their astronomic observations,have counted Abraham as one of their most learned observers. The Syrian historians have made him king of Damascus, though a stranger and come from the confines of Babylon, and they tell that he quitted the kingdom of Damascus, in order to settle in the country of the Canaanites, afterwards called Judea. But it is better worth while to observe what the history of the people of God relates to us concerning this great man. We have seen that Abraham followed the kind of life, which the ancients did before all the world was reduced into kingdoms. He reigned in his family, with which he embraced that pastoral life, so noted for its simplicity and innocence; rich * in flocks, in slaves, and in money; but without lands, and without inheritance, and yet he lived in a foreign kingdom, respected, and independent as a prince. His piety and integrity, protected by God, gained him this respect. He treated as an equal with kings, who courted his alliance, and thence came the ancient opinion, that he made himself a king. Though his life was simple and peaceful, he knew how to make war, but only in defence of his oppressed allies. He defended them, and revenged them by a signal victory. He restored them all their riches, retaken from the enemies, without reserving any thing, but a tenth, which he offered to God †, and the portion that belonged to the auxiliary troops, which he had led to the battle.

Gen. xiii. &c.

+ Ibid. xiv. 20, &c.

Moreover, after so great a service, he refused the presents of the kings with an unparalleled magnanimity, and could not endure that any man should boast, he had made Abraham rich.* He would owe nothing but to God, who protected him, and whom alone. he followed with a perfect faith and obedience.

Guided by that faith†, he had left his native country, to come into a land which God showed him. God, who had called him, and rendered him worthy of his covenant, concluded it upon these conditions:

He declared to him, that he would be the God both of himself and of his children; that is, that He would be their protector, and that they should serve Him as the only God, creator of heaven and earth.

He promised him a land (namely that of Canaan) for an everlasting possessions to his posterity, and to be the seat of religion.

Now Abraham had no children ||, and Sarah his wife was barren. God sware to him by himself, and by his eternal truth, that of him and that woman should spring a race that should equal in number the stars of heaven, and the sand of the sea.

But this is the most memorable article of the divine promise: (All nations were running head long into idolatry.) God promised to the holy patriarch 4, that in him, and in his seed, all those blinded nations, who had

+ Ibid. xii. &c.

* Gen. xxxiii. 9. Ibid. xvii. 8, 9. § Ibid. || Ibid. xii. 2. xv. 4, 5. xvii. 19, Gen. xii. 3. xviii. 18.

forgotten their Creator, should be blessed, that is, restored to the knowledge of Him in whom true blessing is to be found.

By this saying, Abraham is made father of all the faithful, and his posterity is chosen to be the source from whence blessing is to flow to all the earth.

In this promise was included the coming of the Messiah, so often foretold to our fathers, but always foretold as Him who was to be the Saviour of the Gentiles, and of all the nations of the world.

Thus that blessed seed, promised to Eve, became also the seed and offspring of Abraham.

Such is the foundation of the covenant; such are its conditions*. Abraham received the token of it in circumcision, a ceremony, the proper effect of which was to signify, that that holy man belonged to God with all his family.

Abraham had no child when God began to bless his racet. God left him several years without one. Afterward he had Ishmael, who was to be father of a great nation, but not of that chosen people so long promised to Abraham. The father of the chosen people was to spring from him, and his wife Sarah who was barren. At length, thirteen years after Ishmael, came that solong-wished-for child; he was named Isaac, that is laughter, a child of joy, a child of miracle, a child of promise, who shows by

* Gen. xvii.

21. xxi. 13.

+ Ibid. xv. 2. xvi, 3, 4. xvii. 20, Gen. xxi.

his birth, that the true children of God are

born of grace.

This blessed child was now grown up *, and of an age in which his father might expect other children by him, when all of a sudden God commanded him to offer him up. To what trials is faith exposed! Abraham carried Isaac to the mountain which God had told him of, and was going to sacrifice that son, in whom alone God promised to make him father both of his people, and of the Messiah. Isaac presented his bosom to the knife, which his father held, ready to pierce it. God, satisfied with the obedience of both father and son, demands no more of them. After these two great men had given the world so lively and beautiful a type of the voluntary oblation of JESUS CHRIST, and tasted in spirit the bitterness of his cross, they are judged truly worthy to be his ancestors. The faithfulness of Abraham† occasions God to confirm to him all his promises, and to bless anew, not only his family, but also, in his family, all the nations of the earth.

Accordingly, he continued his protection to Isaac his son, and Jacob his grandson. They were imitators of him, adhering like him to the primitive faith; to the primitive way of life, which was the pastoral; to the primitive government of mankind, in which every father of a family was prince in his own house. Thus, amidst the changes daily introducing among men, holy anti

quity revived in religion, and in the conduct of Abraham and his children.

Therefore God repeated to Isaac and to Jacob, the same promises which he had made to Abraham*; and as he had called himself the God of Abraham, he took also the name of the God of Isaac, and of the God of Jacob.

Under his protection those three great men began to sojourn in the land of Canaan; (but only as strangers, and without possessing a foot of land † in it ;) till the famine drew Jacob into Egypt, where his children multiplied, and soon became a great nation, as God had promised him.

Moreover, though that people whom God caused to be born in his covenant, was to be propagated by generation, and though the blessing was to follow the blood, that great God, nevertheless, did not omit to manifest in them the election of his grace. For, after having chosen Abraham from amidst the nations-among the children of Abraham he chose Isaac, and of Isaac's twins he chose Jacob, to whom he gave the name of Israel.

Jacob had twelve children, who were the twelve patriarchs, heads of the twelve tribes. They all were to enter into the covenant: but Judah was chosen amongst all his brethren to be father of the kings of Israel, and father of the Messiah, so long promised to his ancestors.

The time was to come, that ten tribes be

* Gen. xxv. 11. xxvi. 4. xxviii. 13, 14.

+ Acts vii. 5.