the joyful nature of the salvation to be accomplished by him, the son to be born of the womb of Sarah, now past the age of bearing, was to be called Isaac, or laughter. In the following year Isaac was born.

Thus it appears from the history of Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation and of the Messiah, that God was pleased to try his faith and patience, during the long term of twenty-five years, between the giving of the promise of a son, and the fulfilment of it by the birth of Isaac. During this period, indeed, to strengthen the faith of the pious patriarch, the promise was often renewed with increasing degrees of clearness and particularity; yet it is apparent from his history, that, in general, he enjoyed no such extraordinary communications of divine light, as to raise him above the common frailties of our nature. He was an illustrious character, who walked by faith, and not by sight, and looked forward to that heavenly country, of which Canaan was a type; but he was not a faultless, or perfect character. His conduct,

when he first went into Egypt, in making Sarah pass herself for his sister, was exceedingly culpable; and could arise from no source but a distrust of the promise. (Gen. xii. 11.) We find him guilty of the same sin a second time, when he sojourned in Gerar; and he thereby subjected himself to this sharp rebuke from Abimelech, a heathen, Thou hast done things that ought not to be done.' (Gen. xx. 1-9.)

During the above long and tedious period of twenty-five years, we may conceive that the pious patriarch had many dark and discouraging hours: oftentimes would he be ready to say,

Alas! I am come out of my native country, and have left my kindred; but where is the performance of the promise that I shall have a son?' Again, we may conceive him as chiding his heart for doubting the faithfulness of his God, and saying to himself, Therefore will I look ' unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my 'salvation: my God will hear me.' And as none that wait upon the Lord shall ultimately be ashamed; in due time, having waited, he re

ceived the promise, in the birth of that son whose name was called Isaac, or laughter.

Then was the mouth of the venerable servant of the Lord filled with laughter, and his tongue with singing: then said they among the

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heathen, the Lord hath done great things for • him.'

If, then, we see that God, after having promised to Abraham that he should have a son, delayed the performance of the promise during the long period of twenty-five years, and thus tried the faith and patience of his chosen servant; it is agreeable to the analogy of this procedure, that the performance of the promises of establishing the kingdom of the Messiah in glory, should be delayed during a period of many centuries after his advent; and, a priori, it was probable that something of this kind would take place; for a period of twenty centuries bears an infinitely less proportion to the duration of Messiah's reign, than the term twenty-five years to the whole extent of Abraham's life.

Similar analogies are observable in the con

duct of providence towards Isaac and Jacob; but I shall only mention them very briefly. Isaac had no children by Rebekah during the term of twenty years after he took her to wife; and we read in Genesis xxv. 21. that Isaac in'treated the Lord for his wife, because she was 'barren; and the Lord was intreated of him, ' and Rebekah his wife conceived.'

Jacob, who inherited the promise, that of his loins the Messiah should proceed, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed, (Gen. xxviii. 14.) was more than eighty years of age when he married Leah, the daughter of Laban; of whom Judah, the progenitor of the promised seed, was born. In the cases of both these patriarchs, we therefore see, first, the giving of the promise; and, secondly, a long and trying delay in the accomplishment of it; and the inference to be deduced from both, with respect to the probable course of the procedure of God to the Messiah, is the same as has been - already made.

One of the most remarkable histories in the

Old Testament, and which tends most strongly to support the analogy we are now tracing, is that of the patriarch Joseph. Early distinguished from his brethren for superior wisdom and piety, he became the favourite son of his aged father, who probably discerned in him the seeds of those great and amiable qualities which so illustriously shone forth in his subsequent conduct in life. Actuated, perhaps, more by the excess of parental fondness, than by sound judgment, the patriarch made for his beloved Joseph a coat of many colours, thus openly giving him the preference over the rest of his sons. This distinction, however, as is common in such cases, only moved the envy and hatred of his brethren ; and these malignant passions were further excited by two supernatural dreams, in which God was pleased to give Joseph a pre-intimation of his future greatness. (Gen. xxxvii. 5.) • And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told his brethren; and they hated him yet the more. And

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' he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream

which I have dreamed. For, behold, we were