nationality, but it shall be established on the top of the mountains, and all the people shall flow unto it. As it is written I have appointed.. thee to be a father of many nations.

The accomplishment of the promise answers to, or takes effect as it were in view (xavα) of Abraham's faithful confidence in God, which was the ground of it; a confidence, in which he felt certain, that the Almighty could do whatever he engaged to do, though apparently impossible, that he would give life to the dead, and make things that were not, as though they were; that is, that he would give life or generating vigor to his own body and that of Sarah, though they were, for the purpose of generation, both dead (being about, or at the age of a hundred years,) with age and infirmity, and that he would make him in his son Isaac, a father of many generations, though that Isaac was commanded to be slain. In reward therefore of that confidence, and with a view (zava) to, or in correspondence with the character of that confidence, God promises to Abraham to make those his children, who were not his children, by calling the Gentiles from darkness to light, or raising those children to life everlasting, who were dead in trespasses and sins. And as he believed on the word of God, that many nations should proceed out of his loins, so the promise

should be gloriously accomplished, by all the nations of the world through that faithfulness which endeared himself to his maker becoming ultimately ingrafted into his family.

Therefore again I say, the promise grounds itself, not on the works of the law, but on the spirit of that faithfulness which was in Abraham, whose confidence in God faltered not under circumstances by which all human probabilities were confounded, who trusted in that God, to whose truth and power he felt that the common experiences of life bore ample testimony. In spite of the infirmities and decrepitude, that were fast drying up the springs of life, he believed on the word of God that his seed should be so; that is, should be as the stars of heaven in multitude. He betrayed no faithless vacillation or timidity in complying instantly with commands, which to all human apprehension seemed to tear up the very roots of his trust in God, giving to God glory, giving proof of the warm affection of his heart, the firm trust of his understanding upon the promise of God, by a ready and implicit obedience to that most extraordinary and apparently revolting of commands, the command upon a father to slay his own son; thus truly glorifying God by being found faithful to him. in the hardest trial to which human nature

could be exposed, loving not even son or daughter more than God, but resting fully satisfied, that through God's goodness and power be that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for his sake shall find it. For this reason God accepted him as a righte ous man, and gave the sign of circumcision as the seal of that acceptance; not that his faithfulness of spirit made him righteous, and acquitted him as of right of the infinite obligation of man to his maker, but that God was graciously pleased to treat him as righteous, gratuitously acquitting him; he considered that Abraham like all his descendants was necessarily a bankrupt in power, though not necessarily so in faithfulness and sincerity, and he was generously pleased to accept faith and sincerity, as a full and sufficient discharge of his immense debt of practical gratitude.

This matter is on record, not merely to per- .. petuate the revered name of the father of our nation, not merely on his, but on our account, to whom likewise faithfulness of spirit will be imputed for righteousness, if we practically confide, as he did, in the promises of God; he in the promises of him, who restored Isaac his son from the uplifted knife, we in the promises of him, who restored Jesus our Lord from the

cross.

Jesus, who is the ground of our affectionate confidence in God, was delivered unto death on account of the universally fallen condition of man, of man as a mere descendant of Adam, in order to try the fidelity of the children of promise, that is the fidelity of those, who are heirs of life by promise, not by carnal descent from Adam, but by spiritual unity with Christ the seed of promise, and Abraham the father of promise.

Isaac who was the ground of Abraham's affectionate confidence in God, was devoted unto death to try the fidelity of Abraham. The universally fallen condition of human kind induced God to subject Abraham to a severe trial by the death of Isaac, (for as a proof of Abraham's obedience, he was in effect the same as dead,) by the death of Isaac, of him who was given him by promise, and through whom he expected to inherit the earth; God was induced to subject Abraham to this trial, in order to prove that in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation he retained his fidelity to his maker. The same reason now induces God to subject the spiritual children to a severe trial of their faithfulness. He delivered Jesus up to the death of the cross.

In having done thus, he called upon all the faithful, who claim to be one with Jesus, to offer up, even as Abraham did, and as Jesus

did, the dearest affections of their heart in his service. If they answer in spirit this call by the sincerity of their self-devotion in baptism, he immediately pronounces them acquitted under their trial. He raised Jesus from death, and in so doing he gave an earnest of such an acquittal to all the faithful under their trial, whom as concerns the favor of God, God considered as having done what they have engaged to do, considers them as being one with Jesus, as having died in his death: being one with Jesus as concerns their spirit, God also considers them as one with Jesus as concerns his own favor. As they, by the faithfulness of their spirit are prepared with Christ, and with Abraham to render up their lives, and the best affections of their hearts to God, God in consideration of such faithfulness of spirit, gives them back again, as he did to Abraham, and as he did to Christ, the life so faithfully tendered in his service.

Thus was Christ delivered unto death, with reference to the fallen state, or condemnation under which our nature lay, and raised to life, with reference to our redemption or acquittal, our acceptance as righteous; that we should in both events see a picture as it were of God's dispensation of faithfulness; and not only with reference to, but we may say on account of that