4 
ISRAEL. 
uproot himself, to throw away the fruits of his labour during so many years, and begin 
a journey which might be interminable. But the injunction had grown stricter still. 
He was now not merely to leave his home, but to separate himself from his kindred: 
and thus at once doing violence to his natural affections, and divesting himself of the 
protection of all allied to him by blood, again begin his journey, and advance into 
Palestine, a country possessed by turbulent clans, and apparently, at that period, convulsed 
by recent invasion. Yet he obeyed, still unknowing in what portion of the world his 
journey was to terminate; nor was it until he had actually arrived within the borders 
of Palestine, that he received a knowledge of the promised land. 
Even there he found himself tried alike by the sterility of the soil and the violence 
of the people. He was successively, a fugitive in Egypt from famine, and a captive in 
the hands of one of the chiefs of Palestine. Released from both only by miracle, he 
continued still to “ dwell in tents,” a stranger in the land. The birth of the promised 
son was retarded, until he was a hundred years old. Even this blessing but increased 
his trial. He was commanded to sacrifice Isaac; and thus, by a single act, to extinguish 
at once the life miraculously given, the stay of his old age, the sole pledge of magnificent 
possession and countless posterity, and above all, the prophetic ancestor of that mightiest 
offspring, the Son alike of man and heaven, on whose brow was to be laid the perpetual 
diadem, and whose reign was to be the rejoicing of all generations. 
But, in this trial, of which the force is now beyond all calculation, (for in what 
human existence have interests and objects so vast ever been since combined?) the 
patriarch was not simply submissive, he was confiding. In defiance of the strongest 
obstacles, he believed that the promise would be eventually fulfilled; gave his entire con¬ 
viction to the divine words, and in solemn reverence and unhesitating belief, made his 
journey to the place of sacrifice, “ accounting that God was able to raise him up, even 
from the dead .” 1 It was not until he was on the point of consummating his obedience, 
that his trial was complete; and he received his reward in the most illustrious acknow¬ 
ledgment of faith ever given to man. 
“ By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast 
not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying 
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea¬ 
shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice .” 2 
On the same scene, nineteen hundred years after, and on the eve of the fall of 
Israel, a more stupendous sacrifice was to be offered; the Supreme Father was to give 
up his Firstborn to death. The same great truth, that He could not be held by the 
bonds of the grave, was to be the essential faith of that most solemn of all sufferings: 
and the trial was to be followed by that promise of universal sovereignty and imperishable 
happiness, which constitutes the hope, as it will consummate the grandeur, of Christianity. 
The discipline continued for centuries. Abraham finished his course, still a pilgrim 
in the land, where the divine promise had foreordained the temple and the throne. Isaac, 
2 Genesis, xxii. 16-18. 
' Hebrews, xi. 1!). 
