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pify the devils, and their endeavours to devour Jesus Christ and the church; this thing may also signify the terrors and consolations that attend the wish of conversion and deliverance out of spiritual Egypt.

[363] Gen. xv. 17. "And it came to pass, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a buruing lamp that passed between those pieces." Here were four things that were significant of the death and last sufferings of Christ, all

at the same time.

1. There were the sacrifices that were slain, and lay there dead and divided. Christ feared when his last passion approached, lest Satan should utterly devour him, and swallow him up in that trial, and cried to God, and was heard in that he feared; and those fowls were frayed away that sought to devour that sacrifice, as Abraham frayed away the fowls that attempted to devour this sacrifice while it lay upon the altar.

2. The smoking furnace that passed through the midst of the sacrifices.

3. The deep sleep that fell upon Abraham, and the horror of great darkness that fell upon him.

4. The sun, that greatest of all natural types of Christ, went down, and descended under the earth, and it was dark.

"It is probable this furnace and lamp which passed between the pieces, burned and consumed them, and so completed the sacrifice, and testified God's acceptance of it, Judg. vi. 21, xiii. 19, 20, and 2 Chron. vii. 7. This was of old God's manner of manifesting his acceptance of sacrifices, viz. kindling a fire from heaven upon them; and by this we may know that he accepts our sacrifices, if we kindle in our souls a lively fire of divine affections in them." Henry.

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[241] Gen. xvi. 10, 11, 12. “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude-And shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord bath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." The following observations are taken principally out of a book entitled Revelation Examined with Candour. This prophecy is remarkably verified in the Arabs. The Arabs are the undoubted descendants of Hagar and Ishmael. Ishmael was circumcised at thirteen years of age; so have all those his sons from him until the establishment of Mahometanism, and many of them to this day, though some of them circumcise indifferently in any year from the 8th to the 13th, but all professing to derive the practice from their father Ishmael. He was an

archer in the wilderness; his sons, the Arabs, have been the most remarkable archers in the world, and are so to this day, and in the wilderness too, where culture is not known. Hagar was a concubine and an hireling, and while she dwelt with Abraham, Abrabraham dwelt in tents, and was continually moving from place to place. Ammianus Marcellinus observes of the Arabs, that they had mercenary wives hired for a time. The learned Dr. Jackson makes it exceeding evident that the Arabs and the Saracens were descended from Ishmael, and also the writers of the life of Mahomet, and the writers of travels and voyages without number. In short, it is a point universally agreed upon all over the east and south. As the Ishmaelites lived under twelve princes by Moses's account, so these principalities remained till later times bearing the names of the twelve sons of Ishmael, as Le Clerc makes very evident.

The first part of the prophecy, viz: I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered, for multitude, is fulfilled in them. The Hagarenes spoken of in scripture, and the Arabs, especially the Scænitæ, were very numerous, and the Saracens were more numerous than either. But this prophecy is most evidently fulfilled in that vast empire that the Saracens have set up in the world.

The next part of the prophecy is that he should be a wild man. The word which is translated wild, in this place, signifies a wild ass: the literal construction of the phrase in Latin is erit Onager Homo: He shall be a wild ass man. The Arabs are above all nations a wild people, and have been so through all ages throughout so many hundred generations. They vary no more from their progenitors' wild and fierce qualities than the wild plants of the forest, never accustomed to human culture do, from the trees whence they are propagated. The dwelling of those Arabs and the wild ass is alike, and indeed the same. See Job xxxix. 6.

The next part of the prophecy: His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him. He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. The meaning of which words seems to be that they should be in perpetual enmity with all mankind, and yet should subsist in the face of the world. And such a sense of this prophecy seems to be agreeable to the idiom of scripture phrase. Thus when the scripture speaks of brethren with respect to nations, sometimes nothing is intended but only other nations that are round about. So when it is said concerning Canaan, Gen. ix. 25, "A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," it is not intended only, nor chiefly, and it may be not at all, that he should be a servant of servants to his literal brethren, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut, the other sons of Ham; but that he should be a servant to other nations; and it was fulfilled espe

cially in his posterity's being subdued by the posterity of Shem and Japheth. When it is said "He shall dwell," the meaning is, that they shall remain a nation, and still retain their habitation and possession without being cut off, or carried captive from their own land. In such a sense the word is used, Ps. xxxvii. 27, "Depart from evil and do good, and dwell for evermore." This expression is explained by other passages in the Psalm, as ver. 3, "Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land." Verse 9. "Evil doers shall be cut off, but those that wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth." Ver. 10, 11. "Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be, yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be, but the meek shall inherit the earth." Ver. 18. The Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be for ever ;" and ver. 22. "For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth, and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off." Ver. 29. "The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever." Ver. 34. "And he shall exalt thee to inherit the laud; when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it. It is also agreeable to the scriptural way of speaking, when it is said, "He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren," to understand it, that they after all their opposition to it shall see him still subsisting and retaining his own habitation in spite of them so the expression in the presence of, seems evidently to signify, Ps. xxiii. 5. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." This is also remarkably fulfilled in the Arabs, for they have ever lived in professed enmity with all mankind, and all mankind in enmity with them; they have continued in a state of perpetual hostility with the rest of their brethren, and yet have subsisted perpetually under it before their faces, and in spite of them all; they have neither been destroyed nor lost by mingling with other nations; they marry only in their own nation, disdaining alliances with all others. Their language continued so much the same through all ages (as Bedford in his Scripture Chronology observes, that it continued much the same from the days of Job until latter ages) shows that this nation has never been much mixed with other pations. They and the Jews only have subsisted from the remotest accounts of antiquity as a distinct people from all the rest of mankind, and the undoubted descendants of one man. And the Arabs never were subdued and carried captive, as the Jews have been. Alexander the Great intended an expedition against them, but was prevented by death. What Alexander intended, Antigonus, the greatest of his successors, attempted, but without success; being repulsed with disgrace, and the loss of above eight thousand men, he made a second and greater attempt, but without success.

They had wars afterwards with the Romans and Parthians, but were never either subdued or tamed: resembling in this (the only

comparison in nature that suits them) the wild ass in the desert, and sent out by the same hand free, as he whose house is also the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling, alike disdainful of bondage, scorning alike the multitude of the city and the cry of the driver. Pompey made war with them, and some part of them seemingly submitted, but never remained at all in subjection to him-after this they misled and deluded Crassus to his destruction. Anthony after this sent his horse to ravage Palmyra, but the city was defended from them by archers, who were probably Arabs. Afterwards their chief city was besieged by Trajan, one of the most warlike and powerful of all the Roman emperors. He went in person with his army against them with great resolution to subdue them, but his soldiers were strangely annoyed with lightnings, thunders, whirlwinds, and hail, and affrighted, and dazzled with the apparition of rainbows, and so were forced to give up the siege. After this, Severus, a great conqueror, after he had subdued all his enemies, marched in person against them with great resolution to subdue them with his greatest force, and warlike preparations, besieged the city twice, but it twice repulsed him with great loss, and when they had actually made a breach in the wall of the chief city, they were strangely prevented from entering by unaccountable discontents arising among the soldiers, and so they went away baffled and confounded. These Ishmaelites, when their wall was broke down, being invited to a treaty with the emperor, disdained to enter into any treaty with him. After this the Saracens set up a vast empire, and so the prophecy of their becoming a great nation that could not be numbered was most eminently fulfilled.

They also have dwelt in the presence of all their brethren, in another sense, viz. that all their brethren, the posterity of all the other sons of Abraham, and even the posterity of Isaac, have seen them remaining and unsubdued, and holding their own dwelling, when they all of them, and even the posterity of Isaac and Jacob themselves, were conquered and carried away out of their own dwellings.

[301] Gen. xvii. 10. Circumcision signified or represented that mortification or the denying of our lusts, that is the condition of obtaining the blessings of the Covenant. Totally denying any lust, is represented in scripture by cutting off. Thus, cutting off a right hand, or right foot, is put for the denying of some very dear lust; so cutting off the flesh of a member so prone to violent lust, signifies a total denying of our lusts. A main reason why lust, or our natural corruption, is represented by the instrument of generation, is because we have all our natural corruption or lust by generation, i. e. by being the natural offspring of the corrupt parents of mankind. Therefore when God would signify that our origi

nal or natural corruption should be mortified, he appoints that the flesh of the part specified should be cut off.

Another reason why the seal of the covenant that God made with Abraham was appointed to be affixed to this part of the body, seems to be that God made this covenant not only with Abraham and for him, but him and his seed. It mainly respected his seed, as abundantly appears by the tenor of the words, in which the covenant was revealed from time to time; and therefore the seal was to be affixed to that part of the body whence came his seed. The covenant was made not with a man, but with a race of men ordinarily to be continued by natural generation; and therefore the sign of the covenant was a sign affixed to the instrument of generation. The sign was a purgation of the member of the body, by which offspring was procured, and was to be a sign of the purification of the offspring. God seeks a godly seed, and children that are holy.

Corol. Hence we learn that seeing the Gentiles now in the days of the gospel are admitted to the seal of Abraham as the Jews were, and are admitted to an interest in Abraham's covenant, and to the blessing of Abraham, so that Abraham is become the father now, not of one nation, but of many nations in the way of that covenant, as the apostle Paul abundantly teaches; then the posterity of Christians by natural generation, are now God's people, and are a holy seed by Abraham's covenant, as the Israelites were of old. There are but, two ways in which persons can become of Abraham's covenant, race, or generation: one is by generation by the natural instruments of generation to which the seal of the covenant was affixed, and so continued from the root to the branches; the other is by ingrafting a new branch into that stock, that shall after ingrafting grow and bring forth branches, and bear fruit upou that stock, as the other branches did that were cut off to make room for them. In this way now many nations or generations are of Abraham's race, instead of one nation or family.

[355] Gen. xviii. Isaac, the interpretation of whose name is Laughter, was conceived about the same time that Sodom and the other cities of the plain were destroyed, and he was born soon after their destruction. So the accomplishment of the terrible destruction of God's enemies, and the glorious prosperity of his church, usually go together, as in Isai. Ixvi. 13, 14, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem-and when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servant, and his indignation toward his enemies." First the enemies of the church are destroyed and then Isaac is born, as that prosperous state of the church is brought

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