the Missouri, the Tiber, and the Thames, God has been with his Church. By the martyr's flame and by the missionary's grave, wherever a saint has suffered, or a preacher of the truth has spoken, there God has been present to sustain the one, and to sanctify and bless the utterance of the other. The very existence of the Church of Christ is the result of God's pledged presence with it. If it had not been for his presence, it would have been extinguished long ago. Policy has tried to circumvent it; power to crush it; but neither has succeeded. A spark in the waves, but it has not been quenched a flower in the desert, and yet it is not trodden down or destroyed. It has been in circumstances where no human thing could live, and yet it has prospered. And in every chapter of its history, in every phase of its varied and wonderful experience, we have abundant evidence that God has been with it. The flame, when it consumed its martyrs, consumed not the principles for which they suffered; and the very smoke that rose from their funeral pyres wafted the truths they taught from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. Most true is the promise claimed as the monopoly of the Apostasy, but pledged as the privilege of the Church of Christ, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Let us see, my dear friends, that we are not strong in our strength, but in the strength of God. Let us not fear; not because we have influence, but because we have the presence of God. Let us feel how appropriate is that Psalm, which the great reformer sang, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles

of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early."

Is this God your God by your deliberate election, by your deliberate declaration, when no ear could hear but God's, and no eye could see but God's? Can you say, He is mine, and I am his? If you can, it is evidence that he has called, for your answer is but the response to his previous call. Your following is the evidence that he draws you. Your choice of him is the proof that he has chosen you. And happy are the people who have chosen the God of Abraham to be their God; his presence shall go with them, and, finally, when heart and flesh shall faint and fail, it will only be to be introduced into his more immediate presence, where there is fulness of joy, and where there are pleasures for evermore.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ISAAC'S CHARACTER HIS REQUEST TO ESAU REBEKAH'S SINFUL CONNIVANCE- JACOB'S HYPOCRISY AND DECEPTION THESE BEACONS THE BIRTH-RIGHT- DECEPTION DETECTED

NOT PRECEDENTS

ESAU'S SORROW HIS HOPELESS CRY-ESAU'S HOPE.

THE chapter I have read is one of the most painful passages found in the whole of the Old Testament history. It is from beginning to end a scene of duplicity, of falsehood, and of sin. The record is here, but not the approbation; man's sin is here, not God's approval of it. The simple facts are stated with the faithfulness of impartial history; it is left for the sequel of that history to show the sure retributions that overtook those who were accomplices or partners in the sinful transactions enumerated, as well as those who played the chief part in them.

The biography of Isaac seems to be that of a quiet, a domestic, and retiring old man. All the excellence that distinguished him seems to have consisted in his being warmly attached to Rebekah his wife, a lover of his home and its quiet joys, and in the devoted attention he always showed to his children; but he seems to have been endowed with very little mental energy or social influence. In no transcendent respect was he distinguished among the patriarchs of ancient history. He was a link in that chain from which the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, was to descend, and apparently

no more.

It appears here, that when old age overtook him, and “his eyes were dim, so that he could not see," he called his son Esau, and said that he wished to have some food prepared for

him before he died, such as he knew was agreeable to his taste, and so savory, as it is called, and, as is often the character of Indian and Eastern preparations, as might suit the worn-out and jaded palate of an aged and a dying man. Perhaps he had in early days studied his palate too intently.

We are told that Rebekah heard the order given to Esau by his blind and aged father, and instantly resolved to practise a deception for securing the blessing to Jacob, of which she herself was the first in subsequent history to repent. She told Jacob, whom she loved, to go and personate Esau, whom she rather disliked, and to pretend to be the elder brother, and, having ministered to Isaac, thus to carry off the blessing. It seems singular that Isaac should have most loved Esau, for Esau was the least religious of the twain; while it seems natural that Rebekah should most have loved Jacob for his otherwise amiable and religious characteristics and features. And it appears, too, that Rebekah was quite aware that the blessing was not to pass by the elder, Esau, but was to light upon the younger, Jacob, according to ancient and inspired prophecy; remembering that this was God's end, and that it was her duty by any means to try and accomplish that end, she practised a deception, in order, as she in her folly dreamed, to make true God's promise - that is, help God to execute his purposes.

Now, the mistake she committed was twofold. First, we are not warranted in doing evil that contingent good may come; and, secondly, we are not warranted in trying to help God to fulfil prophecies at all. God gives the prophecy; he takes charge of it before it is fulfilled, and God will see to its fulfilment. What we have to do with the Bible is to believe its truths, to obey its precepts, and to leave God when and how he pleases to fulfil his own sovereign and faithful prophecies. But poor Rebekah thought that God could not fulfil

his promise unless she helped him, and like a thorough Jesuitess for in this respect she was so - she thought evil, however great, was perfectly lawful, if it only helped the occurrence of good that was most desirable. She went and told Jacob to tell a lie, to be guilty of the basest hypocrisy, and to leave on record a picture, whose great lesson is at least this, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Romanism is as old as the patriarchal days.

--

- is,

The only difficulty, — and I confess it is a real one, how to reconcile such duplicity, such falsehood, and such hypocrisy, in a mother and a son, with the unquestionable fact that they were the children of God, and believers in the promises. It is only a proof what an amount of alloy there is mixed with the purest gold, how true it is that even the best, left alone for a moment, will stumble. Let us watch, and be sober. Instead of being to us a precedent, however, that we ought to imitate, it is to us a warning that we should seek divine strength at every moment to be perfect in weakness, as well as a beacon to point out to us the shoals on which fair ships were made almost total wrecks.

The first difficulty seems to be the possibility of the deception occasioned by the one son clothing himself in the skin of a young kid, and so personating the other. The first reason of the success of such a resource probably was this not only was Isaac's taste worn out with years, but his sensibilities also. The fingers, as every one knows, are the foci (if one may use the expression) of the keenest sensation; but when old age comes on, and especially the age of one hundred and seventy, which was Isaac's then, all the sensibilities of eye, ear, and fingers, become blunted. There is not the same keen perception by the eye, nor by the taste, nor by the fingers, of external things. And hence we can suppose that Rebekah, with all the skill and the tact of which she was so