stage. His history is stained deep and dark. The brand plucked from the burning retains indelibly the fire-mark. "Search us, and try us, O God, and know our hearts, and see if there be any wicked way within us, and lead us in the way everlasting." There can be little doubt that he was a child of God; yet, as such, a brand plucked from the burningalmost lost, yet altogether saved. This instance is a singularly instructive one. Lot's is a biography awful yet suggestive; God's mercy abounds over man's transgression. It reveals how rich is the forbearing mercy of God, — how awfully a saint walking carelessly may fall. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” "Guide us by thy counsel. Hold us by thy right hand.”

CHAPTER XX.

ABRAHAM'S SIN-PATRIARCHAL JESUITISM -ABIMELECHA CHRISTIAN REBUKED BY A HEATHEN.

We have again to learn, in the history of Abraham, the lesson that needs to be deeply impressed upon us, not in order merely to humble man, but to exalt the Saviour of man, that there is none, not even the most perfect character, recorded in the annals of inspiration, except One, who was spotless and without flaw, or fault, or sin, in thought, word, or deed, in the sight of God. It is also very important evidence of the reality, and even inspiration, of the history where those things are recorded, and of the divine influence on the men who recorded them, that they consented to do so. Mere Jews, delighting to exalt and magnify their nation, would not thus have recorded the repeated sin of him who was their illustrious founder. It was their boast that they were Abraham's children, and if they had had their choice, they never would have recorded Abraham's faults. But the Bible is God's book; its records are impartial and true, and it describes not man as romance writers delineate him, but just as he is; and God's best men, as herein laid bare, show the remains and traces of many imperfections, proving how much there is in the best of men for us to forgive, seeing there is so much in God's sight that needs his forgiveness.

What aggravates the sin recorded in this chapter is the fact that this was the second offence of the same description perpetrated by Abraham; and he seems in this matter to have sinned almost on a principle previously laid down and con

certed between him and Sarah. He began his journey into Egypt and the realms of Abimelech, we are told, after having told Sarah, that wherever he wandered from his father's house, "This is thy kindness that thou shalt show me; at every place where we shall come, say, He is my brother." Now I explained, in my remarks on a previous lesson, that, when he went into Egypt, and said so, so far it was true, she was his sister in the sense in which Lot is said to have been his brother. Lot was his nephew, and Sarah was his half-niece; and of course the relationship subsisting between her and Abraham was what would not be tolerated now, though, with other similar things, it was tolerated in the infancy of nations, as we are told by Him who came to fulfil the law, and to rectify our views of the law, for "the hardness of their hearts." While it was true, in the then acceptance of the word, that she was his sister; yet, notwithstanding this, he stated that she was his sister in order that they who were addicted to polygamy, and might wish to marry her, and thus make Sarah a secondary wife, might not kill Abraham to get her. Sarah at this time was ninety years of age, and yet she had the remains of her pristine beauty; showing that human life was then much longer. than it is now,—whether owing to the ordinance of God, or to the abuse of health, by the mischievous practices and bad habits of man, it is difficult to say, but so it was; and therefore Abraham called her his sister to save his life; because if they saw that she was his wife, in those days when that relationship was most revered, they would have killed him, that she might be a widow, in order that they might marry her; a strange state of society, where men, in order to avoid one sin, would perpetrate another, and think that the justification of the lesser sin was by committing the greater, and that thus there would be, according to their calculation, little or no crime. Abraham, in order to avoid the possibil

ity of being murdered, said that she was his sister, that thus they might marry her legitimately, or at least that they might not destroy him in order that any one charmed with Sarah's appearance might take her for his wife. In other words, in the whole of this transaction he did not look at duty, but at expediency; he wanted, by a skilful management, to secure friends that God would have secured for him if he had walked in the path of principle, and done what was right. And it is quite certain, too, that Abraham was not alone to blame, but that Sarah connived at it, and even sanctioned the deception; for though it was true to the ear, it was false to the heart, because, when he said, "She is my sister," he meant indirectly to convey that she was not his wife; and we know that the suppressio veri is often the suggestio falsi. Concealing a portion which is true, in order to create a conviction of something that is false, is alike unchristian, unscriptural and dishonest.

Abraham thus prevaricated to save his life, and so far to help on what he thought were the grand purposes and designs of God. He believed that he was to be the forefather of the Messiah, and he thought that if he was slain such a grand promise could not be fulfilled! — and so, poor man, he tried in his folly to help God to fulfil his promise. He thought that the fulfilment of the promise was so precious a thing, that any sin would be forgiven which should lead to so desirable and blessed a result. Jesuitism is thus seen to have been very ancient. Such was the imperfection of a patriarch's life, such the depravity still remaining in the heart of the father of the faithful.

We read, next, of the conduct of Abimelech, when he discovered that Sarah was Abraham's wife. Abimelech is composed of the words Abba-Melech, that is, Father-King. And it seems to contain the germ of the true idea of kingship, that it should not be merely the despotism of a ruler, but also the

affectionate care of a loving father. The father and the king should be welded into one, in order to constitute the perfection of a Christian ruler. Abimelech's words show his acquaintance with the ruin of Sodom; for he said, "Wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?" showing that he recollected that God had destroyed a guilty one. And he said, "Wilt thou also lay upon its ruins a city that has not thus sinned?"

God said, "I have withheld thee from sinning." How humbling is that to all! Who knows, whatever class or party he belongs to, how much he is indebted, not to his own force of principle, but to God's providential restraint, in keeping him from sinning? It may be written over the periods of our life in which we take the greatest credit, and the achievements of which we are most proud, "I withheld thee from sinning." The most innocent in this assembly, who does not know the gospel, or love or fear God, little knows how much he is indebted to the unseen and unacknowledged restraint of God's providential care for the position he now fills, and the character which he now sustains, and the faultlessness which probably he prides himself on and glories in.

God told Abimelech that Abraham would pray for him. This did not mean that Abraham, as an interceding saint in heaven, would pray for Abimelech, but would pray for him as a prophet upon earth. "I will," says the apostle, "that prayers and intercessions be offered up for all men;" and the apostle also says, "Pray for us." But because a Christian earth prays for a brother upon earth, that does not prove, to say the very least of it, that a saint in heaven does pray

on

for a sinner or a sufferer upon earth; — it may be so, but this does not prove it.

In the next place, Abimelech's address to Abraham, when he found out Abraham's prevarication, was extremely beautiful. In fact, one would say, that Abimelech's character eclipsed by its beautiful splendor the conduct and the charac