done to the rest, as the way was open to them all to attain the required character. The true Israel included all good Israelites and excluded all bad ones. Moreover it comprised many persons of Gentile extraction whose flesh was not from Abraham, but whose faith emulated and resembled his. So impartial was the broad eye that surveys the entire family of Adam, that it descried true Israelites in Gentile lands, and detected Gentile souls in the bodies of the circumcised Jews. When the holy seed departed from the pious ways of their forefathers, and from a pure worship, the Lord held them to be Gentiles and named them Sodomites, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Amonites, Hittites, and Philistines. The reader who loves Scripture-tracing will find the following passages illustrative, Isa. i. 10, Deut. xxxii. 33, Ezek. xvi. 3, 45, Amos ix. 7, Jer. ix. 25, 26. The unchurching of a nation, the bulk of which was of Gentile heart and character, was no breach of the everlasting covenant, so long as faith was kept with the remnant, the selection, or election. Abraham has many children that never sprang from his loins. His proper offspring is counted from both the ancient divisions of mankind, and is more numerous from the Gentile side than from the Jewish side. He was heir of the world inasmuch as his faith was to be spread over the entire globe, and be embraced by people in all lands. "Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." Gal. iii. 7, 8. Let the reader turn up with care Romans iv. 9-17. In the light of these Scriptures it is clear that a believing Gentile has a far better right to call Abraham father than an infidel Jew, by so much as moral resemblance is nobler than national birth and blood relationship. A man may burn in hell and call Abraham father (Luke xvi. 24) whereas the children of faith will come from the four points of the world, from its remotest corners, and take seats in the kingdom of heaven. Senseless stones will challenge affiliation to the father of the faithful, whilst those who were undeniably descended from him, flesh and fibre, will be refused the claim.

A few words more we offer on the clause: "But in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Called we understand as equivalent to reckoned, or accounted, which, if we adopt as the signification of the term, the meaning is, that the posterity of Isaac should be Abraham's seed. Understood lineally, it puts a bar in the way of others being so accounted, though as truly descended from the patriarch as Isaac and his posterity were. Children born to Abraham in any other direction were accounted foreign, strange, or alien, profane, illegitimate, and utterly ineligible, as far as that matter was concerned. They were just as the general world was—

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as fully shut out as if descended from another stock. rangement barred out Ishmael, the son of Hagar, born to Abraham before Isaac, and the six sons of Keturah, born to him after Isaac.

This was not done on the motion of the patriarch's own mind. Neither the father's wish nor the mother's pride determined it so. The father desired it to be otherwise; he prayed in favour of his elder born, that the crown of honour might be placed on his head, and that the entail might fall on him. "O that Ishmael might live before thee." Gen. xvii. 18. The mother, it is true, was peremptory in her demand, that her darling Isaac should be the heir. She could not bear the presence of a pretender or rival, and forced her husband to dismiss the disagreeable object. The entail was arranged according to her desire; but not because she desired it. A divine purpose anticipated her solicitude, and pre-determined in favour of her son. Her earnest zeal might have been dispensed with. The Lord does not need our little passions to help out his purposes. Calling things that are not as though they were, he is independent of our aid, and can work by us, or without us, or even in spite of us.

We venture a further use of this clause. Though we dread any departure from sobriety in Scripture interpretation, we are willing to endorse the idea of a mystic import, besides the obvious view we have dwelt on. Though Ishmael and Isaac were genuine, historical persons, real actors and factors on the stage of history, they are used up as allegorical personages, the one representing those who seek acceptance by works; the other, standing for the children of grace who are saved by faith, on a principle of pure gratuity. To save us a long quotation, will the indulgent reader draw his Testament to him, and turn up Gal. iv. 21-31. Having read this, he will be disposed to grant that law and grace are here contrasted, and that flesh and works are terms of synonymous import, or exact equivalents. This is more obvious still from Gal. iii. 2, 3: “This only would I learn of you; received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit: are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Thus, then, all who seek acceptance by dint of their own merit, are like Ishmael, who was born of a capable mother, in the bloom of her days. Contrarily-all who depend on free grace, or seek justification by faith, are like Isaac, who sprang from a mother who had outlived the hopeful age when natural capacity for offspring had expired. As then, Ishmael was turned out of doors, and disinherited; so will fare all who rely on the strength of their own performances to win the divine favour. And as Isaac was the true seed and the type of grace, all who renounce themselves, and trust in him that calleth, will be reckoned children.

The eighth and ninth verses are exegetical, and expletive of what we have already obtained, and may therefore dispense with formal treatment.

So far as we have gone, the apostle vindicates the divine faithfulness as in no degree affected by the abandonment of the Jews of his day, since natural relationship was not the ground-work of the covenant. Hence rejections had taken place much earlier, of persons undeniably within the kindred. The Lord had exercised his prerogative of preference, and bestowed his favour on Isaac, casting a shade over Ishmael, in respect to the honour of being progenitor of Messiah, the personal salvation or damnation of the two men being a distinct matter, and otherwise determinable. One instance of preference having been cited, and dwelt on, the writer goes on to cite another, still more remarkable, in the next four verses:

"AND NOT ONLY THIS; BUT WHEN REBECCA ALSO HAD CONCEIVED BY ONE, EVEN BY OUR FATHER ISAAC; (FOR THE CHILDREN BEING NOT YET BORN, NEITHER HAVING DONE ANY GOOD OR EVIL, THAT THE PURPOSE OF GOD ACCORDING TO ELECTION MIGHT STAND, NOT OF WORKS, BUT OF HIM THAT CALLETH); IT WAS SAID UNTO HER, THE ELDER SHALL SERVE THE YOUNGER. AS IT IS WRITTEN, JACOB HAVE I LOVED, BUT ESAU HAVE I HATED." Here the factors are changed. The group we have had before our minds-Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, Keturah and her six sons, Sarah and Isaac-all disappear, except the last, and he heads a second group. Now we have Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau, as materials for the extension of the argument. Rebecca was, in several respects, an interesting woman, as the simple story of her nuptials and home-life given in Genesis testifies. Exposition forbids us the pleasure of portraying her at present. We have to do with her simply as the mother of two sons, co-temporaneously produced, one of whom was preferred to the other, and that one, it might be thought, the least eligible. Let us deal with the words before us. "And not only this "-not only is what I have already produced sufficient evidence that natural pedigree imposes no obligation on the divine prerogative, nor gives any man a claim; but what I now proceed to observe makes my position impregnably strong. Captious minds, eager to found the divine proceedings on reasons attachable to the men concerned in the case, rather than on the divine will and pleasure, might dispute the matter. Reason might say, though Ishmael was the elder son, and firstborn, his claim was cancelled on the maternal side, his mother being but a secondary wife, tolerated by the laxity of the times, whereas Isaac was the son of the lawful and principal wife. And further, the son of Sarah was of better character too, his half brother being of a rough, ungodly nature, full of mockery and persecution. Then, as it respected Keturah's sons, as they

were much his juniors, a claim on their part was out of question. To this reasoning a good reply might be made. Ishmael certainly was the first-born son of Abraham, and Sarah herself was bound in reason to accept him as the heir of her domestic establishment, since it was by her connivance and contrivance that he came into the world. She meant to build up her failng house, through him, by adopting him as her own. The disnheriting of him was with her an after-thought, a change of er original purpose. So he might have inherited, but for the overeign interposition of the divine will determining otherwise. n Paul's judgment it was so. When he says, "And not only his," he plainly means that what he had adduced was valid. By going on to another case he does not yield up his argument, but merely repeats and re-enforces it. Though he offers no formal rotection of his position, he takes it as sound enough. The next nstance he quotes shuts the door on reply or dispute. It was a reference between two brothers, twins, both of the same father, both of the same mother, and that mother a patriarch's lawful vife, and his only wife-for he avoided concubinage, and kept to he primitive order. Mark the words, and let us read them at first, >mitting the parenthetical verse-" And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, It was said unto her 'The elder shall serve the younger." Here no reason can be given for the preference on the ground of parentage. It is not as before, Hagar being the mother of one, and Sarah the mother of the other. Rebecca was the mother of them both. The priority of birth was in favour of Esau; and, as far as civil relationship was concerned, he retained that till he made sorry merchandise of it, by his own choice. the church distinction was awarded to Jacob. Spiritual affairs stand upon another tenure than civil rights. There must be no claiming here. It must be all giving and receiving, on the principle of undeserved bounty. Again, the divine preference was not influenced by personal character or conduct. The parenthetical verse is conclusive on this: ("For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.") It has been presumed by some that election proceeds upon the foresight of the good character that individuals will sustain. But this is just a desperate assumption, perfectly groundless. Neither of these two had any character, either good or bad, when the distinction was made; and it is plainly affirmed that it was done so to show that character had nothing to do with it. Personal desert and demerit were quite outside the whole affair. It is not for us to say what was the reason. We know what was not the reason for that is distinctly named. It is common to say

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that there are reasons-but they are hidden from us. Be it So. We would not be irreverently curious. It seems patent that the object was to imitate the idea of acceptance without merit, which we are all reduced to, before we can be saved. The words look in this direction: "that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth." Although we are not free to believe that the affair in hand involved salvation or damnation, we can well conceive that it might be intended to eliminate and fore-show a principle of dealing applicable thereto. Works and calling are antithetically put. The same thing occurs frequently to exalt the grace of God, as the foundation and origin of our salvation, and to humble human pretensions. The prevailing idea of Scripture is, that God makes himself the starting point of all favourable dealing with men, and does not take action in the first instance from the creature. "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." 1 Cor. i. 9. "Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." 2 Tim. i. 9. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." Titus iii. 5. Bad works forerun damnation, and are its procuring cause. Good works are posterior to salvation, and are its happy fruits. But now, let us inquire concerning the two brothers in question, what was determined in respect to them, when their mother consulted the divine oracle. Was Jacob's soul the subject of election, and was his eternal happiness guaranteed by it? Was Esau's everlasting condition hopelessly determined before he had done ill, and irrespective of his character? The foundation of Scripture statement on the subject will bear no such superstructure. Jacob was elected to be the progenitor of the Messiah and the proprietor of Canaan, which was reckoned as church land. Esau was rejected from such honour, and had his portion and his blessing in another direction. To bring their personal and final destiny within the scope of the election, or non-election here spoken of, is, we think, a bold assumption, without any warrant. Jacob was an ecclesiastic. But office ensures no man's salvation. Esau was a common man, lacking priestly distinction. saved without mitre or surplice. For anything the election determined Jacob might perish, and Esau be saved, or both be saved, or perish both. Where they both are now, who knows? In heaven, we hope. No one questions but Jacob is there. And why should we conclude otherwise of Esau? There are unworthy acts of his on record, showing that in earlier life he was a profane person, setting light by godliness, and despising sacred privileges. This,

But many a man is