then nations by the faith of Christ, was revealed to, and exemplified in, their father Abraham; and that on this very view, the fcripture, forefeeing that God would juftify the Heathen through faith, did fo.

No body will blame the Apostle's attributing to the fcriptures what none but an intelligent being, and one too whose understanding was perfect, could do. His business was, to convict the gainfayers by their own record; and if he could fhew, that the fame gospel was delivered to Abraham, and that he was justified or sustained as one who had righteoufnefs on this profpect, it must have appeared with great evidence, that this was the way which the great Author of the record had established. And here it will be proper to obferve, that though Abraham ftands there as the most eminent, and whofe history is most particularly recorded; yet he was not the first to whom the revelation was made, and who were, as the Apoftle fays of Noah, made heirs of the righteousness which is by faith. So far from it, that from Adam, who first received the promife, down to Mofes, there was no other way of at

taining

taining a right to the bleffing of pardon and life, and of course no other righteoufnefs, but by believing the free gift, and regulating their conduct in a fuitablenefs to it; that is, in all the duties of gratitude and love to their gracious Creator and Redeemer.

That the nations of the Gentiles, that is, all the world, excepting only the comparatively small nation of the Jews, were to have a right given them to eternal life, in the fame manner Abraham had, he proves from their own record, viz. that in Abraham, that is, as the record explains it, in his feed all the nations of the earth fhould be blessed. The original promife of the feed of the woman, repeated and renewed as it was to Noah, had lain as it were in common among his posterity, until it was fixed in the family of Abraham, and limited to Ifaac and his defcendents. One would not have thought, that it could ever have entered any Chriftian's head, that this bleffing could mean any thing else but (what only deferves the name of a bleffing) that eternal life, conveyed by and in Jefus Chrift, the promifed feed. But it has been explained away

into no bleffing at all by a very learned commentator. He had read of Jacob's bleffing his grandfons, and that he said, In thee fball Ifrael blefs, &c. Gen. xlviii. 20. But

he fhould have obferved, that this was not the bleffing, but the confequence of it; and at most was but an expreffion of mens faint wishes, and nothing at all to the bleffing of God, fecured to Abraham through faith in the promised feed, and to all who should be found in the fame way of believing, as the Apostle infers, verf. 9. So then they that are of faith, are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Bleffing is a very common word in every one's mouth, but I am afraid few have a distinct notion of the import of it. Men are faid to blefs God; they blefs one another; and the Apostle reckons it out of doubt, that the lefs is blessed of the greater: And God is faid to bless men. When men, parents for inftance, blefs their children, in ordinary cafes, they can do no more than wifh happiness to them, or pray God to blefs them; while they have but very confused notions of that bleffedness they wish or pray for, and their bleffing is little more than an expreffion of their love and tender affection, that they would

make them quite happy, if it was in their
power, and they knew how to effect it.
Mens bleffing God can go no further than
an expreffion of the delight and pleasure
which the fullness and all-fufficiency of
God gives them. But God's blessing man
is another thing in all refpects, excepting
only the rife and fpring from whence his
bleffing proceeds; that favour and loving-
kindness of God who is love, and of which
the most fincere and tender affection found
among men is but a faint fhadow. His
bleffing never ftops in words or wifhes.
When he bleffed Abraham, he made him
as bleffed and as happy as man can be in
this prefent world. Our kind creator has
not left us to form our notions of fuch an
important matter on what we affect most,
and our hearts are most fet upon. Befides
the many instructions given by our bleffed
Lord and his apostles, "to feek first the
"kingdom of God, and his righteousness,"
without which there can be no bleffedness,
he has put the cafe of Abraham on record.
He was made a great man in the world's
account, and had great riches given him.
But these were only acceffories. The
bleffing lay in the promised feed; and upon
VOL. III.
B b

the

the belief of this he was reckoned and
treated as a righteous perfon; and in that
inheritance to which he had a right gi-
ven him by the promife, his bleffedness
lay. He looked for a better country, and
God was not afhamed to be called his
God, and the God of his fellow-believers,
because he had prepared for them a city,
Heb. xi. 14. 15. 16.
of faith, and believe God as he did, must
of course be bleffed with him.

And they who are

Such was the cafe of Abraham, and fuch is the bleffing of all his genuine children who walk in his fteps, as the Galatians did when they were attacked by the Judaizing teachers, who would needs. have them to fubmit to their law. And what were they to gain by it? The Apostle fets the folly of it in a very strong light, verf. 10. For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curfe. But might they not fay, "It is writ

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ten, that the man that doth them, '' fhall live in them." It is fo: and could there be a man found, who continueth in all things written in the law to do them, he might have fomething to fay; but fuch a man never was, and, we may

be