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God's readiness to hear prayer.

See xx. 17. the prayer of Abraham for Abimelech and xviii. for Sodom: xxiv. 12, that of Eleazar for Abraham xix. 21, Lot's prayer: xxi. 17, Ishmael's prayer.

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God's faithfulness to his promises.

See viii. 22, "seed time, harvest," &c. Compare xxviii. 15, with xlviii. 15. But particularly the faithfulness of God is seen in the provision made for the fulfilment of his great promise, iii. 15. Trace this, on His raising up Seth after Abel, iv. 25; and again in Enos, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, &c. particularly observing how God most helped his Church when they most needed help. In this period of the history of the Church, the whole plan of redemption seems frequently to have depended upon a single life; yet, after 4000 years of peril, in the fulness of time, how was the promise fulfilled, in a manner which it had not entered into the heart of man to conceive!

Observe

The honour which God puts upon his people.

This is shewn by His blessing others for their sake. As: xviii. 32; for ten righteous He would have spared Sodom. Again, xix. 21, God spared Zoar even for Lot's sake, and Sodom itself while Lot was in it. And xxx. 27, selfish Laban was blest for Jacob's sake; xxxix. 5, Potiphar for Joseph's sake.

Remark, too, how

God tries the faith of his people.

Trace this in Noah; Abraham (xxi. 5.) who had received the promise of a son twenty-five years before Isaac was born. Notice how Abraham's other sons abound in children, while Isaac, in whom his seed is to be as the stars of heaven for multitude, goes childless for twenty years after his marriage; and that a marriage on which the Divine blessing had been so remarkably sought and obtained. Consider Esau's posterity: at first much more numerous and distinguished among men than Jacob's, (xxxvi. 15.) Observe also

The sovereignty of God.

That is called the sovereignty of God when the reasons of his conduct are hid from us. Thus Abel slain for righteousness' sake; Enoch translated;-sparing Zoar, destroying Lot's wife;-destroyed in the plain, when she had escaped from the city ;-the wife perishes, the infamous daughters preserved :-Jacob preferred before Esau, and this determined before they were born (Rom. ix. 11).

Observe also the practical use which God would have us make of the consideration of his attributes as motives to duty. xvii. 1. "I am the Almighty," &c. This was to strengthen Abraham's faith under the delay of God's promise of Isaac, and to check him from adopting sinful expedients to hasten it.

Motives.

It is very important to observe the various motives urged in Scripture to lead us to obedience. Thus on Adam, even in Paradise, an appeal is made to his fears as well as his hopes (ii. 17). In the day, &c.; surely die. So Noah moved with fear, &c. Heb. xi. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ, but on him the consideration of temporal as well as eternal good was urged. (Gen. xiii. 14.) Nor are such motives limited to the Old Testament, see 1 Pet. iii. 10), though the great constraining motive is the love of Christ (1 Pet. i. 8).

The leading subject of the Old Testament being the preparation made for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Book of Genesis may be read with this view. Collect the prophecies respecting Christ, iii. 15.; xii. 3, &c.

Notice the types, particularly that of sacrifice. iv. 4, Abel; viii. 20, Noah.

Observe that the promise to Noah follows the acceptance of the burnt offering; the covenant with Abraham is also with sacrifice, (xv. 9.)

xxii. Abraham offering up Isaac. As the sacrifice of Abel and its circumstances particularly shadowed the evil of sin; so that of Isaac shadowed forth the love of God as the means of its removal (John iii. 16; Heb. xi. 17; Rom. viii. 32). See also xxvi. 25, Isaac; and xxxi. 54, Jacob's use of sacrifice.

As soon as prophecy declared that the sons of Jacob

should become heads of tribes, it pointed out the particular tribe from which the Messiah should come, not either of Jacob's favourite sons Joseph or Benjamin, but Judah, (xlix. 10.), and he the fourth in descent. (see 2 Pet. i. 21.)

The typical nature of the Old Testament history may also be noticed. xiv.: Abraham paying tithes to Melchizedec. By this St. Paul shows that the Mosaic dispensation was intended to be subservient to that of the Gospel (Heb. vii.) St. Paul also shews (Rom. ix. 11, &c.) that the preference given to Isaac before Ishmael, and Jacob before Esau, prefigured the rejection of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles: thus, as Lowth remarks, shewing that the eminent persons of foregoing ages, and the remarkable passages of their lives, did bear some resemblance or representation of Him that

was to come.

In the selection of facts the same subject is kept in view. Thus Cain and his descendants, Ishmael and his descendants, are very soon unnoticed. "When a man leaves God and his people, the sacred historian leaves him.”

Temptation.

Temptation is an enticement to transgress the law of God from some supposed advantage to be obtained or evil avoided. Observe the nature of those enticements which prevailed with Eve (Gen. iii. 6.); the advantage she expected; how her fears were removed (verse 4.) Abraham (Gen. xii. 12); the evil he feared. Eve was tempted by the devil, Adam by his wife, Sarah by her husband (xii. 13), Jacob by his mother (Gen. xxvii.)

The Liability of Men to sin.

This may be illustrated by the failings of God's people, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, &c. Noah, after such a display of his faith in building the ark, &c. Abraham, after leaving his country, &c.; and twice offending in the same way. Isaac, after his surrender of himself as a sacrifice, (Gen. xxii.) committing the very sin which brought shame on his father (Gen. xxvi. 7). Jacob, after his vow at Bethel, needing, many years after, to be reminded of that vow (Gen. xxxv. 1); and in the decline of a life so distinguished by God's care, saying, "All these things are against me" (Gen. xlii. 36), at the very moment when Joseph was in fact the governor of Egypt.

The Folly and Deceit of Sin.

The folly in Adam, Eve, and Cain, imagining they could hide themselves or their conduct from God! (Gen. iii. iv.)

What advantage did Adam and Eve, Cain, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph's brethren, gain by their deceit ? Were they not deceived? particularly Jacob by Laban and his own children. Compare xxvii. 9., kid, &c. with xxxvii. 31., kid.

The devil in tempting Eve, the builders of Babel, and Joseph's brethren, thought to defeat God's purpose; but did they?

The Progress of Sin

May be noticed in Cain (Gen. iv. 8); what his anger ended in.

The resentment of Esau soon kindled into the intention to murder (Gen. xxvii. 41, with Rom. iii. 15, "their feet are swift to shed," &c.) Also the envy of Joseph's brethren; first shewn in not speaking peaceably to him; ending in the determination to murder him (Gen. xxxvii. 4. 18).

Cruelty to their brother needed a lie to hide it from their father; and no doubt Jacob went much further in lying than he intended, when he first yielded to his mother's entreaty to deceive his father (xxvii. 20).

66 Chap. xxxiv. shews how one sin leads to another, and, like flames of fire, spread desolation in every direction. Dissipation leads to seduction, seduction produces wrath, wrath thirsts for revenge, the thirst of revenge has recourse to treachery, treachery issues in murder, and murder is followed by lawless depredation." (Fuller on Genesis.)

The Evil of Sin.

Observe not only the suffering which sin brings on those who first commit it, but the suffering and sin in which they involve others by it.

Abraham's equivocation; involving his wife in sin, bringing plagues on Pharaoh and Abimelech, exposing Pharaoh and Abimelech to temptation.

The strife between the servants of Abraham and Lot

(Gen. xiii.) occasioned the separation of their masters; and from that time Lot went wrong.

Lot's sin in living at Sodom involved his family in those strong temptations by which they were corrupted, and perished. (Gen. xiii. 10.) Jacob's sin provoked his brother to sin. (Gen. xxvii.)

These illustrations from Genesis may be compared with illustrations taken from other parts of Scripture. Thus, the sin of the Amalekites (Exod. xvii. 8, 14.) brought destruction upon them more than 400 years after. (1 Sam. xv.) "His blood be on us and our children," said the Jews at the crucifixion of Christ; and now for more than 1700 years has that blood been required at their hands.

But the most awful fact illustrative of the evil of sin is, that Adam's sin, the first sin of the first man, depraved mankind and brought them under condemnation to eternal wrath. (Rom. v.; Eph. ii.)

As illustrating what was said (p. 16), that the great evil of sin is, that it dishonours God, "it is observable that the reason given (Gen. ix. 6) for the punishment of the murderer with death, is taken from the affront which he offers to God, not from the injury he does to man."

In the same light the sin of Adam is to be viewed. The act might in itself seem trifling, but by breaking one command he violated the authority on which all rest (James ii. 10). "How awful the thought, that the same God who condemned Adam for one transgression, regards every sin of which we are guilty with the same abhorrence, and that our iniquities are more in number than the hairs of our head!"

It was said (p. 35) that one purpose for which God gave us the Bible was to shew us the necessity of an atonement for sin. If such be the evil of sin, what but the blood of Christ can cleanse from sin? who but the Holy Spirit can deliver from its power?

Riches, Beauty, Reputation, &c.

As all our estimates of right and wrong, good and evil, must be derived from the word of God, we may prove by the word of God the value of things highly esteemed among men. For instance:

The riches of Abraham and Lot occasioned their separa

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