history of all great crimes. Here was guilt in its germ. He
had indulged and pampered the fancy ; and be sure " he who
vfishes a temporal end for itself, does, or will soon, will the
means." All temptations and all occasions of sin are power
less, except so far as they fall in with previous meditations
upon the guilt ; an act of sin is only a train long laid and fired
by a spark at last. Jacob pondered over the desire of the
blessing, dallied with it, and then — fell.
Now observe the rapidity and extent of the inward deteriora
tion. See how this plain, simple man, Jacob, becomes by
degrees an accomplished deceiver ; how he shrmks at nothing ;
how, at first unable even to conceive the plan devised by an
other, he becf^mes at last inventive. At first the acted false-

Lecture XIV. 93
nood ; he put on skins to appear hairy as his brother. Then
the lie in so many words, " I am Esau thy firstborn" ; then the
impious use of the eternal Name, " the Lord thy God brought
it me." See how he was forced, by fear and the necessities of
begun guilt, into enormity deeper and deeper of guilt.
Happy the man who cannot, even from the faint shadows of
his own experience, comprehend the desperate agony of such a
state; the horror, mixed with hardening effrontery, with which
a man feels himself compelled to take step after step, and is
aware at last that he is drifting, drifting from the great shore of
truth, like one carried out by the tide against his will, till he
finds himself at last in a sea of falsehood ; his whole life one
great ocean of false appearance.
Apply this briefly. Doubtless, perverted good is always dif
ferent from original vice. In his darkest wanderings, one in
whom the Spirit strives is essentially different from one who
is utterly depraved; sensibility to anguish makes the difference,
even if there were nothing else. Jacob, lying in this way,
plunging headlong deeper and deeper, was yet a different man
from one who is through and through hollow. Grant this,
and yet that fact of human pervertibihty is an awful fact and
tnystery. Innocence may become depraved ; delicate purity
may pass into grossness ; transparency of crystal clearness
may end in craft, doubleness, contrivance : an appalling fact
Briefly, therefore :
First, learn to say No. Secondly, beware of those fancies,
those day-dreams, which represent things as possible which
should be for ever impossible. Beware of that affection which
cares for your happiness ftiore than for your honour. Lastly, ifl

94 Notes on Genesis.
the hour of strong and terrible temptation, throwing ourselves
off self, distrusting ourselves, let us rest in Him who, having
been tempted, knows what temptation is ; who will not suffer
us to be tempted above that we are able, but will, with the
temptation, also make a -"vay to escape, that we may be able
to bear it.
In the conclusion of this chapter two other personages
remain, whose part in the transaction has to be examined :
the deceived father, and the defrauded son and brother.
I. Isaac's conduct.
Remark, first, the double blessing : Jacob's containing tem
poral abundance, temporal rule, and spiritual blessing; the
main points plainly being the rights of primogeniture. Esau's,
in the first part identical with his brother's, but different after
wards by the want of spiritual blessing : God's gifts without
God, the fruit of the earth and the plunder of the sword,
but no connection with the covenant of God. Of course
the destinies of Israel and Edom are prefigured in this,
rather than the personal history of Jacob and Esau. For
the predicted liberty of Edom, the breaking the yoke off the
neck, did not take place till the reign of Jehoram, long
after Esau's death (2 Kings viii. 22). So that when it is
written, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated," the
selection of nations to outward privileges is meant, not the
irrespective election of individuals to eternal life.
Now in these blessings we have the principle of prophecy.
We cannot suppose that the Jacob here spoken of as blessed
was unmixedly good, nor the Esau unmixedly evil. Nor can
we imagine that idolatrous Israel was that in which all the

Lecture XIV. " 95
promises of God found their end, or that Edom was the nation
on whom the curse of God fell unmixed with any blessing.
Prophecy takes individuals and nations as representations for
the time being of principles which they only partially represent.
They are the basis or substratum of an idea. For instance,
Jacob, or Israel, represents the principle of good, the church
of God, the triumphant and blessed principle. To that, the
typical Israel, the promises are made ; to the literal Jacob or
Israel, only as the type of this, and so far as the nation actually
was what it stood for. Esau is the worldly man, representing
for the time the world. To that the rejection belongs, to the
literal Esau only so far as he is that. In prophecies therefore,
such as these, we are dealing much more with the ideas of
which such persons and nations are the type than with the
persons or nations themselves. And this will help us to
understand why all the prophecies centre in Jesus Christ.
In Him alone meet all those perfections of which others
were the partial and fragmentary representations. The pro
phecy therefore, applied to them, is only partially true, because
too grand for them. It represents them as perfect, which they
were not, and only when they contain such perfection ensures
the blessing to them. But Christ is that of which they were
taken as representations, and to Him therefore belong the bless
ings. For instance the 53rd chapter of Isaiah was originally
spoken of the Jewish nation, but only in a very limited sense
could it be said of it that it had fulfilled the great idea of
humanity — self sacrifice, or suffering whereby others are blessed.
Only in. the language of poetical hyperbole therefore is it true
that Israel was wounded for our transgressions, and that Israel

96 Notes on Genesis,
suffered as if the penalties of aU nations were poured out
on her. To make the prophecy reach its fulfilment, it must
be applied to Him who was that which Israel's history only
faintly shadowed.
So again, "Out of Egypt I have called My Son," words
spoken by Hosea of the delivery of Israel from Egypt, but
legitimately on this principle of interpretation applied by
St. Matthew to Christ. All the magnificence of prophecy,
limited to Israel, would be bombast ; Christ alone fulfils the
idea which Israel stood for.
Next observe Isaac's adherence to his promise.
If anything can excuse a departure from a promise, Isaac
might have been excused in this case ; for in truth he did not
promise to Jacob, though Jacob stood before him. He honestly
thought that he was speaking to his firstborn ; and yet,
perhaps partly taught to be punctiliously scrupulous by the
rebuke he had received in early life from Abimelech, partly
feeling that he had been but an instrument in God's hands, he
felt that a mysterious and irrevocable sacredness belonged to
his word once past, and said, " Yea, and he shall be blessed."
Jesuitism amongst us has begun to tamper with the sacredness
of a promise. Men change their creed and fancy themselves
absolved from past promises ; the member of the Church of
Rome is no longer bound to do what the member of the
Church of England stipulated. Just as well might the king
refuse to perform the promises or pay the debts of the prince
whom he once was. Therefore, let us ponder over such
texts as these. Be careful and cautious of pledging yourself
to anything ; but the money you have once promised, the

Lecture XIV. 97
offer you have once made is irrevocable, it is no longer yours,
it is passed from you as much as if it had been given.
1 1. Esau's conduct.
I. Remark his contentment with a second-rate blessing, —
" Hast thou not another blessing ? " etc. These words, taken
b} -themselves, without reference to the character of him who
spoke them, are neither good nor evil. Had Esau meant only
this : God has many blessings, of various kinds ; and looking
round the circle of my resources I perceive a principle of com
pensation, so that what I lose in one department I gain in
some other ; I will be content to take a second blessing when
I cannot have the first : Esau would have said nothing which
was not praiseworthy and religious ; he would have only ex- '
pressed what the Syro-Phoenician woman did, who observed
that though in this world some have the advantages of children,
whereas others are as little favoured as dogs, yet that the dogs
have the compensatory crumbs.
This world of ours is built upon the principle of inequality.
Its constitution is not democratical but aristocratical, not pres-
byterian but episcopal. Nowhere do you find equality, every
where election, superior advantages in every department ; one
born very rich, another with nothing; one slow of intellect, with
narrow forehead, another with a capacious brain and large
mind; one surrounded by privileges which make it hard for
him to miss the way of life, another seemingly excluded.
Now observe this is the principle of election, election to
advantages, not election to spiritual happiness irrespective of
character. For remember, superior advaiitages do not carry
salvation nor moral superiority with them, necessarily ; nor do
H

98 Notes on Genesis.
inferior ones carry reprobation. Indeed, nothing is more
beautiful than to see second-rate talents truly and conscien
tiously used ; to see, for instance, the slow boy toiling till he is
equal to the gifted but less conscientious boy ; or the lonely
soul rivalling the graces of one who is born with all that a
church can do for him.
Now it was not in this spirit at all that Esau spoke. His
was the complaining spirit of the man who repines because
others are more favoured than he, the spirit of the elder son
of the parable, " thou never gavest me a kid." This character
transformed outward disadvantages into a real curse. For,
again I say, disadvantages are in themselves only a means
to more lustrous excellence. But if to inferior talents we
add sloth, and to poverty envy and discontent, and to
weakened health querulousness, then we have indeed our
selves converted non-election into reprobation ; and we are
doubly cursed, cursed by inward as well as outward in
feriority. 2. Remark Esau's malice (ver. 41). "The days of mourning
for my father are at hand, then will I slay my brother Jacob."
Distinguish this from the resentment of righteous indigna
tion. Resentment is an attribute of humanity in its original,
primal state. He who cannot feel indignant at some kinds
of wrong has not the mind of Christ. Remember the words
with which He blighted pharisaism, words not spoken for
effect but syllables of downright, genuine anger; such ex
pressions as peculiarly belong to the prop letic character, in
which indignation blazes into a flame ; the prophetic writings
are full of it.

Lecture XIV. 99
Very different from this was Esau's resentment. Anger in him
had passed into malice ; private wrong had been brooded on
till it had become revenge, deliberate and planned vindictive-
ness. Turn once more to the life of the Redeemer ; you find
scarcely a trace of resentment for injury done merely to Him
self Wrong and injustice He felt; but that it was done to
Him added nothing to His feeling. The same He expounded
as a principle in the parable. When Peter asked Him, " how
oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him ? " His
reply was seventy times seven, an impossible number; and
the reply contained a truth deeper and more beautiful than
we venture to believe possible. It is this : that there is no
injury which man can do to man which may not be forgiven
and forgotten by one who has learned the lesson of love
which is written in the blood of the cross.
Finally, observe the mixture of evil which taints the best
characters. All the saints of God are exhibited to us with
stains, often grievous ones. Here is Jacob, lying, defrauding,
inventing treacheries. But let us not make too much of faults,
errors, sins, crimes. We are all conscious of such things.
Oh, yes ! But the question is, what is the central life prin
ciple in us ; one that will overwhelm them at last or not ?
You do not ask so much the amount of virus, of fever,
which may be lodged in the constitution ; but whether the con
stitution has strength to throw it off. Place these two men
together, the man of the world and the man of God, and you
would almost prefer Esau as certainly the more engaging charac
ter ; but one had in him the seed of life, the other only feeling ;
and feehng like Esau's, without principle, is sure to dwindle at

ICO Notes on Genesis.
last like a plant without root. So you may lay in the earth an
acorn and a bean beside each other; there is but a trifling
difference between them ; yet one will rise into the monarch of
the forest, the other will never be more than a stunted vege
table. And the question for us is, not how many or how few
faults, or evil acts, or vicious tendencies may be ours,— God
knows they will not bear the counting; but is there in us,
or not, a living germ which will develop — Christ in the heart,
the Spirit of God within, the power of an endless life which
will wither and at last cast out the evil ?
One remark in application. Deeds are irrevocable; their
consequences are knit up with them irrevocably. " Esau found
no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully, with
tears." Do not mistake that, as if it meant that Esau wishing
to repent could not. No man ever desired the gi'ace of re
pentance in vain. The very tears of Esau would disprove
that. Had they been tears of sorrow, repentance was begun.
Clearly, the repentance he sought for was his father's, not his
own, repentance in the sense of change of purpose ; and all
his tears could not alter that purpose or change the word once
passed. In a moment of passionate desire he had parted with
his birthright, and now, having had his pleasure, he expected
to have his blessing. He had sowed to the flesh, and expected
to reap both the joys of the flesh and the peace of the spirit
This may not be. We reap as we have sown. He that sows,
like Esau, to the flesh, reaps a harvest at first delicious, but it
is soon over, and then he reaps corruption ; but having had
his harvest of present rapture, let him not complain if he
finds that he has missed the harvest of spiritual peace.

LECTURE XV.
Sunday Afternoon, December 8, 1850.
Genesis xxviii.
/^^UR subject for to-day is the journey of Jacob to Padan-
^-^ Aram ; but before we enter upon it we must make two
preliminary observations. First, we are taught here the true
evil of sin; it is not worldly but spiritual and moral loss.
From that doubly treacherous act by which his father was
beguiled and his brother defrauded, Jacob gained both the
blessing and the patrimony; but what did he lose? Peace
of mind, his father's trust, and his brother's love. Let us for
one moment suppose that happiness should be the reward
of sin, and misery the recompence of goodness ; even then
we would desire to do and to be good, not looking at the
consequences, but bent on doing the good for its own sake,
even though we were losers by so doing.
Secondly, we observe Rebekah's deep knowledge of human
nature. Although Esau had so solemnly vowed vengeance,
yet she knew that if Jacob absented himself for a time Esau
would soon forget his resentment. The passionate, hasty man
is not the one we need to fear ; his rage will quickly spend it
self in words. But the man to be feared is he who gives no
sign of the war within, except perhaps by the blanched cheek
or quivering lip; he will nurse his indignation, and it will burst
forth in action.

102 Notes on Genesis.
In this journey of Jacob's the chief thing is his conversion
which then took place. Jacob before this time was of the
earth, earthy. From henceforth the character of his life is
changed; new colours appear in his destiny. This was con
version. Conversion is the moment in life when the man
becomes aware of a higher life beating within him, when
from a natural he becomes a spiritual man. Now there are
two ways of looking at conversion ; some suppose that it is
always sudden, while others look upon it as always gi-adual and
slow ; the truth lies between the two. It is sometimes sudden,
as in the case of Jacob and also with Paul; but it is likewise
gradual, as with John the Baptist, who from his mother's womb
grew day by day in grace. Now in Jacob's conversion w«
must look at two things, first, the impressions made upon him,
and secondly, the resolutions which he took.
I. Jacob's impressions.
These arose out of his journey. .This, it is almost certain,
was the first time of his leaving his father's home. Up to
this he had been a plain man dwelling in tents. Probably he
had not even slept from home, as the hunter his brother
in that wild life of his, led far by the wild deer, must have
done. Hitherto he had had little care, all was provided for
him; but now, partly as the result of misconduct, partly
because of parental arrangement, he sets out for a new land ;
probably, though grieved at the ties which were broken, yet
enjoying the newness of the scene, for he was young and
vigorous and the enterprise was being undertaken in the bright
daylight. But when night came on, and there was no tent to
repose under, and no pillow but a stone on which to lay his

Lecture XV, 103
weary head, then a feehng of loneliness came over him, then
tender thoughts awoke. He felt remorse, tears came unbid
den. He felt, "I shall never be in my father's house the boy
I was." In all this observe: (i) A solemn conviction stealing over
Jacob of what life is, a struggle which each man must make
in self dependence. He is fairly afloat like a young swimmer,
without corks, striking out for his life; dependent on self for
defence, guidance, choice. Childhood is a time of depend
ence and thoughtlessness, and rightly so. How shall the
child be fed, clothed, kept from contagion, cured ? These
things cause sleepless nights to parents ; but childhood is
oblivious of them ; and this is wise, for life is a gradual
development. The rosebud is protected by a green covering
from the light; by expansion, by no rude shock, the bud
passes into the blossom, flower, fruit. So it is with man. He
passes from the state of dependence into that in which he
must stand alone ; but his growth differs from the flower's in
this respect, that in his case the old is not broken off. His
memory retains what has been. The past fades away from the
mind of brutes : not so with man. Woe to him who forgets
his home ; woe, because he has no heart to work on. Man
retains old links even when he gets new ones ; the old are only
less fettering. The time of independence comes. The boy is
apprenticed, or the girl is married. It is a solemn crisis,
because the way in which it is met often decides the character
of the future life. Young children, confirmation tells you child
hood is past, youth is here, manhood and womanhood are at
hand ; the ties of dependence are giving way ; swathing bands,

I04 Notes on Genesis.
godparents, all are loosing; independence is at hand. You are
launched. Now choose for yourselves. Self dependent, the
boy must choose for himself, the girl for herself But what is
to direct their choice aright ? What but the memory of what
nas been ? The experiences of the past, these are to guide you.
(2) But beside this conviction of what life is, Jacob was im
pressed in another way at this time. God made a direct com
munication to his soul. " He lay down to sleep, and he
dreamed." We know what dreams are. They are strange
combinations of our waking thoughts in fanciful forms, and
we may trace in Jacob's previous journey the groundwork of
his dream. He looked up all day to heaven as he trudged
along, the glorious expanse of an oriental sky was around
him, a quivering trembling mass of blue ; but he was alone,
and, when the stars came out, melancholy sensations were
his, such as youth frequently feels in autumn time. Deep
questionings beset him. Time he felt was fleeting. Eternity,
what was it ? Life, what a mystery I And all this took form
in his dream. Thus far all was natural ; the supernatural in
this dream was the manner in which God impressed it on his
heart. Similar dreams we have often had; but the remembrance
of them has faded away. Conversion is the impression made
by circumstances, and that impression lasting for life ; it is
God the Spirit's work upon the soul.
(3) Jacob felt reconciliation with God. There is a distance
between man and God. It is seen in the restlessness of men.
in the estrangement which they feel from Him. Well, Jacob
felt all this. He had sinned, overreached his brother, de
ceived his father. Self convicted he walked all day long ; the

Lecture XV, 105
sky as brass ; a solemn silence around him ; no opening in the
heaven ; no sign nor voice from God ; his own heart shut up
by the sense of sin, unable to rise. Then came the dream in
which he felt reconcihation with God. f)o not mind the form
but the substance. It contains three things: (i.) The ladder
signifying heaven and earth joined, the gulf bridged over.
(ii.) The angels signifying the communication which exists
between earth and heaven, (iii.) The voice which told him of
God's paternal care.
Now to us the ladder is Christ, and that in two ways. Christ
bridges over heaven and earth by union of the human with the
Divine, and by Him we have access to the Father. I say
not Jacob saw this ; but it is so to us, the ladder to us is
Christ Again, to us the angels descending are the intima
tions God gives us of His Spirit, the angels ascending are our
prayers. Again, there is the voice speaking of fatherly pro
tection, of hope, assurance to the end. This is made still
clearer to us, for it is in Christ that we are made sons of God.
Therefore conversion is seeing God in Christ, the habit of
prayer, and the filial feeling towards God.
(4) The last impression made on Jacob was that of the awful-
ness of life. He exclaims : "Surely God is in this place; and I
knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this
place ! this is none other than the house of God and the gate of
heaven" (ver. 16, 17). Children play away life. It is a touching
and softening thing to see the child, without an aim or thought,
playing away his young moments; but it is sad indeed to see men
and women do this, for life is a solemn mystery, full of questions
that we cannot answer. Whence come we ? Whither go we ?

io6 Notes on Genesis.
How came we here? Say you that life is short, that it is a
shadow, a dream, a vapour, a puff of air? yes, it is short, but
it has an eternity wrapped up in it: it is a dream, but an
awful, an appalling one, the most solemn dream of eternity
that we shall ever have. Remember this is the gate of
heaven, this is a dreadful place, the common is the Divine ;
God is here. So Jacob felt, and therefore he made two
resolutions. II. The resolutions which he made.
The first of these was a resolution to set up a memorial
of the impressions just made upon him. He erected a few
stones, and called them Beth-el. They were a fixed point
to remind him of the past. The power of this Beth-el we
shall see when we come to read the 35th chapter. Herein
is the value of forms ; impressions, feelings, will pass away
unless we have some memorial. If we were merely spirit
ual beings, then we might do without forms ; but we are
still mixed up with matter, and unless we have a form the
spirit will die. Resolve then like Jacob to keep religion
in mind by the use of religious rites. Churchgoing, the
keeping of the sabbath, are not religion ; but religion hardly
lives without them. If a man will say, I can read the Bible
at home, think of Christ without attending the Holy Com
munion, make every day a sabbath, why, his religion will die
out with his omission of the form. And this applies to those
who are here candidates for confirmation. Be thankful and
earnest in the acceptance of this rite, for experience tells how
feelings fade. The world gets its cold hand on us, and sucks
us down into its vortex. Therefore fix these sacred hours in

Lecture XV. 107
your mind as a Beth-el ; so that you may look back hereafter
to resolves made now, in order to strengthen your hfe.
Secondly Jacob determined from this time to take the Lord
for his God (ver. 21): "then shall the Lord be my God."
He would worship from henceforth not the sun, or the moon,
not honour, pleasure, business ; but God. With respect to
this determination, observe first : that it was done with a kind of
selfish feeling ; there was a sort of stipulation, that if God would
be with him to protect and provide for him, that then he would
take Him for his God (ver. 20, 21). And this is too much
the way with us ; there is mostly a selfishness in our first
turning to God. A kind of bargain is struck. If religion
makes me happy then I will be religious. God accepted this
bargain in Jacob's case ; He enriched him with cattle and
goods in the land whither he went (chap. xxxi. 18) : " for
godliness has the promise of the life that now is." And this
was the way in which the religion of the disciples arose ; they
put the question to Christ "What shall we have?" Disinterested
rehgion comes later on. Afterwards the disciples thought no
more of themselves but only of truth and their Master, and were
willing to suffer martyrdom for His sake. And religion, so long
as we live here, is a cross. We must count the cost of it before
hand, and not hope for material gain by it. Observe secondly
what God for our God implies. It is not the mere repetition
of so many words; for as our Lord has said, "Not every one
that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of God." To have God for our God is not to prostrate the
knee but the heart in adoration before Him. God is truth :
to persist in truth at a loss to ourselves, that is to have God

loS Notes on Genesis.
for our God. God is purity : resolve to shut up evil books,
turn a countenance of offended purity to the insult of licen
tious conversation, banish thoughts that conjure up wicked
imaginations; then you have God for your God. God is
love : you are offended ; and the world says, resent ; God
says, forgive. Can you forgive ? Can you love your enemy,
or one whose creed is different from your own? That is to
have God for your God. God is infinite : to aim at good
ness ; aspiring on and on ; ever higher, never satisfied ; never
expecting to reach perfection, but always longing after it ;
ever to aim at it, and die with it unattained. In a word,
to follow and have Christ for your model, that is to have God
for your God.
Lastly, applying this whole history to ourselves, we learn two
lessons of life.
I. Jacob's faults were visited after conversion. He suffered
a banishment of twenty-one years, and only returned in time
to close his father's eyes. Fools say, I sin because I shall get
oft" ; but no man can escape the consequences of that which he
has done. Repentance may give him a sense of pardon and
take away the sting of remorse, but it cannot release him from
the natural penalties of vwong doing.
2. See what life is ! Trace this young hopeful heart on,
until you see it before the prince of Egypt uttering these
words : " Few and evil have the days of the years of my life
been." Few ! one hundred and thirty years I yet so it is even
with all of us. Life before us looks long ; life past a nothing.
Moments linger ; years fly. Life is short, therefore let us be
up and doing. But his life had been "evil" besides. He

Lecture XV. 109
nad a sad retrospect : fourteen years of bondage ; Rachel
severely won, then lost ; then came a long widowhood in which
he saw a daughter disgraced, sons cruel, Joseph separated from
him, and a foreign home at last in the time of his grey hairs.
Such is life, not peace, but trial. Look on it calmly.
Expect nothing from the world, fcom the God of Jacob
everything.

LECTURE XVL
Sunday Afternoon, December 15, 1S50.
Genesis xxix.
THE last chapter ended with a dream; this commences mth
a wearisome pilgrimage and a prosaic servitude of twenty-
one years. Here is a lesson for life ; God's extraordinary visit
ations are not frequent ; they happen once or twice in a man's
life, and then perhaps no more for ever. The remembrance
however of them lasts during the long dull years of after life.
Jacob did not forget this dream. So it was with Elijah ; he
was fed on angels' food, and on the strength of that went forty
days in the wilderness. Once only was the glory of God seen
on earth. It was at the transfiguration of our Lord, and from
it the apostles received strength for their after life.
Our subject to-day will divide itself into two branches. First,
Jacob's meeting with his relatives, and secondly, his servitude.
In the first division there are three things for us to notice
illustrative of New Testament modes of thought. First, we
have an illustration of the Redeemer's thoughtfulness and care,
as exemplified in the title of Shepherd. As Jacob drew
nigh to Padan-aram, " he looked, and behold a well in the
field, and lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it;
for out of that well they watered the flocks ; and a great
stone was upon the well's mouth ; and thither were all the
flocks gathered " (ver. 2, 3). This is but a slight indication

Lecture XVL m
of all that these early shepherds were to their flocks, for in
truth they were very different from what they are among us.
The shepherds of that time looked upon their sheep as
friends ; they shared the same dangers as their sheep, and
often risked their lives to procure sustenance for the sheep,
and, as ever, danger intensified their mutual affection.
We have, secondly, a conception given to us of the church
as a family. All had a right to move the stone from the well,
and take water therefrom at any hour of the day ; but they
agreed only to open it once a day, and then take sufficient
for the wants of the day (ver. 8), otherwise the well would
have been left uncovered, for the stone was too heavy to
be so frequently moved on and off for every one separately ;
and the consequence would have been that the well would have
become impure and the water dried up. The family is the
type both of the church and nation ; and without the con
cessions, love, and consideration of a family, both church
and nation lose their characteristic principles. Again, it is
a unity of variety required to form a church, for so it is
in the family ; it is not composed of all brothers or all
sisters, all parents or all children, but of all four united in
their variety. Once more, there is this expression to be
considered, "Surely thou art my bone and my flesh" (ver. 14).
Manifestly here is the sacredness of family ties ; Jacob had
never seen Rachel before, but when he heard she was the
daughter of Laban his mother's brother he felt drawn to her by
a mysterious power, " and Jacob," we read, " kissed Rachel and
lifted up his voice and wept " (ver. 11). Even so are Christians
united to Christ and to one another in a spiritual manner.

112 Notes on Genesis,
We, secondly, pass on to consider the circumstances of
Jacob's servitude. First, his agreement with Laban (ver. i8).
" And Jacob loved Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven
years for Rachel thy younger daughter." We have here two
things to notice ; first, the degraded position in which women
were regarded among the ancients. They were looked upon
merely as slaves or servants ; and therefore, as by marriage
the father was deprived of his daughter's services, he always
demanded some dowry or compensation ; thus, Jacob served
seven years to recompense Laban for the loss of his daughter's
services. We must next look at Laban's dishonesty in the non-
fulfilment of his agreement. He says, in excuse, that it
was not the custom of the country to give the younger before
the elder (ver. 26). Perhaps not ; but this is no palliation of his
guilt, for he ought to have undeceived Jacob.
Once more, in this servitude of Jacob we find the principle
of inevitable retribution. He had deceived his father, and
here in his turn he was overreached. Leah deceived her
husband, and in consequence lost his affection. Here both
deceivers were justly punished. O my beloved brethren, be
sure, be sure, be sure, your sin will find you out.
We have here, lastly, the principle of compensation ; Leah
lost her husband's affections, but she was blessed in her family
(ver. 31). Here we have punishment tempered with mercy.
This is what the cross has done for us ; it prevents penalty
from being simply penalty ; it leaves us not alone to punish
ment, but mingles all with blessing and forgiveness. Through
it life has its bright as well as its dark side.

LECTURE XVIL
Sunday Afternoon, December 22, 1850.
Genesis xxxi. 48-50.
THE subject of this chapter divides itself into two branches :
first, Jacob's return (ver. 1-21); and, secondly, Laban's
pursuit (ver. 22-55).
I. Jacob's return.
Observe here that just as Jacob had begun to find himself
a home the voice of God was heard calling upon him to return
to his former country (ver. 3). The reason for this is manifest ;
it was intended to make him feel that he was but a stranger
and a pilgrim here, that this world was not his rest. And so
it is with us, every trial sent us is in order that we may not
make this world our home.
Observe also (ver. 19) Rachel's robbery of the images or tera-
phim, the household gods. These seem to have been in almost
general use among the Israelites. They were used for two
reasons : first for the purposes of divination and fortune telling ;
but secondly for the deeper reason of the insuperable tend
ency in human nature to worship God under a form. Where
in lay the guilt of this ? Not in worshipping God under a
form, for we cannot worship Him otherwise ; but in this — that
the form was necessarily inadequate and false, and there
fore gave a false conceptiop of God. There are but two forms
in which we, as Christiar-s, are allowed to worship God ; to
I

i 1 4 Notes on Genesis,
worship Him through the universe, and through the humanity
of Jesus Christ.
II. Laban's pursuit.
He complains of having been robbed, when he was really
envious and suspicious (ver. 26, 27). We may be pretty sure
of this, that when a man suspects another of being dishonest,
over-reaching, or in any way impure, he is generally him
self what he suspects others of being. Jacob here makes
his defence ; he is able to speak of his tender kindness, and
also of his unswerving honesty (ver. 38-40). He had been
a good and faithful servant to a bad master. And this is a
lesson to the young, and to those in service. In the Cate
chism of the Church we say that our duty to our neighbour is
to keep our hands from picking and stealing. 'Haw picking h
an old English word, and a very expressive one. There are
many who would not steal a jewel, or break open a desk, and
yet would take much smaller things, as a sheet of paper or a
copper coin. The guilt of this is but very little different from
that of stealing, though the temptation is smaller; and we may
oe sure that if they could not withstand that, they would not
withstand a stronger temptation, especially if the way of
escape was easy.
We lastly notice the covenant made between Jacob and
Laban. They set up a heap and called it Mizpah, and said,
" The Lord judge between me and thee" (ver. 49). Had this
, been the seal of friendship, it would have been most Christian ;
but it was made by enemies calling upon God to protect
and defend them from each other's encroachments, as if
they thought that God's sole purpose in the world was to

Lecture XVII. liS
make them happy individually and to avenge all their own
little private wrongs, instead of ordering all things as shall
most conduce to His own eternal glory and to their
perfection.

LECTURE XVIIL
Sunday Afternoon, January 19, 185 1.
Genesis xxxii., xxxiii.
IN the last chapter we found Jacob escaping from Laban,
This was done secretly, for he was in fear of the pursuit
which really happened, the pretext for which was Rachel's
having stolen her father's gods of gold. Laban's real
motive, however, was a dread lest Jacob should become a
dominant neighbour, a rival ; and in order to prevent this
taking place a covenant was made between them. Scarcely had
Jacob escaped that danger when he encountered another : he
had to pass through Mount Seir, where Esau had taken up his
abode; and when the messengers that he had sent forward
to his brother returned to him, and said that Esau was coming
to meet him, then we read (ver. 7) that "Jacob was greatly
afraid and distressed." This fear of his brother was the direct
consequence of his sin, the sin that embittered his whole life.
He only hears that his brother is at hand, and his heart at
once sinks within him ; the remembrance of his sin haunts
him, the very mention of Esau's name brings it all fresh before
him. Immediately before this a remarkable incident occuried;
we read that the angels of God met him (chap. xxxi. i).
This is a passage which we cannot at present understand.
Some commentators consider that the angels mean only the
messengers of neighbouring kings; others look upon the

Lecture XVIII, 117
passage as the record of a dream, and others again regard
it as a real vision of heavenly visitants. The spiritual truth
however which lies beneath the passage is at least clear,
which is thi? ; that Jacob here obtains a clear assurance
of God's piotection and guidance. We see therefore in him
the union of two classes of feelings, — fear for the future,
and trust in God ; and such must be ever our Christian life :
not an entire life of rest, for we have sinned; nor an entire
hfe of unrest, for God has forgiven us : but in all life a mix
ture of the two. Christ alone had perfect peace, for He had,
perfect purity. If we would avoid this unrest we have but
one remedy, sin not. For although the precious blood of
Christ may cleanse us from the eternal guilt of sin, it will
not take away its consequences here on earth.
The subject of these chapters is divided into two branches.
First, Jacob's preparation for the meeting (chap, xxxii.) ; and,
secondly, the meeting itself (chap, xxxiii.). His first prepara
tion was a series of precautionary measures. He divides his
flock into two bands ; he also arranges his family : first, his
handmaids and their children, then Leah and hers, and lastly,
his best beloved Rachel and Joseph. Those he cared least
for he places first, in the front of the danger : the miserable
question was whether he should lose all or those he loved
least. Once more, all this anxious fear was the result of sin.
His next precaution was to send a present to Esau. In that
he showed small knowledge of his brother's nature ; for Esau
could not keep anger long, and had he kept his hatred so
long, no present could have bought off the revenge that had
been nursed for years.

ii8 Notes on Genesis.
The next preparation was Jacob's prayer; it was one of
those prayers that rise out of the depths of a man's heart.
There was, however, something in it that breathed of Jacob's
character ; there was a kind of selfishness in it. It is a
dread of danger that' has wrung that prayer from Jacob's
lips. And yet allowance must be made for this, for our
first prayer is ever this — a desire, not to be shielded from
sin, but from temporal danger. The warrant upon which
Jacob rested was true, it was on the goodness of God's cha
racter (ver. 9-12). He based his petition, not on any previous
merits of his own nor on his own personal election. In times of
danger considerations such as these will not hold good. God's
character is eternal love ; what He is in Himself, and not what
He is to us only, that is the ground of prayer. And this is
what baptism teaches us, that we are God's children ; His
paternity and our sonship, this alone can be the ground for
prayer. The next circumstance preparatory to the meeting was Jacob's
wrestling with the angel. A something wrestled with him till
break of day; at first it appeared as a man, then as an angel,
and then as the infinite Jehovah Himself This is a thing hard
to be understood, for it tells of God almost overcome by His
creature man. Moreover, that expressed desire to depart at
break of day seems to tell of something supernatural, for it was
an andent belief that the spirits of the dead might wander
in the night but were compelled to return before the first
glimpses of the morning. But we cannot explain it away as a
dream, for it was a positive fact that the sinew of the thigh
shrank. Therefore the most honest and simple way is to confess

Lecture XVIII. 119
that we cannot understand the historical fact : but this does
not prevent our receiving the underlying spiritual truths ; the
truth of God's guidance and protection; the truth that the
struggle to know and to feel after God is the conflict of our
whole life. Again, to the Hebrew, names meant truths and
words were the symbols of reahties; and this is the reason
why the name of every place is so carefully given us. Jacob
thus in desiring to know the name of God was desiring to
know God Himself And this is the question of questions.
Is God but another name for nature, or is He not rather
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Although the name
was not given, yet Jacob believed that God was with him ;
and this leads us to the last spiritual truth, that out of these
moments of struggle and doubt often comes our highest
strengjth. We pass on now to the consideration of chapter xxxiii., which
contains the story of the meeting which ended in the reconcilia
tion of the brothers. We first notice Esau's character ; he
was truly generous, both in first refusing and then in receiving
Jacob's present (ver. 9, 11); for if there were no one to
receive, who could enjoy our Lord's blessing pronounced on
those who give? He was generous too in the offer of an escort,
and in his refusal to press it upon his brother (ver. 15). But
in Jacob we see subtilty still (ver. 13, 14). Up to this time
scarcely any act of his had been free from deceit; and for this
sin he had all his hfe long to pay the price of fear and
distrust and suspicion. The two brothers here proved the
truth of our Lord's saying, " The Son of Man hath power on
earth to forgive sins." The one forgave, and the other received

120 Notes on Genesis,
his forgiveness, and went away with a feeling of absolution
and peace. They soon parted, however, to meet no more
for some years. In the separation perhaps they were wise,
for although they had mutually forgiven yet confidence was
lost. It is ever the consequence of sin, that perfect trust is
afterwards impossible.

LECTURE XIX.
Sunday Afternoon, January 26, i85r.
Genesis xxxv.
AT the close of the 33rd chapter we find Jacob, the
wanderer, returned; his home once more has received
him. x\nd here the second period of his life begins. The
first period was marked by success, the second was distin
guished by bitter trials. We pass by the misfortunes, degrada
tion, sin and troubles detailed in the 34th chapter ; and we
now fancy the much enduring man entering u pon that portion
of our existence when struggle and activity are exchanged
for endurance and passiveness, with the shadow of the evil
character of his sons darkening round his life. We take two
subjects of thought from this chapter.
I. Refreshing of early recollections.
II. Gathering of misfortunes.
I. Refreshing of early recollections.
I use that word, refreshing, because we have here given us an
account of Jacob's second journey to Bethel. His first visit is
recorded in the 28th chapter, where we read of the vow that he
made to serve God, and to make the pillar that he had erected
God's house, if He would bring him back in peace to his father's
house. It is rarely that such vows as these are performed in
after life ; in some cases it is impossible, in others the religious
feeling which originally prompted them has fled.

122 Notes on Genesis.
Respecting this pilgrimage to Bethel, observe first, that it
was done by Divine direction : " God said to Jacob, Arise,
go up to Bethel." Let us not imagine that a voice spoke
articulately. There were simple modes of thinking in those
days; men had not learned to philosophize on their mental
operations. They strongly felt an impulse within them. They
knew that it was a higher one, and in the simple poetry of
thought they said, God is speaking. The voice that spoke
to Jacob was the voice within him, the voice of conscience,
the same voice that speaks to us. Take the phrase " and God
said" literally, and then we must believe that God spake to
Jacob but does not speak to us, then we must look upon Him
as a different God to us from what He was to Jacob : but no.
He is the same. Oh, be sure of this. God is not extinct, but
a living God ; His voice is now no more silent than in Jacob's
time. If He seem silent, the fault lies in us, our ears are
become dull of hearing, we want faith. Brother men, believe
that God is present with us now, and then He is as much with
us at Brighton as He was at Peniel.
Observe secondly, Jacob's preparation for this act of re
membrance. He puts away the strange gods from his house
hold. To confirm the naturalness of the narrative, refer to
the earlier portion of the history, where we read of Rachel
steahng the images of Laban for idolatrous worship. Of this
Jacob at first appears not to have been cognizant, afterwards
he was ; and when going to perform his vow, he puts away
these idols. But wherein lay the evil ? Not in the use of forms
and symbols, for these were afterwards given to the Jews by
God. Idolatry consists in this ; the using of forms and images

Lecture XIX. 123
which give unnecessarily inadequate ideas of God, unneces
sarily I say, for though all our notions are inadequate they
ought not to be unnecessarily so. So Jacob buried the
images under the oak. It was most wise. It was not suffi
cient to say. Let them not be worshipped, let the gold be
kept merely for ornament. He knew human nature better ;
he knew that the same feeling would be suggested again when
ever they were seen. And in our own day the things which have
been the symbols of idolatry must be parted with. We may say
that crucifixes and stone altars and lighted candles are nothing
in themselves; but if they give the idea of localizing God, or in
any way degrade His pure worship, then they must at once be
buried. Happy for England is it that she has resolved to throw
away all such things.
The third thing we remark here is the consecration of the
place (ver. i) : "Make there an altar to God, that appeared
unto thee when thou fleddest from Esau thy brother.'' And
this is the real meaning of consecration. It is not to make
God more in one place than another. That is impossible,
we cannot bind the Infinite. But the object is this : to appeal
to our nature to enable us to feel God more profoundly in
one place, and so to make us feel Him more surely in all
places. It is not then in reference to Him, but for a
help to our own feelings that we consecrate certain spots
of earth and buildings. And so it was with Jacob. He
was not to go to Bethel and set up an altar to make God
there more, but to feel by association more deeply that He
was there.
In all this there is indisputable truth. There are sacred

124 Notes on Genesis.
places, not sacred for their own sake, but sacred to us. Where
we have loved and lost, where we have gained new light and
life, the church where our forefathers worshipped, the place
where we first knew God — these are by instinct hallowed.
Hence we are told that God met Jacob in Bethel ; not that
He came down from another place, for He is everywhere, but
that Jacob experienced a feeling of awe, a feeling that God
was then specially near to him.
In this meeting of Jacob with God, there are two facts to
observe. The first is that since he was last at Bethel he had
increased in the knowledge of God. He knew Him then only
as God, now he knows Hinv as the God Almighty (ver. ii).
This is but a type of our own life ; our knowledge of
God must always be progressive. Another thing we perceive,
that in these twenty years there had been a growth in his per
sonal religion. Once it had been but a selfish religion : he
adopted a system of barter with God ; if God will give me
bread to eat and raiment to put on, then shall God be my
God (chap. xxix.). Now there is a higher step, it is gratitude;
God has done it, and now God shaU be his God (ver. 3) :
a higher motive, but not the highest ; he has yet to learn to
serve Him, not in happiness but in misery ; to ser\'e Him in
trial, because He is God, and to learn to say simply and
believingly, Thy will be done. We pass on now to consider —
II. The gathering of his misfortunes.
The first of these was one not so keenly felt, the death of
Deborah, Rebekah's nurse. He buried her at Bethel, under an
oak (ver. 8) ; and the story gives us an interesting view of the
ancient relation between master and servant. It was not one

Lecture XIX, ^25
of slavery or lucre, but of attachment ; faithful service was
given in return for generous protection. This death was
Jacob's first blow. It did not fall on him severely. It did not
touch him to the quick, for it was natural and regular ; in
the course of nature the ancient servant had died full of years.
It is only those griefs which are the consequences of our
misdoings which are almost insupportable trials. But Jacob's
second blow was of a different kind : Rachel dies, his early
and youthful passion, his beloved wife ; the only one whom
with all his strength of affection Jacob loved, and whose
children were dearer for her sake to him than all the others.
Even his father and fondly indulgent self-sacrificing mother
he seems to have regarded with coldness. From this moment
he becomes a mourner for the rest of his life ; and yet we can
see the infinite good of this. Jacob was a selfish, comfort-
loving man ; these sorrows drew him out of himself to think of
something higher. The last blow was the death of Isaac
(ver. 29). The brothers met over their father's grave, but
the reconciliation was but outward ; sin had separated them,
and though Esau might trust Jacob, Jacob could never
have trusted Esau whom he had so deceived. This death of
Isaac was natural too, yet solemn, because it brought home
the thought of death to Jacob ; Deborah was, as it were, two
generations back, and Rachel's death was sudden, out of the
natural course ; but when Isaac was gone, Jacob must have felt
that he stood at the head of the present generation, marked
out now to receive the first blow of death.

LECTURE XX.
Sunday Afternoon, February 2, 1851.
" And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his
people, being old and full of days : and his sons Esau and Jacob buried
him." — Genesis xxxv. 29.
WE have all heard of the first disagreement between the
two brothers, Esau and Jacob ; a disagreement which
had the effect of severing them, under circumstances of great
bitterness, for some years, but which had at length ended, as
we read in the 33rd chapter of this book, in a reconciha
tion. And now we find the two brothers, who had taken up
their abode, the one at Bethel in the land of Canaan, and the
other at Mount Seir in the land of Edom, meeting in peace
and brotherly kindness for the burial of Isaac their father ;
even as Isaac and Ishmael had met, under circumstances
not altogether unlike, to bury Abraham their father in the
self-same spot, the cave in the field of Machpelah before
Mamre (xxv. 9).
There is a holy lesson to be learned from this narrative,
which stands in pleasing contrast to the melancholy history of
craft on one side and unforgivingness on the other between the
two brothers. The change in Esau is especially worthy of
observation. He had said in his heart, some forty or fifty years
before : "The days of mourning for my father are at hand;
then will I slay my brother Jacob." And yet at their next
meeting, which cost Jacob so much fear and anxiety before

Lecture XX, 127
it took place, which brought him on his knees in prayer and
earnest supplication to God, it was Esau, the injured brother,
who " ran to meet the supplanter Jacob, and embraced him,
and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Nor were Jacob's
words less touching — evidencing, as they do, his humiliation in
being thus lovingly greeted by the brother he had wronged :
" Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight,
then receive my present at my hand : for therefore I have seen
thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou
wast pleased with me." And now they had met again by
their father's grave in peace !
What a lesson to brothers that separate in wrath, and cherish
their anger for years, and are proud and moody and unreason
able, saying their daily prayer without a meaning ! What a
lesson to many between whom the petty and miserable strifes
which ensue about small affairs have produced, I fear, en
during enmities ! We hear that such and such persons are
not on terms, as it is called; and when we ask why, the
wretched reason is that, in a division of property, one got
the better of the other; or that, in a struggle of parties, one
took the one side, the other the other, and a chance word
kindled a fire. What a lesson to Christians ! We see that
those who lived under the elder dispensation could arrange
their feuds ; but we, who have seen Christ crucified, who owe
our only hope of forgiveness to His pardoning love, cherish
our enmities in our breasts, dwell on them for years, let them
burst forth on every occasion, carry our strife about with us
wherever we go, lay it not down even in God's house, suffer it
to keep us from the Holy Communion for years, or smother it

128 Notes on Genesis.
and stifle it while we prepare ourselves for that sacrament, to
let it break forth again when we next meet our adversary
face to face ! And each party, if you plead with them, will
tell you they have no ill feeling, it is the other who is angry,
they say : just as Adam, our forefather, summoned to account,
said, "It was the woman." Ay, but as both the man and the
woman and all their descendants suffered from that fault in
both, so in every quarrel among brethren do the quarrellers
and all connected with them, and the community to which
they belong, suffer loss !
Oh, let us visit the field of Machpelah, seek the cave where
Esau and Jacob are laying the body of Isaac — those two
brothers, in whose boyhood the seed of their future separation
was sown by the foohsh partiality of the mother for her
younger son, the quiet home-loving boy, by the favouritism of
the father for his fine, bold, intrepid hunter lad, whose venison
he ate w'nile he loved to hear him tell of the dangers of the
chase. Let us behold them, both bearing on their visage
the marks of labour and sorrow gone through since those
early days : Esau, the man of strength, in war now as in
the chase of old living by the sword; Jacob, the breeder
of sheep and cattle, whom for twenty years the drought
consumed by day, the frost by night, and sleeplessness and
anxious care ! And him God had tar.ght as He doth ever
teach those whom He loves ; had t owed his neck under
the yoke, had chastened and afflicted him and brought his
sin to remembrance. The death of Rachel, the sin of
Reuben, the violence and virrath of Simeon and Levi of
whom Jacob prophesied and said, " Cursed be their anger.

Lecture XX. 129
for it was fierce ; and their wrath, for it was cruel " — all this
lay heavy upon the heart of Jacob. He was an altered
man, no doubt, from the day when he entered into the
presence of his father, with the dressed kid in his hands and
the wine, and the goodly raiment of Esau upon his shoulders,
a deceiver, a supplanter, rightly named Jacob, though now
Israel, even "one who had power with God and prevailed."
There they stood by their father's grave ; the twins that had
struggled together in the womb, an omen of a future and a
fiercer struggle in the trials of life.
What a lesson! What a reality! A type and figure of
trials, strifes, struggles, differences, jealousies, and evils en
suing from these, in all ages, to the end of the world. But,
thank God, a type also of reconcihations, concessions, repara
tions, an encouragement to piety and to paying due honour
to a parent's memory ! And as such, let us hope, not re
corded in vain.
How the scenes of their childhood must have recurred to
them, as they saw the body of their father laid by the side of
his father Abraham ! Both must have been thinking of the
same thing ; of the day when Esau came in faint and weary
from hunting, and would fain give his birthright in exchange
for the pottage which Jacob had prepared. But they thought
also of all that had followed and the things that might be yet.
Esau's thoughts went away from his birthright, and God's
favour and blessing, to the cities and fortresses he had biiilt,
to his wives and children in Seir, — those that had been a grief
of mind to Isaac and Rebekah — to her whom he had married
afterwards in deference to their wishes, Bashemath, the
K

IjO Notes on Genesis.
daughter of Ishmael — even to them and to his children
whom he himself had deprived of their blessing.
Jacob thought upon the birthright, the promise whereof
was renewed to him at Bethel, and which now by the death
of his father had devolved on him as the seed to whom it
belonged ; an inheritance still future, a possession still to
come ; not his, but rather his children's after him, when in his
seed all families of the earth were to be blessed. And this of
itself would carry his thoughts backward and onward, away
from present things ; first perhaps to Rachel's grave, and
Benjamin, the son of his right hand, yea, Benoni, son of his
sorrow ; and then on and on, to things yet in the womb of
time, perhaps beyond all time. Should he see Rachel yet
again ? What did this blessing, which now centred in him
and his, what did it mean ?
We have no clue to his thoughts but the hopes and aspira
tions of that common nature which are called forth by trials and
circumstances, which we have still in common with those who
have gone before us in the generations. But this is a clue which
we may surely follow, and which we may follow to our benefit,
if we let it lead us onward from a more faithful and earnest
discharge of our daily duties, especially of filial and fraternal
duty, to the day when whatsoever good thing any man doth
the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond cr
free, high or low, rich or poor; when the son who honoured
his father and mother, either by paying them all deference and
respect, or by supporting them in poverty, or by upholding
them in their infirmity, or by paying the last tribute of affection
and respect to their remains, shall so also himself receive ot

Lecture XX. 131
the Lord; or when the brother, who came to his brother
whom he had injured or who had injured him, vsdth blessing
and forgiveness on his tongue, shall in like manner hear his
own forgiveness fully accorded by Him who is over all ;
when the duteous daughter or loving sister shall inherit the
reward of patient and constant love in the everlasting glory.
When, as we know, (and, it may be, Jacob foresaw even if Esau
knew it not,) we shall meet again in a better country — father,
mother, brethren, sisters, children, wife, or husband — when
Jacob and Rachel shall be reunited, and the blessing that was
promised to the descendants of Abraham shall be fulfilled to
their spiritual seed, to all who have lived and died in the faith
of Christ.
These are the common lessons of every funeral, when the
hope of faith is not darkened by misdeeds, or blighted
by estrangements or offences. Who ever saw the last
flickering of the spark of life, or heard, the sound of the
handful of dust cast down into the grave, who did not wish
from his heart that the evil word had never been spoken, the
evil thought never entertained, the evil deed never done, the
evil concupiscence never indulged, the evil never repaid
with evil ; that the intercourse of life had been carried on in
love, and the dealings of the world sweetened all along by
mutual forbearance and gentleness ? Who doth not wish it,
long for it ? Alas ! we cannot pray for it ; for even prayer
avails not to undo the past. But who would not then forego
all he ever gained, if he might be again as he was in the days
of his youth, whenever he thinks of some ungentle, unkind,
unforgiving, undutiful, unseemly act. of later life ? If over

132 Notes on Genesis,
the grave of an Isaac or an Esau such thoughts have
arisen in the heart of one who hath been what Jacob was
to them, let him remember, that to supplant or to deceive
is a bitter root, and must trouble a man all his after days.
But to forgive and be forgiven is a blessedness to be attained
only while life lasts, while hand can clasp hand, and eye
beam on eye, and words of kindness be interchanged ! The
grave closeth, stilleth all in silence never to be broken, save
in empty dreams and idle wishes poured forth ever afterwards
in vain. Therefore let us take heed betimes, while kind
and pleasant offices can still be interchanged and life and
its varied interests continue, that we may call forth the heart's
best affections, that we may kindle zeal and fervour in our
soul toward our fellow men ; for a day of gloom succeedeth,
in which there is no longer space for these dispositions to
grow. Yet another thought connects itself with the death of Isaac,
who thus " died, and was gathered unto his people, being old,
and full of days " ; and that is the simple thought of his enter
ing into the rest that remaineth for the people of God. After
a long, and in some respects a prosperous life — though he
was not without his share of anxiety and sorrow — he quietly
sank into the grave. . He had seen the reconciliation of his
children, and had doubtless acquiesced in the fulfilment of the
prophecy spoken when they were yet in the womb, that " the
elder should serve the younger." It is evident from his words
to Jacob when he sent him to Padan- Aram that he believed
the blessing of Abraham would descend in the line of the
posterity of Jacob his younger son. And in this belief the

Lecture XX, 133
work of his life was ended. According to the words of
Eliphaz in the Book of Job, he knew that " his seed should
be -great ; and his offspring as the grass of the earth. And
he came to his grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn
cometh in his season."
My brethren, what exchange hath life for such a death?
more especially when the strength that rema,ineth to man is
but labour and sorrow ; when the knees are feeble, and the
step is slow and faltering, and the flesh dried up for want of
fatness. There be some whom we meet in our daily walk, in
whose very countenances we read the story of a long and
weary pilgrimage; whose eye seems to ask, "What is my
strength that I should hope; and what is mine end, that I
should prolong my life ?" They do but wait the days of their
appointed time till their change come ; happy when they
shall be gathered unto their people, as Isaac was, in Isaac's
simple faith, who, while he dwelt in tabernacles in a strange
land, " looked for a city which hath foundations, whose Builder
and Maker was God."
We must not indeed suppose that mere weariness of this
life is an earnest of that rest, nor suffering and want and
hardship in this world a title to future glory. But the strong
instincts of our nature are not to be repressed, and the words
of the son of Sirach are true : " O death, acceptable is thy
sentence unto the needy, and unto him whose strength faileth,
that is now in the last age, and is vexed with all things."
Only let us labour that when the stroke comes we may be
prepared to meet it, that it may find us in a state of repent
ance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ-—

134 Notes on Ge?tesis.
engaged in lawful and pious works, having our hearts fixed on
a better country, that is, an heavenly ! Are we at variance with
any, especially with any of our own kindred, with brother or
sister ? Let us remember that to be at peace with all men is
one of the chiefest and most fitting preparations for a tran
quil and happy death. Have we wronged any one ? Let us
express at least our sorrow. Have we suffered wrong? Let
us at least forgive all that have injured us. And if our pride
of heart rebel against the effort, let us meditate on the scene
exhibited to our view in the words of the text, where two
brothers, whose cause of quarrel was no ordinary disagree
ment, (for could Jacob have made any adequate compensation
to Esau for the blessing of which he had deprived him?)
where, I say, two such men stood side by side at their
father's grave, and forgot, in the remembrance of their child
hood and their present grief, all but the performance of the
last duties to him who gave them birth.

LECTURE XXL
Sunday Afternoon, February 9, 1851.
Genesis xxxvii.
AT the beginning of this chapter we read, "These are the
generations of Jacob" (ver. 2). In the last chapter those
of Esau are briefly mentioned, and from this time we hear no
more of him or his descendants, except as they come across the
path of Israel's history, or as they are brought out in the page of
prophecy to stand as a beacon to the world. This practice
of following out one family is most evident throughout the
Book of Genesis. We read of Abraham and his two sons ; the
history of Isaac is taken up and we scarcely hear of Ishmael ;
again, the history of Jacob is continued while we hear no more
of Esau; and again, with Jacob's family, Joseph is the one
chosen out of all the sons, his liistory alone is brought before
us and we know littie more of all the rest. And this division
observable in the Jewish nation is but a type of what is going
on in this world ; there are two sides, those which may broadly
be classed as the good and the bad. There has ever been the
World, with the Church existing as a protest against it. And
the lesson for us to learn here is that in every act and con
versation there are two sides, and that in everything we do
or say we are deciding our place, as to which of these sides
we belong to. Now this chapter divides itself into two
branches.

136 Notes on Genesis,
I. The division found in Jacob's family.
II. The mission of Joseph to Shechem.
I. The division found in Jacob's family. In the very
outset of the chapter we find that Jacob's was a divided
family; and for this division we find four reasons. The first
is the favouritism with which Jacob had loved Joseph (ver. 3).
In God's government there is election, but no favouritism ;
for God judges by character. But turning to the conduct
of Jacob, we find something different. True, Joseph ' was
superior to his brethren, but there was something more ; he
was the son of the favourite wife and therefore the favourite
child. His coat was the badge of his father's unjust love, and
therefore upon it his brethren wreaked their fury.
The principle which we extract from this is a simple one ;
in the government of the nation or the family undue or unjust
favouritism leads to dissension.
The second cause for this division was the scandal-bearing of
Joseph (ver. 2). The youth, so good and pure in other respects,
descended to the office of a talebearer ; behind his brothers'
backs the tale was told; he who should have shielded their
character from shame was the first to reveal their ill doings.
Charity, it is said, covereth, that is, casts a veil over, a multitude
of sins. Now the church of Christ is a family ; and yet this
love of evil report still lives amongst us. It is not, however, true
to say that no evil is to be said of man, for then there would be
no such thing as character; but you must draw the distinction
between the accusation openiy made and that which is brought
in secret. The Christian man who sets himself to the duty of
the public informer has got a miserable task ; but quite distinct

Lecture XXI. 137
from this is the spirit which, with the tongue of a brother and the
heart of an enemy, wounds in secret, the spirit which carries
evil report from house to house. And yet perhaps in the midst
of such a conversation there is no one syllable on which we
can fasten and say that slander has been uttered. It is done by
a look, by the uttering of such sentences as these : " Indeed !
You don't say so ! I could not have believed it !" It is in this
way that the family of Christians is split into infinite divisions.
The third reason for this division was the polygamy of Jacob.
Now let it be remembered that in those days there was no law
against polygamy, and therefore in that act there was no sin ;
for, says the apostle, " sin is not imputed where there is no
law." And yet you will observe that, though this was no sin
in Jacob, yet that the penalty followed, for it was against the
constitution of God's world ; still, as it was not in contradiction
to any revealed law, his conscience was not defiled ; it was but
penalty, not chastisement. The laws of God are not arbitrary ;
They are the provision of a Father's love to protect us from
the consequences of evilj it is the love of God that says to
us, " Sin not."
The last reason for this division was the envy of the
brothers; Joseph told his dreams, and these made them hate
and envy him. Now we distinguish between two things, jeal
ousy and envy. Jealousy is that state of mind which repines
at the happiness of another, the diminution of which would
increase our own. Envy, on the contrary, is that state of mind
in which we mourn over the advantage of another, though the
taking it away from them will not do us the least good. Envy
is that terrible state in which it is impossible to admire anything

13? Notes on Genesis.
that is not our own. We can pardon the jealousy of the poor
man who repines over the advantages wrung from him by the
false customs of society ; but we cannot sympathise with him
when he hates all that is above him simply because it is above
him. II. Joseph's mission to Shechem. Jacob sent him to see
how his brethren fared. When they saw him coming, they
resolved at first to slay him ; but, as it were by accident, a
party of Ishmaelites were there, to whom they sold their
brother into slavery. Observe here the bloodguiltiness of
these brothers; they did not take Joseph's Iffe, but they
intended to take it; they were therefore murderers. Let us
make a distinction; for when we are told that the thought
is as bad as the crime, sometimes we are tempted to argue
thus, — I have indulged the thought, I will therefore do the deed,
it will be no worse. This sophistry can scarcely deceive the
heart that uses it ; yet, merely to put the thing verbally right, let
us strip it of its casuistry. The thought is as bad as the act,
because the act would be committed if it could. But if these
brethren of Joseph had mourned over and repented of their sin,
would we dare to say that the thought would have been as bad
as the act ? But we do say that the thought in this case was
as bad as the act, because it was not restrained or prevented by
any regret or repentant feeling; it was merely prevented by
the coming in of another passion, it was the triumph of avarice
over malice. There is many a man who has not taken away
a brother's life, but who, by an indulgence of malevolence, is
in the sight of God a more sinful man than many who have
expiated their guilt on the scaffold.

Lecture XXI. 139
But all these brothers were not equally guilty. Simeon
and Levi and others wished to slay Joseph ; Judah proposed
his being sold into captivity ; while Reuben tried to save him
secretly, although he had not courage to save him openly. He
proposed that he should be put into the pit, intending to take
him out when the others were not by. His conduct in this
instance was just in accordance with his character, which seems
to have been remarkable for a certain softness. He did not dare
to shed his brother's blood, neither did he dare manfully to save
him. He was not cruel, simply because he was guilty of a dif
ferent class of sin. It is well for us, before we take credit to
ourselves for being free from that or this sin, to inquire whether
it be banished by grace or only by another sin. You are not
censorious, but then pause and ask whether you are not too
lax to be censorious : you are not a talebearer or a busybody,
but are you certain that you have in you sufficient love for
others to make you at all interested in their matters ? It is
thus very possible fpr devils to be cast out by Beelzebub, the
prince of the devils. Observe too the calmness of these
men after their crime ; they sat down by the pit to eat and
to drink (ver. 24). We often think respecting the tyrants of
whom we read in history, that they must have been haunted
by the Furies. Brethren, it is not so, there is a worse doom for
sin than this ; it is that it makes the heart callous and for
getful of its presence. If there were but the sting it would be
well, for it would lead to reformation.*'

LECTURE XXIL
Sunday Afternoon, February i6, 1851.
Genesis xxxix., xl.
IN the close of the 39th chapter we find Joseph in an Egyp
tian prison ; he had been tried, tempted, chastened, and
come off the purer and the stronger. The disappointed
passion of Potiphar's wife had settled down into malice.
There are two kinds of love : that love which ever increases,
and that which, usurping the name of love, contains within
itself the germ of its own destruction.
In the account of Joseph's imprisonment is given to us
an explanation of one of the mysteries of this our human
Hfe. It is a mystery that often sinfulness and selfishness
reap the prizes here, while goodness and integrity have to
endure the ills of this life. Looking on this in our infinite
ignorance we are sometimes inclined to say that it is not
justice, but chance, that rules this world ; or, in our infinite
wisdom, we say that this world is a state of probation, and
that, although we suffer here for well doing, yet that in the
world to come we shall have happiness and peace ; as if
the introduction of the element of time could make any
difference; as if that which it would be unjust to do in
eternity would not be so now. Now I ask you to observe
the utter falseness of this solution. It is as if we thought
that the Everlasting rewarded the goodness of His servants

Lecture XXII, 141
as a foohsh mother giving her child that which is pleasant
to the taste. We do well, and suffer for it ; and then we
complain that we have not our reward in material prosperity.
In this history we have an illustration .hat bears on the
question. Shortly after his imprisonment, Joseph was re
leased, his merit acknowledged, and almost regal dignity con
ferred upon him. Whereupon we say, " Now all is right, merit
has its reward " ; and with this poetical justice we are satisfied.
But this is not the justice of God's world. Are these then
the rewards of well doing — horses and carriages, the royal
robe, and the knee bowed before him ? Is it with these things,
quite earthly, that the Everlasting rewards celestial qualities ?
Brethren, neither in this world nor in the world to come are
these the rewards of goodness. What was Joseph's reward ?
Not the rank conferred upon him ; but this — to be pure, to be
haunted by no principle of remorse. It is written in the sermon
on the mount, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God." To see God, to have the vision of the King in His
beauty, to know and to feel that He is near — that was Joseph's
reward. And think you that, from this, the dungeon could
take much ; and that, to this, his earthly honours could add
anything ? The reward of well doing is God ; and what could
be added to a prize so glorious ?
In these chapters we shall briefly go through three or four
unconnected points.
First. Joseph's rising favour with the keeper of the prison
(chap, xxxix. 22, 23). We observe here the real nature of
human influence. It is not the influence of rank, but of
character. Make all men equal in rank to-day, and to-morrow

142 Notes on Genesis.
there will be found those who have acquired influence over the
others. These prisoners were all in the same position, but
very soon Joseph's character gained him influence. Thus,
by the influence of Paul, the jailer at Philippi was con
verted, Felix trembled before him, and Agrippa was almost
persuaded to be a Christian. Let such a man be imprisoned,
but he will soon have converted Caesar's household, for his
influence is real.
Again observe the rehgious tone of this account. We read
nothing of Joseph's intellectual superiority, but that " the Lord
was with him " (ver. 21). The reason of his influence was the
God within him. Just so far as a man is Christlike will he have
influence. We next observe the channel by which God so often chose to
manifest Himself to His servants — through dreams. Dreams are
the presentation in sleep of certain impressions made in our wak
ing hours. In our waking thoughts, wUl is active ; in our sleeping
thoughts, will is dormant. It was natural, both as a fact and as
a belief in those early times, that these should be the moments
chosen by the Spirit of God to reveal Himself to His servants,
When the will of man ceased, then naturally was the time for
God to choose to make known His will, for the Everlasting
Spirit to mix itself with the finite and temporal spirit.
We observe also the characteristic nature of those dreams.
In every case the dream betrayed the man. In the 40th
chapter we find the record of two dreams, that of the butler
and that of the baker. The butler dreamed of three great
vine branches and ripe grapes, the baker of three baskets of
baked meats ; and Joseph, in one of his own dreams, dreamt

L ecture XXII. ' 143
of agriculture, the calling to which he had been accustomed.
The application that we njake of this is, that our sponta
neous thoughts betray our character. The trivial man dreams
of trivial things; but if the vision that is presented is to a
man hke St. Paul, he is lifted up to the third heaven
and hears unutterable things which it is not lawful to speak.
The dream itself is evidence of a man of deep feeling and
imagination, and of a life of spirituality. When Peter too
dreamed of the sheet let down from heaven and was told to
kill and eat, he says, " Not so. Lord ; for I have never eaten
anything common or unclean." The answer speaks of a long
life of obedience, for even in his dream he could not be induced
to transgress the written law of God. In our hours of contem
plation the soul is surrounded by its own creations ; and if they
be of a holy character, the man lives as in the presence of God
and angels ; but if, on the contrary, instead of imagination
spiritualized and purified, the spirit is but sensualized, the man
has then made for himself his own hell.
We have now three things to observe in Joseph's conduct :
First. The tenderness of his sympathy; he observed the
shade on the countenances of his fellow prisoners, and imme
diately asked why they were sad (ver. 6, 7). This tenderness
of feeling was gained only by suffering. Joseph had suffered
like them, and therefore he understood their feelings. With
the value of suffering we are familiar ; but we do not often
remember that suffering is absolutely necessary to capacitate
us for sympathy. Would you be a Barnabas, a son of con
solation ? Brother men, you may ; but then you must pay
the cost, the education of the soul by suffering.

144 Notes on Genesis.
The next thing we observe of his conduct in the dungeon is
the profession of his innocence, of which notice the calmness and
simplicity (ver. 15). " For indeed I was stolen away out of the
land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing that
they should put me into the dungeon." There are no invectives
against his brethren, or against Potiphar and his wife; he merely
states that he was innocent. Calm assertion is generally a proof
of innocence. When you hear men cursing and swearing, like
Peter, in order to asseverate their innocence, you may feel
assured that there is guilt. It has been well observed, that this
calmness of speech in the gospel history is an evidence of its
truth. Had it been a fiction, how would the writer have en
larged on the injustice of the Jews, and the difference in the
characters of the blessed Redeemer and Barabbas ! whereas
the evangelist makes no comment, but simply and calmly states
the fact, — " now Barabbas was a robber."
The last thing we observe in Joseph's conduct is the in
tegrity of his truthfulness. It was a pleasant thing to tell the
chief butler that he should be reinstated in his office ; but it
was not pleasant to tell the baker that after three days he
should be hanged. Yet Joseph could not shrink ; having once
accepted the office of interpreter he was obliged to fulfil it
faithfully. This truthfulness was a matter of habit as well as
of principle with Joseph. There are many men who would
not tell a direct falsehood, and yet their ordinary habit is by
no means strictly veracious. With no distinct intention of
doing wrong, they embellish and exaggerate. Therefore, let
us get the habit of accuracy ; and when a thing is simply
unpleasant, let us not say that it is dreadful. These are

Lecture XXII. 145
merely habits ; but by degrees they break down the truth of
the Christian character.
Lastly, in this dungeon scene we find a striking similarity to
the dying hour of Christ, — one innocent between two male
factors ; and in each case one guilty one was pardoned and the
other condemned. It is not merely to show the similarity that
we notice this fact, for we do not approve the habit which by
fastening the mind upon the letter of Scripture loses its spirit ;
but we quote it as an illustration of the truth with which we com
menced. Jesus and the malefactors suffered the same death ;
and then this difficulty arises to many minds, There is one end
to all; or, as Solomon expresses it, "All things come alike to
all." Brethren, it is only in a man's Epicurean moments that
he dares to say a thing like that. All things come not alike to
all. It was the mere similarity of the outward circumstances of
that dungeon that made the lot of Joseph like that of those
who were with him. His mind being free, the dungeon could
scarcely impair that liberty. Was the end of the Redeemer
similar to the end of those malefactors ? Some Christian
writers have dared to say that for the redemption of the human
race, — I almost shrink from saying it, — that for one hour the
soul of the Redeemer was in hell ! Do they know what hell
is ? Hell is the remorse of doing wrong. To have felt that
would have been to have blotted out God from the world.
There was the infinite agony we cannot comprehend, that of
infinite Purity suffering ; there was One suffering ^r the guilty :
but there was not, and could not be. One suffering the punish
ment of the guilty. All things come not alike to all ; for a
man's inner spirit makes his own heaven or hell. L

LECTURE XXIII.
Sunday Afternoon, March 2, 18 51.
Genesis xli.
THE history of Joseph in Egypt is interesting and valuable,
not merely as a narrative of events, but for deeper
reasons. This book of Genesis was written by Moses in refer
ence to the peculiar characteristics of the people he was about
to emancipate. He told them of the creation of the world,
in order to teach them that the God whom he was telhng
them of was the God, not only of their land, but of the
whole universe. He taught them respecting the original
sabbath rest of God to explain to them the institution of
their own sabbath. He told them of the original character
of their forefathers, to show them that it was no new wor
ship to which he was going to lead them. And in telling
them this history of Joseph, one reason for it manifestly
was to give them a reason for their being in Egypt, and to
raise their spirit by telling them that originally they were
princes in the land and not slaves as they then were.
Again, these Jewish histories are remarkable for the religious,
pious character of those of whom they treat. Every nation
venerates its forefathers ; but the peculiarity of those of the.
Jews was that they were not merchant princes or conquerors,
but pious samts of God, the central principle of their life
being faith.

Lecture XXIII. 147
The subject of this chapter will divide itself into these
two branches.
I. The summoning of Joseph to inteirpret Pharaoh's dream.
II. The interpretation of that dream.
I. The summoning of Joseph to interpret Pharaoh's dream.
Observe here first of all the long waiting of Joseph before he
attained his emancipation. For two long years he lingered in
that prison ; the best and wisest man in the land was shut up
for two of the best years of his life. At first sight there seems
something wrong here ; but we soon see the wisdom of this
delay. First, in respect to Joseph's character; for it was in
this prison that he was learning lessons of the soul, God's
lessons. When God teaches man a lesson, he perhaps will not
be able to put it into words and keep it as a maxim of life ; it
is something that he cannot express, but only feel. Such a
lesson was Joseph learning. How long did it take to make the
young dreamer unlearn the spirit of censoriousness, of self
complacency ? Those two years, instead of being long, were
short to learn such precious lessons in.
Again, we see the wisdom of this delay in respect of
Joseph's circumstances. Had he been released before, he
might have returned to his father's house or re-entered that
of Potiphar; and then what would have become of the land
of Egypt ? The lesson to be drawn from this is a very
simple one — that of trust and faith and patience. It will
occur, in future life, to many here to be suspected as Joseph
was, to have obloquy resting on their character. They are
not to go forward to defend their character, but simply to
wait We are here we know scarcely for what — not to act

148 Notes on Genesis.
alone certainly, but to suffer and to learn ; and what we have
to do is to bear patiently, to feel that all is right.
The next thing in this summoning of Joseph is Pharaoh's
prophetic dream. Such dreams and forewarnings occur not in
Scripture alone. It is impossible to deny that in certain cases
events distant in the future do become known, unless we are pre
pared to deny the testimony of all ages. This dream occurred,
not to a holy man, but to a heathen : therefore the power
of prophecy tells nothing of the religious character. Balaam
saw the vision of the Almighty as truly as did the holy Isaiah ;
hence it is that we degrade the Jewish prophets when we look
on them simply as predicters. Generally speaking, they foretold
the future because they clearly understood the present. This
tells us the difference between spiritual gifts and graces ; gifts
belong to the inteUect, graces to the heart. The apostle Paul
postponed all gifts to graces. Thus he says, " Covet earnestly
the best gifts; yet show I unto you a more excellent way.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and
have not charity, I am nothing.''
The last thing I observe here is the chief butler's forgetful-
ness. Now there is a morbid feehng which dehghts in railing
against human nature ; but it seems to me that there is a wiser
lesson to be gained from this story than merely speaking of the
buUer's ungratefulness. Consider, first, the suspense in which
he was respecting his trial, and then the onerous duties that he
had to perform. Then remember, too, that what Joseph did
for him after all was not so much, it was merely the interpret
ation of his dream. The lesson that we draw from this is : in
this world we do too littie and we expect too much. We bless

Lecture XXIII, ia^i:)
a poor man by giving to him, and we expect that we have made
him our debtor for life. You fancy that the world has for
gotten you. Reason with yourselves. For this world, from
which you expect so much, what have you done ? And if you
find that you have done little and received much, what marvel
is it that you receive no more ? The only marvel is, that we
have received so much.
Respecting this forgetfulness, there is something else to
learn. During those two years Joseph had been as a " dead
man clean out of mind." At the end of that time he came
to the remembrance of the butler. It is doubtful whether a
thing can ever be quite taken from the mind ; what is buried
there will rise again. Hence it is that no guilty deed can
simply be forgotten. Time is nothing to memory. You can
not cement the deed to the spot of performance ; go where
you will, it accompanies you ! An awful, awful thought for
each of us when we intend to commit a sin ! But here a diffi
culty arises ; if this be true, how can there be a heaven for us ?
certainly heaven cannot exist to us while burdened with the
remembrance of sin. This very difficulty must have presented
itself to the ancient Greeks. The remedy they imagined for it
was this ; that before the spirit entered the land of blessedness,
it must pass through the v/aters of Lethe to produce oblivion.
Here we have a mighty instinct of the soul. Christ came not
to destroy it but to fulfil it. In Him we attain the power and
the right to forget the past. So long as we remain unre-
generated and unconverted, the past is ours ; but, regenerated
in Christ, there is a sense in which we have a right to
forget the past. In the words of Scripture, we " put off the

I50 Notes on Genesis.
old man, and put on the new, renewed in Christ" Christ is
our river of forgetfulness.
II. The interpretation of the dream.
Observe the graceful way in which Joseph refers all to God.
He says, " It is not in me : God shall give Pharaoh an answer
of peace." Observe also his calmness ; this was produced by
the consciousness of God's presence. He was not there to
consider v/hat men would think of him ; he felt that the gift
was from God. It is only this feeling that can effectually
crush the flutterings of vanity. " What hast thou," says the
apostle, " that thou didst not receive ? "
Again, in the interpretation of the dream observe Joseph's
plan; it was simply a prudential foresight for the future.
This prudence is a Christian virtue ; but it is hardly neces
sary to bring this before you, so common is it in this land
of England. It is our bounden duty to show how far this
rises to the rank of a Christian virtue. It is a virtue only
so far as it has no reference to self If we save in one thing
to spend on another, it may be a virtue, but certainly it is not
a Christian one ; that alone is Christian which is done for the
sake of others. Thus, if we retrench our expenses in order to
have more to bestow on others, it is Christian. Thus did
Joseph ; his economy was all for the sake of others.
Now, in conclusion, I have only one practical inference to
draw from this history, the same that was taught by our Mas
ter in the parable of the unjust steward. He commended
the unjust steward because he had done wisely ; he was wiser
in his generation than the children of light ; he had used his
opportunity. Our Redeemer tells us that where he gained we

Lecture XXIII. 151
fail ; we have our advantages, and we, the children of light,
neglect to use them for the future. The same lesson is taught
by Joseph's history. To us, the years in which we are living
are those of plenty, abundance of spiritual instruction ; but
the years of dearth will come. Blessed is the man who shall
use the present well. Blessed is he who makes use of the
present opportunity, who is using the present in acquiring
spiritual strength. Blessed is he who is laying up for himself,
while on earth, a treasure in the heavens which shall never
fail.

LECTURE XXIV.
Sunday Afternoon, March i6, 1851.
Genesis xlii.
IN this chapter we have two subjects to consider.
I. Joseph's administration in the land of Egypt.
II. The first journey of his brethren thither to buy com.
I. Joseph's administration in the land of Egypt.
Here we notice first of all those qualifications which
Pharaoh recognised as fitting Joseph for the situation of
governor. He said, " Can we find such a one as this is,
a man in whom the Spirit of God is ? " (chap. xli. 38.) The
Bible speaks of inspiration in a much more extended sense
than we do, it marks every gift as specially of God. Still we
must remember that a spiritual gift does not necessarily make
a spiritual man. Balaam, for instance, was gifted with the
highest powers of poetry ; he had, too, the power of seeing
future events ; and yet he dies a bad man, far from God. But
Joseph was inspired in the highest and truest sense. Not only
was he spiritually gifted to rule the nation, but he had also
that higher gift which enabled him to refer the lower gift to
God. Now there are three things required to fit a man to
rule : intellectual power, a sense of dependence upon God,
and unselfishness. All these were combined in Joseph ; we
are told that there " was none so discreet and wise as he."
In the interpretation that he gave to Pharaoh's dreams we

Lecture XXI P. 153
see how he referred all to God ; his unselfishness we see in
his forgiveness of his brethren. Without these qualities there
can be no real rule ; for it is these which make up saintliness,
and saintliness alone fits a man to rule perfectly. But saintli
ness in the sense we use it must take in intellectual powei;
For mere spiritual goodness alone does not make a good
rjiler. Eli was a good man, he had the two latter qualities
which go to make up a ruler; but he was wanting in the
first, he was a weak man, and this it was which caused such
troubles to his country. But it is a mistake still greater to
suppose that intellectual power alone qualifies for rule. There
must also be moral goodness and unselfishness. These are the
quahties which clarify the intellect and purify the character.
We next observe the naturalization of the Hebrews. Joseph
was made governor over Egypt, and admitted to all the privi
leges of that exclusive nation ; yet in the midst of this Joseph
never forgot his own family, his country, his home, and, above
all, his God. " By faith," we read, " he gave commandment
concerning his bones," that they should rest in his own land.
Now, what Canaan was to the Jew, that heaven is to the
Christian. St. Paul says that our citizenship is to be in
heaven. In this we may learn a lesson from the Israelites, for
wherever the Jew was found, his desires were always on Canaan,
Zion, Jerusalem. We are strangers and pilgrims here ; this is
not our home. We are to be in the world, but not of the
world ; we are to drink of its pleasures, but not to allow them
to intoxicate us. Our outward conversation is in the world, but
our inward life, our citizenship, is to be hid with Christ in God,
II. The first journey of Joseph's brethren into Egypt.

154 Notes on Genesis.
We notice, first, the famine in Canaan, which had extended
thither from the land of Egypt. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
all driven to Egypt by famine. The origin of moral evil must
remain to us a mystery, but that of physical evil ought not
to be so. To the philosopher and the speculative man it
is a mystery, but not so in the cottage and on the sick bed.
Where pain is really felt, there its meaning is understood.
Spiritual good is utterly impossible without physical evil.
We next observe the office of conscience. " They said one
to another. We are verily guilty concerning our brother," etc.
(ver. 21.) Where sin is voluntary wrong doing, the language
of the human heart inevitably connects the penalty with the
wrong doing. Let us here collect something that may serve
us as a guide through life. In every temptation that comes
upon you, think what it will be in the hour of death to be free
from the recollection of it. Refrain, refrain, remember the here
after. In Reuben, remark, there is something that tells more of
selfishness than of love ; and yet in a measure he was right in
linking the penalty to the sin. When the cock crew, the
Redeemer looked upon Peter, reminding him of his error
without the utterance of a word.
Next, observe the severity in the love of Joseph ; this we
have in the seventh verse : " he made himself strange unto
his brethren, and spake roughly unto them." He did not allow
his personal feelings to interfere with what seemed to him his
duty. Joseph's love to his brethren was a noble love. God's
love to us is still nobler, and severity accompanies it. It does
not shrink from human suffering, for suffering is necessary
for the man's well being.

Lecture XXIV. iS5
Lastly, we remark on the return homewards of Joseph's
brethren. Jacob expected corn to relieve their necessities ; he
got the corn, but with it came sorrow upon sorrow. Bereaved
of Joseph, he is now bereaved of Simeon also. In Jacob's
answers to his sons, in the close of the chapter, we find a depth
of querulousness and despondency. Job was tried with sorrows
far more severe, and yet they only served and contributed to
the purifying of his spirit. In order to understand the cause
of Jacob's despondency we must go far back. Jacob was a
selfish man ; his very religion was selfish ; he would become
religious only on condition that God would protect and guide
him. To that selfish origin may be traced all the evils of his
after life. 'Throughout it seems to have been his principle to
receive as much as possible, and to give as little as he could.
He who lives in this world for his own personal enjoyment,
without God and His Christ, will by degrees find, like Jacob,
that he has no rock to rest his soul upon, but that he must
go down in sorrow to the grave.

LECTURE XXV.
Sunday Afternoon, March 23, 1851.
Genesis xhii.
THE 43rd chapter contains the history of the second
journey of Jacob's sons into the land of Egypt. Be
tween the two journeys there was an interval of unknown
duration. We only know that it lasted so long as the first
supply of corn remained to them.
The history divides itself into these two branches ;
I. The journey.
II. The arrival in Egypt.
I. The journey. Observe here :
I. The resolve of Jacob to send at last his son Benjamin
to Egypt. When the proposal was first mentioned to him, he
positively refused to part with the lad. Reuben had said,
" Slay my two sons if I bring him not to thee : deliver him
into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again " (chap.
xlii. 37). An arrangement in which, although there was a
dim shadow of the great principle of atonement, yet it was
mixed up with the notions of bloodshed and revenge. But
that proposal was at once rejected; now, however, we find
Judah making another which is accepted : " I will be surety
for him ; of my hand shalt thou require him : if I bring
him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me
bear the blame for ever" (ver. 9). In this consent of Jacob

Lecture XXV. 157
we read a double instance of faith, faith in God and in
man. Faith in God ; for he says, " God Almighty give you
mercy before the man" (ver. 14). Faith has been well de
fined thus, "the heart to make ventures for God." He
alone knows what real faith is, who has been compelled
to lose sight of ot to relinquish hold of those most dear
to him, relying only on the mercy and eternal love of God.
Faith is that which makes us hold and chng to God when
nothing else is left for us to cling to ; the grasp of the dying
sailor to the mast, that is faith. There was, besides, faith in
humanity, in his son Judah, in one scarcely worthy of his
confidence, for once at least he had proved treacherous. But
it was better so, and it is better for us if we possess this
faith in man. We must not always be suspecting those about
us. Better far to be deceived once or twice in our lives
than to be for ever suspecting that our servants and children
are always on the watch to rob us.
2. Jacob's honesty. He commanded his sons to take back
the money which had been returned in their sacks. " Per-
adventure," said he, "it was an oversight" (ver. 12). This
is the strictness of religious honesty. We are bound not
only to return that which is ours unjustly, but also that
which is ours by the oversight or mistake of others.
But there is another way of looking at this act of Jacob's.
It seems somewhat to savour of his disposition to molhfy
and appease his enemies by presents ; as, when he dreaded
the enmity of Esau, he sent presents to him, flattering him
with the name of god. And if it be so, we find here
that which tells, not of honesty, but of pliancy. We have

158 Notes on Genesis,
just the opposite to this in the case of Paul when brought
before Felix. The Roman governor hoped that some reward
would have been given him to release his prisoner. Bui
no ; Paul stood firm, resolved never to buy his liberty.
A higher example still is given us in the trial of Christ.
Pilate says, " Knowest Thou not that I have power to
crucify Thee and have power to release Thee ? " thereby in-
dhectly asking for a bribe ; but the Redeemer answered not a
word that might indulge such a hope. But specially is this
pliancy of character dangerous when it becomes the tone of
mind towards God, when by the indulgence of this spirit of
appeasing by presents there is graduaUy formed in us a false
conception of God's character, and we begin to think that He
may be bought, and bribed, and flattered.
3. The change of Jacob's resolution in permitting Benjamin
to go. At first we might be inclined to charge him with
inconsistency, but the circumstances were changed, and
the only choice now left him was between famine for them
all and the loss of one son. If a man is never to
change his line of conduct, and is ever fearing that if
he does so and so it will appear inconsistent with his
former course, then manifestly conversion is impossible. The
Christian man, who desires to live and be the truth, is not to be
for ever endeavouring to make his present conduct coincide
with the acts and thoughts that have gone before. He must be
true to his present convictions, leaving ths past to reconcile
itself to the present as it may.
II. The arrival.
I. The first incident we notice here is the fear of Joseph's

Lecture XXV, 1 59
brethren when invited to Joseph's house. They came dreading
some misfortune. They were suspicious of Joseph's intentions.
They could not but think that he wished to entrap them
and make bondsmen of them. And this fear of theirs arose
partly out of their own capability for a similar act of treachery.
" Thus conscience doth make cowards of us aU." It is the
worst penalty of a deceitful and crooked disposition that it
always dreads being overreached,
2. In the next place we observe the bowing down of the
brethren before Joseph (ver. 26). This was an exact fulfilment
of one of his early dreams, when the sun, moon, and eleven stars
bowed down before him. But Joseph was now changed; he had
been too much saddened by misfortune, and was far too much
accustomed to Egyptian homage, to find any real pleasure in
this, from which he had formerly expected so much. For us
this is a pregnant example of the illusiveness of human life.
Now that his dream was fulfilled to the very letter, he could
not enjoy it. That thing which he had seen before in the
prophetic visions of youth, that thing he had got ; and now
the joy of it was not in that, in the superiority, but in quite
other circumstances. So it is we live, looking to an horizon
which we reach but cannot enjoy, in which we find not what
we expected. And yet observe here the merciful arrangement
of God, who thus leads us on. Could we now count the cost
of the things we hope for, would it be possible to live ?
3. We next observe Joseph's relief in the indirect utterance
of his feehngs. He asked, " Is your father yet alive, and your
youngest brother?" etc. (ver. 27.) Here is a strange principle
of our nature, the necessity of utterance, either by a direct or

l6o Notes on Genesis.
by an indirect channel. Thus, criminal feeling must find for
itself either direct expression in confession, or in speaking of
the deed as committed by another.
4. We next remark the feast of brotherhood. When that
paroxysm of joy was over which drew tears from Joseph's
eyes, he appeared again, and commanded a feast to be set
before them. That feast broke no difference of rank, for
Joseph had a table to himself; neither did it interfere with
Egyptian etiquette. The Hebrews and Egyptians were placed
at different tables. Observe also, though a feast of brotherhood,
it pretended to no equality. Joseph made no pretension of
loving them all alike. So is it with Christian brotherhood; first,
it does not break through ranks, but it enunciates a principle
which by degrees will make all ranks equal. Secondly, it
does not rudely break through any custom which does
not trench on any principle of right. Lastly, it never
falsely pretends that all are equal; it does not say that
Benjamin, who has oftended littie and loved much, shall
receive only the same as the others. It tells us that those most
like to Christ shall be most dear to God. Likeness to Christ
resemblance to the life of Christ, and the intense and utter
happiness that comes from that, that is the five-foldness of
Benjamin.

LECTURE XXVI.
Sunday Afternoon, March 30, 185 1.
Genesis xliv.
THE chapter we have to expound to-day contains the well
known account of the second departure of Joseph's
brethren from Egypt, and their quick return to the palace.
There is, however, one thing that we must first dispose of,
and that is, the fact of the existence of a divining cup in
Joseph's house. This shows us that Joseph had given way
to Egyptian superstition ; and therefore those commentators
who desire to make Joseph appear blameless have en
deavoured to give a meaning to this word " divining "
which it will not bear. But we must remember that Joseph
and the other saints of the Old Testament all belonged to
ages before, and not after, Christ. They were before their
generations, or they would not have been saints ; but not
before all generations, or they would have been more than
saints. There are two divisions in the subject of this chapter.
I. The test to which Joseph exposed his brethren,
II. Their conduct under that test.
I. The test to which Joseph exposed his brethren.
There is at first sight an apparent wantonness in the manner
m which this was appHed ; but looking deeper we see some
motives for such a mode of action. Probably it was designed
as a kind of penalty for their former deeds. Joseph had been
M

l62 Notes on Genesis.
basely treated. Though he forgave his injurers, yet it was good
for them to see their crime and feel it. His was not mere
maudlin compassion ; he desired first to bring them to re
pentance, and then he was ready and willing to forgive. And
in this he is a type of God ; God is the infinitely Forgiving
One, but the Just One besides. When God forgives, let it
not be supposed that no penalty ensues. Oh that we could
fasten this truth upon our minds, that every sin brings with
it a penalty which still remains even though the sin be par
doned by the blood of Christ. David sins, and the merciful
Lord puts away his sin ; but still the beloved child must die.
And a second motive which may be assigned for
Joseph's conduct is that perhaps it was to compel them to
feel that their lives were in his power. They are humbled
to the dust before him by the test. Now, in assigning to
him such a natural motive, we are not showing his conduct
as anything superhuman. It was magnanimous, but yet mixed
with the human. Everything that man does has in it some
thing of evil ; even his best actions have in them something
that will not bear the light of day.
Again Joseph may have wished to test his brethren's
capability of forgiveness. When Benjamin came not with
them at the first, Joseph perhaps doubted whether he had
not been disposed of, as he himself had been ; therefore did
he contrive that Benjamin should be brought before him.
But when this matter was set at rest, there was still another
question to be decided. How was he treated by the brothers ?
This he tested by putting the cup into his sack. Had they
believed in their brother's guilt, and refused to pardon him.

Lecture XXVI. 163
this would have proved that they themselves were unfit to
receive pardon. This condition for receptivity of forgiveness
is set forth by Christ when He tells us, " If ye forgive not
men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father for
give you " ; and this He illustrates by the parable of the un
merciful servant.
II. The conduct of Joseph's brethreu under the test.
Judah was the spokesman ; in his speech we observe the
entire suppression of denial or excuse for Benjamin. They
knew not what to think ; they could not believe that he had
really taken it, and yet the evidence was strong against him.
Judah cannot prove that his brother is not guilty, neither
can he believe that he is guilty; he therefore leaves that
question entirely aside. Instead of denying it, in modem lan
guage he showed cause why the law should not be put in
force against him.
We next notice the pathos of that speech. Read the 20th
verse : " And we said unto my lord. We have a father, an old
man, and a child of his old age, a little one ; and his brother
is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father
loveth him." We ask. When will fiction produce pathos equal
to that ? His appeal to Joseph was threefold ; first, he appealed
to his compassion; secondly, to his justice, for if Benjamin were
guilty he had not forced himself into the temptation, but had
been led into it by Joseph. He also appealed to Joseph's sense
of that which is heroic and self devoted; for he offered to
accept slavery in his brother's stead : " Now therefore I pray
thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to
my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren.'' Had Ben-

164 Notes on Genesis.
jamin been really guilty, and Joseph not his brother, he must
have had a heart of flint to refuse the appeal of self devotion.
Let us learn, in conclusion, that even in the worst of mankind
there is something good left. Judah was by no means an im
maculate man; but from what a man was, you cannot be certain
what he is now. Here were men virtually guilty of the sin of
murder, really guilty of cupidity in selling their brother; but
years after we find in them something tender still, love for
theu: father and compassion for their brother. It is this spark
of undestroyed good in man that the Spirit of Christ takes
hold of; and he alone who is able to discover this in the
hearts of the worst, he alone will be in this world successful
in turning sinners to God.

LECTURE XXVII.
Sunday Afternoon, April 6, 1851.
Genesis xlv.
THE conclusion of the last chapter gives us an account of
the successful pleading of Judah for Benjamin. This
intercession of Judah resembles in many respects that of our
Lord for His people ; not because it is a type in the common
acceptation of the word, that is, a thing contrived beforehand
to be the resemblance of a future thing ; but it is a type on
this principle, that as the intercession of our Lord is trae and
real, so it must partake of the principle of every other inter
cession that is tme and real. There is a likeness between
Judah's and Christ's intercession, first, in that the intercessor
was related to him for whom he interceded ; so is it with our
Lord, He is our Elder Brother, we His brethren in the flesh.
Secondly, Judah resembles Christ, because the temptation had
been shared but not yielded to. The crime of which Benjamin
appeared to be guilty had been as much brought before Judah,
who withstood it. He had therefore those things which qualify
a man for sympathy ; and such was the complete fitness of our
Redeeming Master. " He was in all points tempted like as
we are, yet without sin." Tempted, sinless, therefore able in a
twofold way to intercede for us ; knowing what is due to God's
offended law, and knowing what is also due to our frail human
nature. Thirdly, there was likeness in this, in the self devotion

1 66 Notes on Genesis.
of brother for brother. We are not to consider the sacrifice of
Christ as a solitary principle; it is a principle found throughout
life. So that in the self devotion of Judah we have that which
corroborates the sacrifice of Christ ; for if we deny the possi
bility of Judah's, we must also deny that of Christ. Lastiy,
there was a point of resemblance in this, that he who was to
pardon was already resolved to pardon. Joseph was already on
the side of Benjamin. The intercession was necessary for the
sake of proving Judah's love, but not for the sake of appeasing
Joseph's hatred. And such is the principle of our Master's
sacrifice. God already was on the side of man. We err if we
suppose that that sublime and august sacrifice was to appease
the hatred of the Almighty ; it was the satisfaction of love, not
the appeasing of hatred ; thus we read, " God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son," etc.
The exposition of this chapter divides itself into these two
branches :
I. Joseph's interview with his brethren.
II. Their summons by Pharaoh to dwell in the land of
Goshen. I. The interview.
Observe the delicacy of Joseph's feehngs in removing all
the witnesses of his emotion. There are some persons who
rather love to have witnesses of their various feelings, and
feel no sense of shame when they have given utterance to
anything emotional before others. By these means feelings
become vulgarized, weak, and frittered away. That religious
feeling which is never at a loss for appropriate words is a re
ligion and a sensibility which has in it no depth. With deep

Lecture XXVII. 167
truth are we told this in the parable of the sower and the
seed. He cast his seed on the stony ground, and the seed
sprang up rapidly, simply because there was no depth of
earth. Therefore from this we learn that feeling, to be true
and deep, must be condensed by discipline. We are taught
this by our Redeemer's life. The commonplace truths of
life were given pubhcly ; but those deeper ones were veiled
in parables to the multitude and expounded alone to the
disciples. The second thing that we notice here is the entireness of
Joseph's forgiveness. This may be inferred from his desire to
prevent remorse. "Be not angry with yourselves," etc. (ver. 5-1 5.)
And this fear of Joseph for his brethren was founded on reality,
for there is a danger, a great danger, in remorse. When a
man's or a woman's heart is absorbed in the thought of the
painfulness of the past, nothing can be done in the present,
penitence or true reformation of life becomes impossible. And
a further proof of the entireness of Joseph's forgiveness is, that
he referred the past to God's will (ver. 8). When a man
speaks calmly, as Joseph did, you may rely upon it, the for
giveness is entire. Upon this we have three remarks to make.
First, that it is utterly impossible for us to judge of any event,
whether it is a blessing or misfortune, from simply look
ing at the event itself; because we do not know the whole.
Fancy the buying of a slave in a cave in Canaan ; and
straightway there springs up in your breast a feeling of in
dignation. Pass on a few years, and we find Joseph happy,
honoured, and beloved ; two nations at least are saved by
him from famine. Secondly, we remark how God educes

1 68 Notes on Genesis,
good from evil, and that man is only an instmment in His
hands. A secular historian, treating of mighty events, always
infers that there has been some plan steadily pursued; he would
have traced step by step how it all came about, and referred it
all to Joseph. But from the inspired history we find that Joseph
knew not one step before him. Thirdly, we remark that there
is a danger in the too easy acquiescence in the fact that
good comes from evil ; for we begin to say. Evil then is God's
agent, to do evil must be right ; and so we are landed in con
fusion. Before this had taken place, had Joseph's brethren
said, " Out of this, good will come, let us sell our brother,"
they would have been acting against their conscience ; but
after the event it was but faith to refer it to God's intention.
Had they done this before, it would have been presumption.
But to feel that good has come through you, but not by
your will, is humiliating. You feel that the evil is all yours,
and the good is God's.
II. The summons of Jacob by Pharaoh.
Remark, Pharaoh rejoiced with Joseph. It is common enough
to hear complaints of man's ingratitude ; but to an earnest mind
the only wonder is, the superabundance of love he meets
with. Love begets love. Joseph had been faithful, and
Pharaoh honours and esteems him.
We here observe the advice given by Joseph to his brethren,
" See that ye fall not out by the way." There was deep
wisdom in this. On their return Reuben would probably have
begun to taunt them and remind them how different would
have been the result had they taken his advice ; and each one
separately would have found some cause of quarrel. We should-

Lecture XXVII, 169
do well to ponder on Joseph's advice, for when that wondrous
message was given to the world that God had pardoned man,
men at once began to quarrel with each other. They began
to throw the blame on the Jew alone for having caused
His death ; they began to quarrel respecting the terms of
salvation. Lastly, we remark the incredulity of Jacob, "his heart fainted."
There are two kinds of unbelief, that which disbeheves be
cause it hates the truth, and that which disbelieves because the
tmth is apparently too glorious to be received. The latter was
the unbelief of Jacob; it may be an evidence of weakness, but
not necessarily an evidence of badness. This was a similar
case to Thomas ; he could not believe the words of those around
him, he must see the outward manifestation before he could
believe. It was a pitiable thing that Jacob should believe the
evidence of the wagons more than the words of his sons, but
it was human. From this we learn the real value of the out
ward evidences of Christianity ; they tell on impressible spirits ;
some could not believe without them. But far nobler was the
faith of the centurion who could trust his God out of sight,
that faith which can rest on God's existence and on His woids
without evidence.

LECTURE XXVIII.
Sunday Afta-noon, May 4, 1851.
Genesis xlviii. 15, 16.
THE portion of Scripture which lies before us for our ex
position to-day consists of the 48th chapter of this book,
together with the concluding verses of the 47tli ; the latter
gives us the history of Joseph's administration in Egypt, and
the former an account of the dying hour of Jacob ; these
then are our divisions for to-day.
Looking first at the administration of Joseph, we read
that his foresight had filled the granaries with corn; to him
therefore the people applied. From this time every man
held his property and his life in fiefship to the king ; every
thing became the property of the state. This suggests to
us two parallel cases, the constitution of ancient Israel and
of modern England. In ancient Israel we find something
parallel. When the destroying angel passed over the houses
of the Egyptians, slaying their firstborn, the firstborn of the
Israelites were spared. It was then held that every Israel
ite was bought with blood, and the firstborn of every family
offered sacrifice for himself By degrees, as the history of
the nation passed on, there was an enactment made which
substituted for the firstborn of Israel one tribe, consecrated to
be priests by the right ear and foot being touched with blood,
signifying that it was the duty of the priest to do nothing but

Lecture XXV III. 171
what was consecrated by the love of God. If we remember
that the tribe of Levi represented the whole nation of Israel, we
shall then understand the tenure upon which each man was in
covenant with God; he was touched with blood, and thus every
power of seeing, feeling, hearing, etc., was all consecrated to
Jehovah's service.
We find also this principle in the constitution of England.
The king is the supreme lord of all property ; against the king
every crime that is committed is considered to be done. Now
this principle in three different nations rests in every case on a
separate historical fact. ' In the case of Egypt it rested on the
preserving the people from famine, in that of Israel in passing
over the firstborn, and in that of England on the conquest of the
country by one of its ancient kings. From which we learn th?t
the principle is all we have to deal with ; and we arrive at this
conclusion, that that which Joseph meant to teach was the right
of monarchy and the duty of the people to their king. In
the case of Israel, that which was to be taught was that
God was their sovereign, representing to them the majesty
of the law. And our loyalty we give to the sovereigns, not
because they are the representatives of the majority of the
people, but because they are the chosen symbols of that which
assuredly came from no people's will, the eternal law of God,
the law of right and wrong.
We pass on now, secondly, to consider the circumstances
which belong to Israel's dying hour. And first we observe that
the two grandsons of Jacob were taken to be present at his
death bed. "And one told Joseph, Behold thy father is sick ;
and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

172 Notes on Genesis.
And Israel strengthened himself and sat upon his bed." This
is the nearest approach in the Bible to that which is com
monly termed a death bed scene. There is no sadder phrase
than that — " a death bed scene " ; for a man, when he comes
to die, has something different to do than mere acting ; it
is not then his business to show other people how a Christian
can die, but to prepare himself to meet his God. It is sad
also because the dying hour is often unsatisfactory, often far
from triumph ; in the book of Ecclesiastes we read, " How
dieth the wise man, as the fool." For there is stupor, sadness,
powerlessness ; and spiritual darkness 'also frequently clouds
the last moments of the pious man. This dying hour must
however have made an impression on these young men. In
death itself there is nothing naturally instructive ; but in this
death there was simplicity, they saw the sight of an old man
gathered ripe unto his fathers and they would remember
in their gaiety and strength what all life at last must come
to. Consider too the effect that must have been produced
on Joseph. There had been nothing, that we are aware of,
with which he had to reproach himself in his conduct to his
father ; there was therefore no remorse mixed with his sorrow,
he was spared the sharpest pang of all. How different must
the feeling of the other brethren have been ; they would re
member that there lay one dying whom they had wronged,
one whom they had deceived.
We observe in the second place the adoption of these two
sons of Joseph by their grandfather. Jacob says, "Let my
name be named on them" (ver. 16), by which he meant that
they were not to remain Egyptians, though naturally they were

Lecture XXVIII. 171
such, their mother an Egyptian and their father ruler in the
land. When a young man has what we call brilliant prospects
before him we congratulate him; in the spirit of the Bible
we should rather congratulate him when he is called early to
do a work, to achieve something, on the side of God against
that of the world.
We observe too how Jacob speaks of Rachel (ver. 7). At
first sight there appears in this no connection with what is
written before or after it ; but looking more attentively at it,
the matter is plain ; the old man thinks of Rachel, he re
members that these were the sons of Rachel's son, and he im-
phes that it was for her sake that he adopted them. If there is
anything that tells of a stain upon a man's heart, it is when he is
able to speak in a tone of contempt of those purest first affec
tions which constituted the glory of his early manhood; but it
was not so with Jacob. One of the most elevating things that
a man can have is a loss that goes near home. Jacob was the
better for this loss of his beloved Rachel; he thence became
less selfish than before ; accordingly, when he came to Egypt,
there was no unseemly rejoicing, as there would otherwise have
been, over the brilliant prospects of his race ; and the latter part
of his life was that of affection rather than as formerly of avarice.
Lastly on this subject, there is something in this long con
tinuance of affection for the lost wife that seems to tell us
something of the possibility of reunion. Upon this subject
Scripture tells us almost nothing. When we look at the ana
logy of this world, and mark the growth of our affections
as they develop in our life first to parents, then to brother,
and then to wife, and then to child, each in some measure

174 Notes on Genesis.
supplanting the other, we might be inclined to beheve that there
would be a perpetual growth of attachment to spirits higher
and higher still ; but when we see a feeling like this of Jacob's
we cannot but hope that that which had lasted so near to the
grave might survive the grave. We know not, God grant that it
Biay! Again, observe the eyes ot Jacob were now dim. " Now
the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not
see'' (ver. lo). Perhaps this might remind hun of his con
duct to his old bhnd father Isaac. In him we see all the
powers of life fading, and we are tempted to say. Can this
live for ever ? The eye cannot see God, therefore the eye
fails ; the ear cannot hear Him, therefore is it filled with dust ;
but faith and love, the things that are to survive the grave, exist
in their strength up to the grave.
The last thing we notice is the consolation given to sur
vivors. Jacob says, "Behold, I die, but God shall be with
you," etc. (ver. 21). Thus our Redeemer said to His disciples,
" It is expedient for you that I go away,'' etc. This then
explains to us the principle of bereavement ; slowly and by
degrees all drops off from us — first our parents, then our com
panions, till at last we find ourselves alone, with no arm of flesh
to support us ; and then comes the sense of dependence on
the arm Divine : therefore is it emphatically written that He is
the God of the fatherless and the widow.

LECTURE XXIX.
Sunday Afternoon, May ii, 1851.
Genesis xlix.
THIS chapter contains Jacob's predictions of the destinies
of his descendants. The predictions are partly explic
able on natural grounds. Jacob's sagacity was sufficient to
distinguish the germs of character already shown in his sons,
and from thence he could foretell the results. Reuben's in
stability for instance was the result of a sensual character.
The nomad, fierce life of the Simeonites and Levites was
the natural consequence of a cruel disposition.
But there is a part of this remarkable chapter which we
cannot so get over : the prediction of Zebulon's future locality
by the seaside ; of the descent of the Saviour from Judah :
events both of which took place after the settlement in Canaan.
Here we are plainly out of the region of things cognizable by
sagacity, and have got into the sphere of the prophetic faculty.
Observe that five of these sons have their fortunes speci
fically told, and in detail ; the rest generally. We divide
the chapter therefore into these two divisions.
I. The five specific prophecies.
II, The general history.
r. The first of the specific prophecies is that respecting
Reuben, and is in two divisions : (1) an enumeration of his
original circumstantial advantages, contrasted (2) with the
destiny determined for himself by character.

176 Notes on Genesis.
(i) On the original advantages Jacob dwells minutely 5
"Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning
of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency
of power" (ver. 3). He lingers on his natural advantages
as if to say, " Compare what thou art with what thou mightest
have been ! " And it is full of bitter feeling to remember early
hopes and expectations formed of us, to think what we are,
and what we have not done ! And the lesson is, that it is not
privileges, but the use of privileges, that decides destiny. Your
fate is put by God into your own hands.
(2) Contrasted with this, which Reuben might have been, is
brought out sharply what he had made himself " Unstable as
water thou shalt not excel " (ver. 4). In the Epistle of St.
James we find a double minded man described in a similar
way, and a better illustration could not be ; for what is more
unstable than water, yielding, tempestuous, treacherous, fierce,
and feeble.
Observe this instability of Reuben's is traced to his life
of sensuality. Apparently there is no connection between
the two things, really there is the most close and intimate
connection. He who cannot command his passions has no
influence over others ; for the secret of rule is that a man
should be able to rule himself Only once do we hear of
Reuben giving advice; it was when he stood alone, and recom
mended his brethren to spare Joseph, and then his advice was
only partially taken. Such a man also is unable to excel in
anything ; for, of course, a mind tossed with passion and desire
is incapable of that steady perseverance to which success is given.
We see this characteristic in the entrance into Canaan. The

Lecture XXIX. 177
Reubenites ask for the land east of Jordan ; they cannot wait ;
they show the very characteristic of the man of sense who
always places the present above the future, the seen above
the unseen. They have not even ambition ; low and mean
are their tastes. Israel's honour and the glory of Israel's arms
are nothing to them. They want to enjoy now, and prefer
the gratifications of sense to those which charm nobler minds.
Compare again their conduct in Sisera's invasion. After
Israel's victory a heroic war song was chanted by Deborah.
It contains the account of the part which each of the tribes
took in the war (Jud. v. 15, 16). The tribe of Reuben went
not to the battle. Thus says Deborah : " Why abodest thou
among the sheepfolds : to hear the bleatings of the flocks ?
for the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of
heart" Reuben, as usual, was enjoying himself, instead of
fired with public spirit
Leam therefore : First, Self rule is the condition of influ
ence and success. Rule thyself, thou ralest aU. To subject
appetites is not a very high achievement; but for him who
has not attained that first, simplest step in Christian life, excel
lence is impossible.
Next, learn how sin adheres to character. Years had passed
since Reuben sinned. Probably he had forgotten what he had
done. It was but a single act But the act was not fixed
to the spot which witnessed its performance. It went in
wards, and made him irresolute, feeble, wretched, unstable.
So with every sin, whether one of weakness or of violence.
You are the exact result of all your past sins. There they are
in your character. There is not a nerve in your body which
N

178 Notes on Genesis.
is not different in consequence of the sin from what it would
have been had the sin not been committed. And there is not
a feehng nor a thought which is not at this moment marked
and modified by your guilt. So the past must be for ever
present with us.
2, 3. The second and third of whom Jacob uttered his
predictions were Simeon and Levi. They were charged with
immoderate revenge. Observe, not revenge alone. "Cursed
be their anger, for it was crueP' (ver. 7). Had they not felt
anger, had they not avenged, they had not been men. That
responsibility which is now shared between judge, jury, the
law, and the executioner, was necessarily in early ages sustained
alone by the avenger of blood. That instinct of indignation
which is now regularly expressed by law was then of necessity
expressed irregularly. I do not think they were to be blamed
for doing the avenger's justice. But they slew a whole tribe.
The sin committed by one man was avenged on the whole
nation ; they let their fury fall on the innocent cattle, for that
expression " they digged down a wall " is given thus in the
margin, " they houghed oxen," and nearly all commentators
are agreed that this is the true translation. The meaning
is that they cut the sinews of the brute beasts. Not satisfied
with wreaking their vengeance on man, they extended it
to the unoffending beasts. Now the penalty which fell on
them was of a very peculiar kind. It was said of them, " I
will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." This
has a plain meaning in Simeon's case, for his tribe was weak,
his territory divided : naturally so; for of course a ferocious wild
tribe would be like Arabs, scattered and unsettled. But in

Lecture XXIX. 179
Levi's case the prediction is not so intelligible as a penalty.
For Levi, though scattered in Israel, having no territorial
aUotment, was a peculiarly privileged tribe ; they were chosen
to be the tribe of priests. We consider this therefore as
one of the many, many cases in which a penalty is by grace
transmuted into a blessing. So too the curse of labour, now
the condition of mental and moral health; the subjection of
woman, made by meekness the school of heavenly humihty.
4. Predictions respecting Judah. Of him four things are
said. First, his brethren should praise him : " Thou art
he whom thy brethren shall praise " (ver. 8). There is here,
so to speak, a play upon the word, for Judah signifies praise.
Observe, the blessing which legitimately belonged to one
of his three elder brothers had fallen on the fourth. We
should have expected him to be envied rather than praised
by them. But there is a spirit which can disarm envy. It
is that meekness which hides its own superiority, seems
unconscious of it, and even shows that it feels more pain
in surpassing than others can feel in being surpassed. Such
persons may be superior and still praised. A rare and
honourable peculiarity. " The meek shall inherit the earth."
Earth's inheritance, its praise and its love, belongs to such.
Next, Judah is put forward as the type of the Hebrew hero.
He is represented under the similitude of a lion. " He stooped
down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall
rouse him up ? " (ver. 9.) It has been remarked, perhaps not
idly, that the simile is a lion couchant, not rampant Not the
strength of the oppressor, but that of one strong in right, the
majesty of defence : " who shall rouse him up ? " And, indeed,

i8o Notes on Genesis.
Judah's own character corresponds vsdth this. Remember his
self devotion in Benjamin's behalf (chap. xliv. 33). It is thus
only that courage is redeemed firom the mere brute qualities
which are common to the lion as well as to man, and ranked
with virtues properly Christian. Love and self devotion redeem
instincts. The third thing said respecting Judah brings us to the most
difficult passage in Scripture : " The sceptre shall not depart,"
etc. (ver. 10.) Of the many interpretations that have been given
of this only two are worth mentioning. According to the first
the passage is to be read thus : " The sceptre shall not depart
from Judah until he come to Shiloh, and the gathering shall
be to him there ; '' i.e., Judah's superiority over the other
tribes shall continue until he come to Shiloh, " and to it
the gathering of the tribes be." To understand this, see
Judges xviii. 10, where the final settlement of the tribes is
made at Shiloh ; the review and the measurement ; where the
ark rested ; and where, long afterwards, we find it (i Sam. i.) ;
while solemn sacrifices and yearly festivals are celebrated there.
The interpretation then runs thus. So long as Israel shall
assemble at Shiloh, and the tribes be gathered there, so long
shall Judah be superior to his brethren : a poetical way of
saying, for ages. The second interpretation is that commonly
admitted among Christians, according to which Shiloh is a
name for the Redeemer : Shiloh, the Pacificator, or Prince
of Peace. Much has been written to evade the difficulty
which arises from the fact that there was no king in Israel
when He came. But surely it is not needed. Ten tribes
disappeared. Of the remaining two, both merged themselves

Lecture XXIX. i8i
in Judah ; and the sceptre is only a figurative and poetical
name for nationality. Israel's nationality, merged in Judah,
lasted until Shiloh came. We are brought therefore to this
conclusion, that this is one of the first and clearest prophecies
of a Redeemer.
Apparentiy there is a contradiction between the term Shiloh
here used and the former metaphor of the lion. But a similar
contrast occurs, with great beauty, in Revelation v. 5, 6 : " Weep
not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed
. , , to open the book." Then comes the introduction of
the seer into His presence: "And I beheld, and lo !" — a
Hon? No — "a Lamb, as it had been slain." So that the two
harmoniously declare a truth. There is a strength of force ;
and there is another strength, the might and majesty of gentle
ness which is invincible through suffering, the glory of Him
who is the Lion and the slain Lamb, the Lion because the
Lamb. The fourth prediction respecting Judah has reference to his
temporal prosperity. His was to be a territory rich in vineyards
and pastures (ver. 11, 12). "Binding his foal unto the vine and
his ass's colt unto the choice vine ; he washed his garments in
wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes ; his eyes shall be
red with wine, and his teeth white with milk." It has been
said that prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, tribu
lation the specific promise of the New. But this is scarcely
true; in the New, as in the Old, temporal blessings follow
certain qualities of heart The laws of God remain unalter
able. The fifth commandment, "with promise," is quoted by
Paul as valid in the Christian dispensation still. And in the

1 82 Notes on Genesis.
sermon on the mount Christ says : " Blessed are the meek !
for they shall inherit the earth." The fact is not that the
consequences of right and wrong are changed, but that the
New Testament has brought out, with peculiar prominence,
a class of results of right doing which were only dimly visible
in the elder dispensation : the vision of God which belongs
to the pure in heart, the force which belongs to self control,
and others. And these have thrown into shadow the earthly
advantages of well doing, as the sun makes the stars invisible.
5. We now come to Joseph, the last of those five of whom we
have a special prediction. Here the whole tone of Jacob's
language changes. It is, in fact, no longer prediction which
he utters, but an exuberant description of what Joseph was
and had been. Take away the full and glowing prophecy of
general earthly happiness, and it is the natural result of such
a character. The future is judged from the past When he
comes to Joseph the father's whole heart overflows. Read
the whole, and you wUl see how the language swells into
fulness. He is first a vine. Then one who had been shot
at, injured, hurt but escaped with strength. Then comes a
burst of love and blessing.
Specially observe two things : —
(i.) An illustration in this blessing of the fulfilment and prin
ciple of the promise of the fifth commandment. Joseph's
peculiarity was filial obedience ; and his lot above his brethren
was distinguished by worldly success and honour. He was the
best governor Egypt had ever had. The two were, however,
connected. In childish obedience he leamed fitness for rule.
He who can obey well is the only one who can well command.

Lecture XXIX, 183
Self reverence, self knowledge, self control — these three alone
fit a man to be a ruler.
(2.) He had been "separate from his brethren " (ver. 26), and
doubtless it was better for him, though an apparent disadvan
tage. Education and admixture with equals are two good
things ; but sometimes the deprivation of these things is better.
He who is brought up like others often remains as others,
whereas there is an individuality of character in which the
angles have not been worn off, an originality, a difference from
other men which is learned when we are separated from our
brethren in stillness and solitude, in self education and lonely
struggle. II. General blessings on the seven remaining sons.
Probably the characteristic difference between these charac
ters so given was recognised then, though lost to us now ; just
as the difference between an inhabitant of Cumberland and
one of Sussex is clear to us contemporaries, but in a few cen
turies will have disappeared. Verse 13 : Zebulun, a maritime
power; Issachar, an agricultural tribe, remarkable for indus
try, peace (ver. 14, 15). Dan, remarkable for pohtical sagacity
(ver. 16, 17). Gad, a border tribe, exposed to danger, con
quering danger by perseverance (ver. 19). Naphtali, gifted
with eloquence (ver. 21). Asher, remarkable for plenty (ver. 20)
and Benjamin for strength (ver. 27).
Now observe in all these different characters the true prin
ciple of unity. They are not lost in one undistinguished
similarity, but each has its own peculiar characteristic : one
made up of seamen ; another of shepherds ; one warhke,
another cultivated; and so on. And yet, together, one.

184 Notes on Genesis.
Their twelve loaves of shewbread remained for ever before
the Lord on the altar, proclaiming their separateness, their
characteristic differences, and their unity in working out one
great purpose ; one in God by difference.
Apply this to Christian unity, and show how, by differences
between man and man, church and church, nation and nation,
the true organic unity is attained and kept.
Finally we have on all this chapter four reflections to
make. 1. Jacob's spiritual character, as tested by his ejaculation,
"I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord" (ver. 18). A
religious ejaculation from the dying patriarch breathless and
exhausted with speech. Our exact character is tested by our
spontaneous thoughts. Watch how the mind turns when
jjressure and coercion are taken off, and you know of what kind
it is. Thus sudden events, sudden pangs, accidents, etc., de
termine for us the state of our souls, and show us the high- water
mark of our spiritual attainment. From one man they wring a
curse ; from another, a slang expression ; from a third, a natu
ral prayer. Judge yourselves by this test. It would be dan
gerous to judge others always. But take it as a fair test of
Jacob's state.
2, See what is assumed in this personification of the tribes.
Judah, Simeon, Levi, are taken as the type of the future
career of their several tribes. Every man impresses his cha
racter on his descendants. Those of marked character, of
course, in a marked and perceptible way, so that m reading
Ishmael's history, " a wild man," etc., you have tne picture of
every Arab to the present day. In Abraham's peculiarity, — a

Lecticre XXIX. 185
man of faith — you have the peculiar history of Israel, a nation,
not of soldiers, nor statesmen, but of saints. But that which is
markedly true of each is true in a degree of all. The sin you
commit to-day will surely tell upon the structure, constitution,
and consequently moral state of all that shall rise out of your
stock and lineage to the end of time. Let us add that to the
innumerable motives for abstinence from sin.
3. Think of this father's feelings as his family gathered round
him. Over each of those children a mother's heart had bled and a
father's heart rejoiced. Their very names contained the record
of such feelings : " Reu-ben " — lo ! a son. Yes ; and, lo ! there
he is ; and what has he become ? Happy is it for Christian.
fathers now, that in looking round on their assembled children
they cannot read the future as Jacob did, that they are not able
to fix on each of their sons and say. This for God and that
for sin.
4. Lastly let us see here something that tells of the charac
ter of future judgment Have you ever attended the opening
of a will, where the bequests were large and unknown, and
seen the bitter disappointment and the suppressed anger ? Well;
conceive those sons listening to the unerring doom. Conceive
Reuben, or Simeon, or Levi listening to their father's words.
Yet the day will come when, on principles precisely similar,
our doom must be pronounced. Destiny is fixed by character,
and character is determined by separate acts. The sensual
life, and the passionate life, and the indolent life, each carries
with it its own eternity, by a law contained in our own con
stitution, unalterably : " He that is filthy, let him be filthy
stifl; and he that is holy let him be holy still." Brethren,

1 86 Notes on Genesis.
character determines eternity, acts determine character, and
acts are determined by what we are. Now, not next week ;
now, not to-morrow; for to-morrow may lead you to a grave.
Now let us turn unto the Lord and hve, for now is the ac
cepted time, now the day of salvation.

LECTURE XXX.
Sunday Afternoon, May i8, 1851.
Genesis 1. 12, 13.
THE commencement of the 49th chapter contains the
history of Jacob's predictions of the destinies of his
descendants. Very different was their lot; but there was
one thing common among them, that their destiny was not
according to original privilege, but to real character. It
is not because we are born Christians that we are members
of the etemal church of Christ In God's world there are
no favourites of heaven ; all is decided by character.
Now we divide the subject of this discourse into two
branches : first, the circumstances which preceded the death of
Jacob ; and afterwards, those which followed that death. Going
back to the conclusion of the last chapter, we find that all his
sons were personally blessed. In the 28th verse we read,
" every one according to his blessing he blessed them." This
might at first surprise us, for many of their privileges had been
forfeited. However there is given us here a great truth the
meaning of which becomes plain only by the gospel, and which
permits us to make this distinction between the penalty that
falls upon the sin (which is eternal) and that on the person
(which may not be etemal). Sin must be put down : if you
link yourself with sin, you too must be put down ; and if you
continue in sin, you must be crushed eternally with it But

1 88 Notes on Genesis.
in the mercy of God the gospel of Christ makes a distinc
tion between the person and the sin. There is in every one
of us two men, the Adam and the Christ. The Christian flees
from sin, renounces it will not acknowledge that it is part of
himself; he detests, abhors it ; he says, I fly from sin, help me
against myself; " Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee."
And he is forgiven.
We notice, secondly, Jacob's own conception of what death
is. He says, " I am to be gathered to my fathers " (ver. 29).
Observe here the human associations that gather round his idea
of death. He fills the world beyond with his own race. We
do the same. We people the world to come with those we have
loved; without this we cannot form any conception of the
future world. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus we
read that Lazarus was seen in Abraham's bosom. We might
have thought it a more spiritual conception to have repre
sented him as floating in the Etemal Light of God; but
the Redeemer teaches not so. It is an unreal state of
mind which is fostered when we teach that spirituality is
gained by a yearning for the world to come. While this
world contains those we love, to yearn after immortality is not
spirituality but dissatisfaction and almost rebellion. We desire
to change those duties which are ours for those which are not
ours. Is that submission ? Shall we say that we are grateful to
our Heavenly Father when we despise and spurn the things He
has given us here to love ? But when the home here has been
transplanted there, when in the world to come there are those

Lecture XXX. 189
whom we have lost, then to long to change this world for
another is spiritual, because natural. God has given us the
hope of another world, not to be continually hankering after it,
but rather to be a support and stay in trouble, as Jacob here
found it. Thus, every loss becomes God's gracious means of
transplanting our affections from here to there.
We pass on now to consider Jacob's death, and the circum
stances which followed it The way in which he prepared for
death is thus described, " he gathered his feet into the bed "
(ver. 33),in other words,he prepared for death. He met death, he
was not overtaken by it It was not as if death had said to him,
"Thou shalt come"; but as if he had said to death, "I will come."
It is the unwilling necessity of death that makes it so terrible.
I speak not now of the sting of death, but merely of the act
of dying. The readiness to meet it which faith in Christ
bestows is alone able to disarm it of its fearfulness. Thus,
with the jailer at Philippi, he was ready and willing to die, so
long as it seemed in his own power ; but as soon as the earth
quaked, and he felt he had in it no power, he cried out as a
very coward, " What must I do to be saved ? "
We next observe the mourning that followed Jacob's death,
and this leads us to the 5Qth chapter. It was twofold, public
and private. We are in the first verse told in touching language
of the grief of Joseph : "and Joseph fell upon his father's face,
and wept upon him, and kissed him." He had brought his
children and listened calmly to his father's words; but when
the last spark of hfe was gone his feelings gave way, and he
wept We next observe the public mourning, the description
of which is given in the ninth and tenth verses : " and there went

igo Notes on Genesis.
up with him both chariots and horsemen ; and it was a very
great company. And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad,
which is beyond Jordan, and there they moumed." There are
those who, in a utihtarian spirit tell us that all this was a waste
of time and of labour. In reply to which we say that these
things, if they be a waste of time and wealth, at least do
something of which utilitarianism takes no thought Look, for
example, at the mourning ; what did it ? It produced faith, it
strengthened feeling, it gave time for the hearts of men to
pause from this busy world of life and think of the world to
come ; and unless this inner life be going on, national wealth
is but a mockery.
Jacob was embalmed, according to the custom of Egypt.
This was done to retard the progress of cormption; for so long
as the body was there, their friend seemed still among them.
In that we find an intimation of immortality.
There now remains only one subject in the book for our consi
deration — the last forgiveness of Joseph to his brethren, which
we reserve for a morning sermon rather than an afternoon ex
position. At the close of a lecture it is impossible to give a
review of the whole book ; I therefore reserve it until next
Sunday, when, by God's blessing, I shall hope to bring it before
you.

LECTURE XXXI.
(preached ON THE FIKST DAY OF PUBLIC MOURNING FOR
THE QUEEN DOWAGER, 1 849.)
THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE IN A FOREIGN
LAND.*
"And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die : and God will surely visit
you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which He sware to Abra
ham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of
Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones
from hence. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old : and
they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." — Genesis
1. 24 — 26.
' I ^HERE is a moment when a man's life is re-lived on earth.
-*- It is in that hour in which the coffin lid is shut down,
just before the funeral, when earth has seen the last of him for
ever. Then the whole life is, as it were, lived over again in

* This Sermon was formerly published by the Author in a separate form,
and the following Preface to that publication explains so well the circum
stances under which all the other Sermons have been preserved, that it has
been thought best to reprint the Preface here.
" For the publication of the commonplace observations contained in the
following pages, the commonplace excuse may perhaps suffice, that
printing was the simplest way of multiplying copies foj a few friends who
desired them. Perhaps too the uncommonness of the occasion may justify
the writer in giving to an ephemeral discourse an existence somewhat less
transient than the minutes spent in listening to it.
' ' The sermon is published as nearly as possible as it was spoken. It
was written out concisely for a friend on the day of its delivery, ^jfith no
intention of publication. Afterwards, it seemed better to leave it in that

192 Notes on Genesis.
the conversation which turns upon the memory of the departed.
The history of' threescore years and ten is soon recapitulated :
not, of course, the innumerable incidents and acts which they
contained, but the central governing principle of the whole.
Feverish curiosity sometimes spends itself upon the last hours ;
and a few correct sentences, implying faith after the orthodox
phraseology, would convey to some greater hope than a whole
life breathing the Spirit of Christ, separate from such sentences.
But it is not thus the Bible speaks. It tells us very httle of the
closing scene, but a great deal of the general tenor of a life.
In truth, the closing scene is worth very little. The felon
who, up to the last fortnight, has shown his impenitence by the
plea of not guilty, in the short compass of that fortnight makes
a confession, as a matter of course exhibits the externals of
penitence, and receives the Last Supper. But it would be
credulity, indeed, to be easily persuaded that the eternal state
of such a one is affected by it. A life of holiness sometimes
mysteriously terminates in darkness ; but it is not the bitterest
cries of forsakenness, so often the result of physical exhaus
tion, nor even blank despair, that shall shake our deep convic-

state, vrith only a few corrections, and the addition of a few sentences, than
to attempt to re-write it after an interval too great to recall what had been
said. This will account for the abruptness and want of finish which per
vades the composition.
"The writer takes this opportunity of disowning certain sermons which
have been published in his name. They would not have been worth notice,
had not the innumerable blunders of thought and expression which they
contain been read and accepted by several as his. For this reason he
feels it due to himself to state that they are published without his sanction,
and against his request, and that he is not responsible for either the language
or the ideas."

Lecture XXXI. 193
tion that he whose faith shone brightly through life is now safe
in the Everlasting" arms. The dying scene is worth little,
little at least to us, except so far as it is in harmony with the
rest of hfe.
It is for this reason that the public estimate pronounced upon
the departed is generally a fair criterion of worth. There are,
of course, exceptional cases : cases in which the sphere of
action has been too limited for the fair development of
the character, and nothing but the light of the judgment day
can reveal it in its trae aspect ; cases in which party spirit has
defaced a name, and years are wanted to wash away the mask
of false colour which has concealed the genuine features ; cases
in which the champion of truth expires amidst the execrations
of his contemporaries, and after ages build his sepulchre.
These, however, are exceptions. For the most part, when all
is over, general opinion is not far from truth. Misrepresenta
tion and envy have no provocatives left them. What the
departed was is tolerably well known in the circle in which he
moved. The epitaph may be falsified by the partiahty of
relations ; but the broad judgment of society reverses that,
rectifies it, and pronounces with perhaps a rude, but on the
whole fair, approximation to the trath.
These remarks apply to the history of the man whose final
scene is recorded in the text The verdict of the Egyptian
world was worth much. Joseph had gone to Egypt, some
years before, a foreigner ; had lived there in obscurity ; had
been exposed to calumny; by his quiet, consistent goodness,
had risen, step by step, first to respect, then to trast, command,
and veneration ; was embalmed after death in the affections, as
o

194 Notes on Genesis.
well as with the burial rites, of the Egyptians; and his
honoured form reposed at last amidst the burial place of the
Pharaohs. In this respect the text branches into a twofold division.
The life of Joseph ; and the death which was in accordance
with that life.
' I. The history of Joseph, as of every man, has two sides:
its outward circumstances and its inner life.
The outward circumstances were chequered with misfortune.
Severed from his home in very early years, sold into slavery,
cast into prison, at first grief seemed to have marked him for
her own. And this is human life. Part of its lot is misery.
There are two inadequate ways of accounting for this mystery of
sorrow. One, originating in a zeal for God's justice, represents
it as invariably the chastisement of sin, or at the least as
correction for fault. But, plainly, it is not always such.
Joseph's griefs were the consequences, not of fault, but of
rectitude. The integrity which, on some unknown occasion,
made it his duty to carry his brethren's " evil report " to their
father, was the occasion of his slavery. The purity of his life
was the cause of his imprisonment. Fault is only a part of the
history of this great matter of sorrow. Another theory,
created by zeal for God's love, represents sorrow as the
exception, and happiness as the rule of life. We are made
for enjoyment, it is said, and on the whole there is more
enjoyment than wretchedness. The common idea of love '
being that which identifies it with a simple wish to confer
happiness, no wonder that a feeble attempt is made to
Vindicate God, by a reduction of the apparent amount of pain.

Lecture XXXI. 195
Unquestionably however, love is very different from a desire to
shield from pain. Eternal love gives to painlessness a very
subordinate place in comparison of excellence of character.
It does not hesitate to secure man's spiritual dignity at the
expense of the sacrifice of his well being.
The solution will not do. Let us look the truth in the face.
You cannot hide it from yourself " Man is born to sorrow
as the sparks fly upwards." Sorrow is not an accident
occurring now and then ; it is the very woof which is woven
into the warp of life. God has created the nerves to agonize,
and the heart to bleed ; and before a man dies, almost every
nerve has thrilled with pain, and every affection has been
wounded. The account of life which represents it as proba
tion is inadequate : so is that which regards it chiefly as a
system of rewards and punishments. The truest account of
this mysterious existence seems to be that it is intended for the
development of the soul's life, for which sorrow is indispensable.
Every son of man who would attain the true end of his being
must be baptized with fire. It is the law of our humanity, as
that of Christ, that we must be perfected through suffering.
And he who has not discerned the Divine Sacredness of Sorrow,
and the profound meaning which is concealed in pain, has yet
to learn what life is. The Cross, manifested as the Necessity
of the Highest Life, alone interprets it
2. Besides this, obloquy was part of Joseph's portion. His
brethren, even his father, counted him a vain dreamer, full of
proud imaginings. He languished long in a dungeon with a
stain upon his character. He was subjected to almost all the
bitterness which changes the milk of kindly feelings into gall :

196 Notes on Genesis,
to Potiphar's fickleness, to slander, to fraternal envy, to the
ingratitude of friendship in the neglect of the chief butler who
left his prison and straightway forgot his benefactor. Out of
all which a simple lesson arises, " Cease ye from man, whose
breath is in his nostrils." Yet that may be over-stated. No
thing chills the heart like universal distrust Nothing freezes
the genial current of the soul so much as doubts of human
nature. Human goodness is no dream. Surely we have met
unselfishness, and love, and honour among men. Surely we
have seen, and not in dreams, pure benevolence beaming from
human countenances. Surely we have met with integrity that
the world's wealth could not bribe, and attachment which
might bear the test of any sacrifice. It is not so much the
depravity as the frailty of men, that makes it impossible to
count on them. Was it not excusable in Jacob, and even
natural, if he attributed to vanity his son's relation of the dream
in which the sun, and the moon, and the eleven stars, bowed
dovm before him ? Was it not excusable if Potiphar dis
trusted his tried servant's word, when his guilt appeared so
indisputably substantiated ? Was not even the chief butler's
forgetfulness intelligible, when you remember his absorbing
interest in his own danger and the multiplied duties of his
office? The world is not to be too severely blamed, if it
misrepresents us. It is hard to reach the tmth, very hard to
sift a slander.
Men who beheve such rumours, especially in courtly life,
may be ignorant hasty, imperfect, but are not necessarily
treacherous. Yet, even while you keep this in mind, that the
heart may not be soured, remember your dearest friend may

Lecture XXXI, 197
fail you in the crisis ; a trath of experience was wrapped up in
the old fable, and the thing you have fostered in your bosom
may wound you to the quick ; the one you have trasted may
become your accuser, and throw his own blame with dastard
meanness upon you. That was the experience of Joseph.
Was not that His fate who trusted Judas ? There is One, and
but One, whose Love is as a rock, which will not fail you when
you cling. It is a fearful, solitary feeling, that lonely truth of
life; yet not without a certain strength and grandeur in it
The life that is the deepest and the truest will feel most vividly
both its desolation and its majesty. We live and die alone.
God and our own Souls — we fall b^ck upon them at last
" Behold, the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be
scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone;
and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."
3. Success, besides, marked the career of Joseph. Let us
not take half views of men and things. The woof of life is
dark ; that we granted : but it is shot through a web of bright
ness. Accordingly, in Joseph's case, even in his worst days,
you find a kind of balance, to be weighed against his sorrows.
The doctrine of compensation is found through all. Amidst
the schemings of his brothers' envy he had 'his father's love.
In his slavery he had some recompence in feeling that he was
gradually winning his master's confidence. In his dungeon he
possessed the consciousness of innocence, and the grateful
respect of his fellow prisoners.
In that beautiful hymn which some of you read last Sunday,*
• Keble's " Christian Year :" Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.

198 Notes on Genesis.
you may remember that a parallel is drawn between human
life and the aspects of the weather. The morning rainbow,
glittering among the dangerous vapours of the west, predicts
that the day will not unclouded pass away. The evening
rainbow declares that the storms are past, and that serene
weather is setting in. Such is the life of all whom God
disciplines. The morning or the evening brightness is the
portion of a life, the rest of which is storm. Rarely are the
manful struggles of principle in the first years of life suffered to
be in vain. Joseph saw the early clouds which darkened the
morning of his existence pass away; and the rainbow of
heavenly peace arched over the calmness of his later years.
"The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.''
And it is for this special purpose it is written, " And Joseph saw
Ephraim's children of the third generation ; the children also
of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up on Joseph's
knees." Long life, and honoured old age, a quiet grave ;
these were the blessings reckoned desirable in Jewish modes
of thought : and they are mentioned as evidences of Joseph's
happiness. And this, too, is Life. The sorrows of the past stand out
most vividly in our recollections, because they are the keenest
of our sensations. At the end of a long existence we should
probably describe it thus, " few and evil have the days of the
years of thy servant been." But the innumerable infinitesimals
of happiness that from moment to moment made life sweet and
pleasant are forgotten; and very richly has our Father mixed
the materials of these with the homeliest actions and domesti
cities of existence. See two men meeting together in the streets-

Lecture XXXI, 199
mere acquaintances. They will not be five minutes together
before a smile will overspread their countenances, or a merry
laugh ring of, at the lowest, amusement This has God done.
God created the smile and the laugh, as well as the sigh and the
tear. The aspect of this life is stern, very stern. It is a very
superficial account of it which slurs over its grave mystery, and
refuses to hear its low, deep undertone of anguish. But there
is enough, from hour to hour, of bright, sunny happiness, to
remind us that its Creator's highest name is Love.
Now turn to the spirit of Joseph's inner hfe. First of all,
that life was forgiveness. You cannot but have remarked that
conversant as his experience was with human treachery, no
expressions of bitterness escape from him. No sentimental
wailing over the cruelty of relations, the falseness of friendship,
or the ingratitude of the world. No rancorous outburst of
misanthropy : no sarcastic scepticism of man's integrity or
woman's honour. He meets all bravely, with calm, meek,
and dignified forbearance. If ever man had cause for such
doubts, he had ; yet his heart was never soured. At last, after
his father's death, his brothers, apprehending his resentiul re
collections of their early craelty, come to deprecate his revenge.
Very touching is his reply. " Fear not : for am I in the place
of God ? But as for you, ye thought evil against me : but God
meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save
much people alive. Now.therefore, fear ye not : I will nourish
you and your little ones."
This is the Christian spirit before the Christian times,
Christ was in Joseph's heart, though not definitely in Joseph's
creed. The Etemal Word whispered in the souls of men

200 Notes on Genesis.
before it spoke articulately aloud in the Incarnation. It was
the Divine Thought before it became the Divine Expression.*
It was the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the
world, before it blazed into the Day-spring from on high which
visited us. The Mind of Christ the Spirit of the years yet
future, blended itself with life before He came ; for His words
were the Eternal Verities of our humanity. In all ages love
is the truth of fife. Men cannot injure us except so far as they
exasperate us to forget ourselves. No man is really dishonoured
except by his own act. Calumny, injustice, ingratitude — the
only harm these can do us is by making us bitter, or
rancorous, or gloomy ; by shutting our hearts or souring our
affections. We rob them of their power if they only leave us
more sweet and forgiving than before. And this is the only
true victory. We win by love. Love transmutes all curses,
and forces them to rain down in blessings. Out of the jealousy
of his brothers Joseph extracted the spirit of forgiveness. Out
of Potiphar's weak injustice, and out of the machinations of
disappointed passion, he created an opportunity of learning
meekness. Our enemies become unconsciously our best
friends, when their slanders deepen in us heavenlier graces.
Let them do their worst ; they only give us the Godlike
victory of forgiving them.
2. Distinguished from the outward circumstances, we find
simplicity of character : partly in the willingness to acknowledge
his shepherd father in Egypt, where the pastoral life was an
abomination ; partly in that incidental notice which we have
"Aoyos f'l/Si MfToi^jcooiiopiicos,

Lecture XXXI, 201
of the feast at which he entertained his brethren, where the
Egyptians sat at a table by themselves and Joseph by
himself So that, elevated as he was, his heart remained
Hebrew still. He had contracted a splendid alliance, by
marrying into one of the noblest families in Egypt, that of
Potipherah the priest of On. And yet he had not forgotten
his country, nor sought to be naturalized there. His heart was
in that far land where he had fed his father's flocks in his
simple, genial boyhood. The divining cup of Egyptian silver
was on his table ; but he remembered the days when the only
splendour he knew was that coat of many colours which was
made for him by his father. He bore a simple, unsophisticated
heart amidst the pomp of an Egyptian court.
There is a great mistake made on the subject of simplicity.
There is one simplicity of circumstances ; another simplicity of
heart These two must not be confounded. It is common to
talk of the humble poor man, and the proud rich man. Let
not these ideas be inseparably blended together. There is
many a man who sits down to a meal of bread and milk on a
wooden table, whose heart is as proud as the proudest whose
birth is royal ; there is many a one whose voice is heard in
the public meeting, loudly descanting on legal tyranny and
aristocratic insolence, who in his own narrow circle is as
much a tyrant as any oppressor who ever disgraced the throne.
And there is many a man who sits down to daily pomp, to
whom gold and silver are but as brass and tin, and who bears
in the midst of it all a meek, simple spirit and a "heart
refrained as a weaned child"; many a man who lives sur
rounded with homage, and hearing the applause and flattery

202 Notes on Genesis
of men perpetually, on whose heart these things fall flat and
dea'd, without raising one single emotion of fluttered vanity.
The world cannot understand this. They cannot believe
that Joseph can be humble, while he is conscious of such
elevation above the crowd of men, not even dreaming of it.
They cannot understand how carelessly these outsides of life
can be worn, and how they faU off Hke the unregarded and
habitual dress of daily life. They cannot know how the spirit
ef the cross can crucify the world, make grandeur painful, and
calm the soul with a vision of the Eternal Beauty. They
cannot dream how His life and death, once felt as the grandest,
write mockery on all else, and fill the soul with an ambition
which is above the world. It is not the unjewelled finger :
nor the affectation of an almost quakerish simplicity of attire :
nor the pedestrian mode of travelling : nor the scanty meal :
that constitute humility. It is that simple, inner life of real
greatness, which is indifferent to magnificence, and, surrounded
by it all, lives far away in the distant country of a Father's
Home, with the cross borne silently and self sacrificingly in
the heart of hearts.
3. One characteristic of Joseph's inner life remains —
benevolence. It was manifested in the generosity with
which he entertained his brethren, and in the discriminating
tenderness with which he provided his best beloved brother's
feast with extraordinary delicacies. These were traits of
thoughtfulness. But farther stih. The prophetic insight of
Joseph enabled him to foresee the approach of famine. He
took measures accordingly ; and when the famine came, the
royal storehouses were opened, and every man in Egypt owed

Lecture XXXI. 203
his life to the benevolent providence of the Hebrew stranger.
It was productive of a great social revolution. It brought, by
degrees, all the land of Egypt into the power of the crown, so
that a kind of feudal system was established, every man
holding in direct tenancy from the crown. Hence the nation
became compacted into a new unity, and power was concen
trated in the hands of government, partly by the pecuniary
revenue thus added, and partly by the lustre of goodness
which Joseph had thrown round the royal acts. For acts like
these are the real bulwarks of a throne. One such man as
Joseph does more to strengthen the crown than all the
speculations, solemn or trifling, which were ever written on the
"divine right of kings." There is a right divine which
requires no elaborate theory to make it felt
II. The death of Joseph was in accordance with his life.
I. The funeral was a homage paid to goodness. Little is
said in the text of Joseph's funeral. To know what it was, we
must turn to the earlier part of the chapter, where that of
Jacob is mentioned. A mouming of seventy days ; a funeral
whose imposing greatness astonished the Canaanites, they
said, " This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians.''
Seventy days were the time, or nearly so, fixed by custom for a
royal funeral ; and Jacob was so honoured, not for his own
sake, but because he was Joseph's father. We cannot suppose
that Joseph's own obsequies were on a scale less grand.
Now, weigh what is implied in this. This was not the
homage paid to talent, nor to wealth, nor to birth. Joseph was
a foreign slave, raised to eminence by the simple power of

204 Notes on Genesis.
goodness. Every man in Egypt feh, at his death, that he had
lost a friend. There were thousands whose tears would fall
when they recounted the preservation of lives dear to them in
the years of famine, and felt that they owed those lives to
Joseph. Grateful Egypt mourned the Good Foreigner; and,
for once, the honours of this world were given to the graces of
another. 2. We collect from this, besides, a hint of the resurrection
of the body. The Egyptian mode of sepulture was embalming ;
and the Hebrews, too, attached much importance to the body
after death. Joseph commanded his countrymen to preserve
his bones to take away with them. In this we detect that
unmistakable human craving, not only for immortality, but
immortality associated with a form. No doubt, the Egyptian
feeling was carried out absurdly. They tried to redeem from
the worm the very aspect that had been worn, the very
features they had loved ; and there was a kind of feeling that,
while that mummy lasted, the man had not yet perished from
earth. They expected that, in process of years, it would again
be animated by its spirit.
Now Christianity does not disappoint, but rather meets,
that feeling. It grants all. that the materiahst, and all that the
spiritualist, have a right to ask. It grants to the materiahst,
by the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, that future life
shall be associated with a material form. Leaving untouched
all the questions which may be raised about the identity of the
atoms that have been buried, it simply pronounces that the
spirit shall have a body. It grants to the spiritualist all he
ought to wish, that the spirit shall be free from evU. For it is

Lecture XXXI. 205
a mistake of ultra spiritualism to connect degradation with the
thought of a risen body ; or to suppose that a mind, unbound
by the limitations of space, is a more spiritual idea of resurrec
tion than the other.
The opposite to spirituaHty is not materialism, but sin. The
form of matter does not degrade. For what is this world itself
but the form of Deity, whereby the manifoldness of His mind
and beauty manifests, and wherein it clothes itself? It is idle
to say that spirit can exist apart from form. We do not know
that it can. Perhaps even the Etemal Himself is more closely
bound to His works than our philosophical systems have
conceived. Perhaps matter is only a mode of thought At
all events, all that we know or can know of mind exists in
union with form. The resurrection of the body is the
Christian verity, which meets and satisfies those cravings of
the ancient Egyptian mind, that expressed themselves in
the process of embalming, and the religious reverence felt for
the very bones of the departed by the Hebrews.
Finally, in the last will and testament of Joseph we find
faith. He commanded his brethren, and through them his
nation, to carry his bones with them when they migrated to
Canaan. In the Epistle to the Hebrews that is reckoned an
evidence of faith. " By faith Joseph gave commandment
conceming his bones." How did he know that his people
would ever quit Egypt ? We reply, by faith. Not faith in a
written word, for Joseph had no Bible ; rather, faith in that
conviction of his own heart which is itself the substantial
evidence of faith. For religious faith ever dreams of some
thing higher, more beautiful, more perfect, than the state of

2o6 Notes on Genesis.
things with which it feels itself surrounded. Ever, a day future
lies before it ; the evidence for which is its own hope. Abra
ham, by that creative faith, saw the day of Christ, and was glad.
Joseph saw his family in prosperity, even in affiuence ; but he
felt that this was not their rest. A higher life than that of
affluence, a nobler destiny than that of stagnant rest, there
must be for them in the future ; else all the anticipations of a
purer earth, and a holier world, which imagination bodied forth
within his soul, were empty dreams, not the intuitions of God's
Spirit. It was this idea of perfection, which was "the sub
stance of things hoped for," that carried him far beyond the
period of his own death, and made him feel himself a partaker
of his nation's blessed future.
And that is the evidence of immortality. When the coffin is
lowered into the grave, and the dull, heavy sound of earth
falling on it is heard, there are some to whom that sound seems
but an echo of their worst anticipations ; seems but to reverbe
rate the idea of decay for ever, in the words, " Earth to earth,
ashes to ashes, dust to dust'' There are others, to whom it
sounds pregnant with the expectations of immortality, the
" sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life." The
difference between these two feelings is measured by the
difference of lives. They whose life is low and earthly, how
can they believe in aught beyond the grave, when nothing of
that life which is eternal has yet stirred within them ? They
vvho have lived as Joseph lived, just in proportion to their
purity and their unselfishness, must believe it. They cannot
but believe it. The eternal existence is already pulsing in
their veins ; the hfe of trust and high hope, and sublime long-

Lecture XXXI. i207
ings after perfection, with which the decay of the frame has
nothing at all to do. That is gone — ^yes — but it was not that
life in which they lived ; and when it finished, what had that ruin
to do with the destruction of the Immortal ?
For what is our proof of immortality ? Not the analogies of
nature ; the resurrection of nature from a winter grave, or the
emancipation of the butterfly. Not even the testimony to the
fact of risen dead ; for who does not know how shadowy and
unsubstantial these intellectual proofs become in unspiritual
frames of mind ? No, the life of the spirit is the evidence.
Heaven begun is the living proof that makes the heaven to
come credible. " Christ in you " is "the hope of glory." It is
the eagle eye of faith which penetrates the grave, and sees far
into the tranquil things of death. He alone can believe in
immortality who feels the resurrection in him already.
There is a special application to be made of this subject to
our hearts. It is not often that the pulpit can be used for a
funeral eulogium. Where Christ is to be exalted in solitary
pre-eminence, it is but rarely that the praise of man may be
heard. Rank, royalty itself could not command from the lips
of a minister of the King of kings one syllable of adulatory,
undeserved, or unfelt homage. But there are cases in which
to loftiness of birth is added dignity of character ; and then we
gladly relax the rule, to pay a willing tribute to the majesty of
goodness. There is one to whom your thoughts must have reverted
often during the history which we have been going through,
suggesting a parallel, all the mote delicately felt from the
absence of direct allusion, l^hat royal Lady, for whose loss

2o8 Notes on Genesis.
the marvellous uniformity of the unbroken funeral hue which
pervades this congregation tells eloquently of general mourn
ing, came to this land a few years ago, like Joseph, a foreigner.
Like Joseph, the earlier years of her sojourn were spent in
comparative obscurity. Like Joseph, she had her share of
calumny, though in a different form. There are many here
who can remember that in that year when our political feuds
had attained the acme of rancour, the irreverent lip of party
slander dared to breathe its rank venom upon the name of one
of the gentlest that ever adorned a throne. There are some
who know how that unpopularity was met : with meekness —
with Christian forgiveness — with quiet dignity — with that
composure which is the highest result and evidence of strength.
Like Joseph, she passed through the temptations of a court
with unsullied spotlessness ; like Joseph, the domestic and
social relationships were sustained with beautiful fidelity ; like
Joseph, she lived down opposition, outlived calumny ; like
Joseph, she used the noble income entrusted to her, in acts of
almost unexampled munificence; like Joseph, her life was
chequered with sorrow, and when the clouds of earher diffi
culties had cleared away, the rainbow sign of peace, even in the
midst of broken health, spanned the calmness of her evening
years ; like Joseph, she will have a regal burial, and her ashes
wiU repose with the dust of England's princes, amidst the
mourning of the nation in which she found a home.
The homage which is given to her is not the homage yielded
to rank, or wealth, or genius. There will be silver on her
coffin, and magnificence in the pageantry which attends her to
the grave ; but it is not in these that the glory of her funeral

Lecture XXXI. 209
lies.* These were the privileges of the most profligate of her
ancestors as well as her. These are the world's rewards for
those whom she delights to honour. There will be something
in her funeral, beside which these things are mean. There is
a grandeur in a nation's tears ; and they will be shed in un
feigned reverence over the remains of a'l that was most
queenly, and all that was most womanly. No pohtical fervour
mixes with her obsequies. She stood identified with no party
pohtics; no pecuhar rehgious party mourns its patroness.
Of all our jarring religious sects, in the Church, and out of it,
not one dares to claim her as its own. Her spirit soared above
these things. It is known that she scarcely recognised them.
All was lost in the sublimer name of Christian. It is a
Christian who has passed from this earth away, to take her
place in the general Assembly and Church of the firstborn : to
stand before God, the Judge of all, among the spirits of the
just made perfect
One word more. Honouring the Queen, profoundly
reverencing the Woman, let not contemplation stop there.
Do not bury thought in the human and finite. Mildly as her
lustre shone on earth, remember it was but one feeble ray of
the Light that is Uncreated. All that she had she received.
If we honour her, it is to adore Him who made her what she
was. Of His fulness she had received, and grace for grace.
What she was she became through adoring faith in Christ It

* This anticipation has not been realized. In one of the most touchino-
and unaffected documents that ever went right home to English hearts, the
Queen of a British Sovereign requested to be borne to the grave as the
wife of a sailor.

2IO Notes on Genesis.
is an elevating thing to gaze on human excellence, because
through it the Highest becomes conceivable. It is a spirit-
stirring thing to see saintiy goodness asserting its celestial
origin by turning pale the lustre of the highest earthly rank.
For in this universal mourning our noble country has not
bowed the knee in reverence to the majesty which is of time.
Every heart in England has felt that the Sovereign was merged
in the servant of Christ "The king's daughter was all
glorious within." Hers was CJmstian goodness. Her eyes
had beheld the King in His beauty, and therefore her life was
beautiful, and feminine, and meek, and simple. It was all
derived beauty. She had robed herself in Christ " Reflecting
back, as from a burnished mirror, the glory of the Lord, she
was changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord." *

Subjoined are the directions given by her late Majesty for her own
funeral. The reader will be glad to have them preserved in a form less
inconvenient than the columns of a newspaper. Should he be one who feels
it a relief to miss, for once, the worn-out conventionalisms of religious
expression, and come in contact with something fresh and living, he will
find more in these quiet lines than in ten sermons ; more to make a very
happy tear start ; more of the simplicity and the beauty of the life in God ;
more to cool the feverishness of his heart, and still its worldliness into
silence; more of that deep rest into which the meek and humble enter;
more that will make him long to be simple and inartificial, and real, as
Christ was, desiring only, in life and death, and judgment, to be found in
Him.

* 2 Cor. iii. 18. This appears to be the true force and rendering of the
metaphor.

Lecture XXXI. 2ii
[Copy.]
" I die in all humility, knowing well that we are all alike before the
Throne of God, and request therefore that my mortal remains be conveyed
to the grave without any pomp or state. They are to be moved to St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, where I request to have as private and quiet a
funeral as possible.
"I particularly desire not to be laid out in state, and the funeral to take
place by daylight, no procession, the coffin to be carried by sailors to the
chapel. " All those of my friends and relations, to a limited number, who wish to
attend, may do so. My nephew. Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar, Lords
Howe and Denbigh, the Hon. WiUiam Ashley, Mr. Wood, Sir Andrew
Barnard, and Sir. D. Davis, with my dressers, and those of my ladies who
may wish to attend.
" I die in peace, and wish to be carried to the tomb in peace, and free
from the vanities and the pomp of this world.
' ' I request not to be dissected, nor embalmed ; and desire to give as
little trouble as possible. (Signed) "ADELAIDE R.
"November, 1849."

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