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faid, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for fervants; and with corn and wine have I fuftained him: and what shall I do now unto thee, my fon? ver. 37. Efau ftill urges his father; Bless me, even me alfo, O my father. Upon this Ifaac bleffes him: and pray obferve; of corn and wine, and temporal power, he gives him a full and an equal share :-Thy dwelling fhall be the fatnefs of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above : the only limitation on the bleffing is, Thou shalt ferve thy brother. Whatever then was peculiarly given to Jacob, was contained in the grant, of being lord over his brethren; and what this peculiar gift was, we may learn from Ifaac himself, who in the next chapter renews the bleffing on Jacob, and gives exprefsly to him and his feed the blessing of Abraham, ver. 4. In the fame chapter the bleffing is renewed and confirmed by God himfelf; In thee and in thy feed fhall all the families of the earth be blessed,

ver. 14.

That the regard of all nations to the feed in which they were all to be blessed, should be expreffed by their bowing down to him, is no hard figure of speech; that even this yoke, this fuperiority of Abraham's family, fhould one day be broken, as the promise to Efau fets forth, when Jews and Gentiles fhould be on an equal foot, and equally the people of God, is no more than the original covenant contains; for the day was to come, when all nations should be equally blessed.

If you expound this bleffing of temporal dominion, fee how the cafe will ftand: Jacob is to rule over Efau; yet no fooner is the bleffing given, but

he flies his country for fear of Efau, Gen. xxvii. 43, &c. He lives abroad for many years; and, when he returns, the fear and dread of his brother returns with him he was greatly afraid and diftreffed, Gen. xxxii. 7. His only refuge in this diftrefs was to God; Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Efau, ver. 11. When he fends a meffage to him, he ftyles himself, Thy fervant Jacob, ver. 20. When he met him, he bowed himself to the ground feven times, until he came near to Efau, xxxiii. 3. When he speaks to him, he calls him lord; when he was kindly received by Efau, he says, I have seen thy face, as though I had feen the face of God, and thou waft pleased with me, ver. 10. What is there in all this to fhew the rule and dominion that was given to Jacob over his mother's fons ?

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If you fuppofe the prophecy, understood of temporal dominion, to be fulfilled in the pofterity of these two brothers, let us see how the cafe stands upon this fuppofition: the family of Efau was fettled in power and dominion many years before Jacob's family had any certain dwelling place; the dukes and kings of Efau's house are reckoned up, Gen. xxxvi. and the hiftorian tells us, Thefe are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Ifrael, ver. 31. When the appointed time was come for establishing the houfe of Ifrael, and giving them the land and poffeffions of their enemies, the family of Efau were, by a particular decree, exempted from the dominion of Ifrael. The Lord fpake unto Mofes,-Command thou the people, faying, Ye are to pass through the coaft of your brethren the children of Efau, which dwell in

Seir; and they fhall be afraid of you take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore: meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not fo much as a foot breadth; because I have given mount Seir unto Efau for a poffeffion. Deut. ii. 4, 5. If in the time of David they of Edom became his fervants, 2 Sam. viii. 14; yet in the days of Jehoram did they recover again, and made a king over themselves, 2 Kings viii. 20. And in the time of Ahaz they revenged the affront, by fmiting Judah, and leading away captives, 2 Chron. xxviii. 17. Can you now fuppofe that this variety of fortune between the children of Jacob and Efau was the thing intended, or meant to be described, when the promife was given to Jacob, that his mother's children fhould bow down to him? If this were the cafe, Ifaac needed not to be fo fcrupulous in preferving the peculiar bleffing to Jacob; he might have given Efau a fhare of it; and the event would have answered.

It appears, I think, from hence, that the bleffing given to Jacob, and expreffed in words implying a rule over his brethren, was truly a conveyance of the birthright to him in the family of Abraham; that the birthright in Abraham's family respected the special bleffing and covenant given to Abraham by God; that Ifaac himfelf calls this right of primogeniture in his houfe, the bleffing of Abraham; that God himself, in confirmation of Jacob's right of primogeniture, affures him, that in his feed all the families of the earth fhall be blessed.

Now this promise being the only fpecial promife made to Ifaac and Jacob in preference to their brethren, and in confequence of God's everlasting

covenant limited to them, this promise muft neceffarily be understood to be the fubject-matter of the everlafting covenant: and it is very obfervable, that this bleffing fo peculiarly belongs to this covenant, that it is never mentioned with respect to any other perfon whatever, than fuch only, to whom the right of this covenant, and the promise of the land of Canaan, defcended. Some interpreters have imagined that these words require no higher a sense than this; that all nations fhould fee the profperity of Abraham and his feed fo evidently, that they fhould bless themselves and others in fome fuch form as this; God make thee as great as Abraham, and his feed. But can we imagine that God's everlafting covenant, as he himself calls it, was given only to produce a proverbial form of fpeech in the world? that the prerogative of Ifaac above Ifhmael, of Jacob above Efau, lay in this only, that the nations fhould use the name of one in their mutual good wishes, and not of the other? Befides, when was this ever the cafe, when did all nations thus blefs themselves, or when was there occafion for it? The pofterity of Ishmael was established in power much fooner, and were as great and successful for many ages as the Jews, and much larger empires have fprung from them: fo that there was hardly ever any ground to take up this proverbial speech, which fome make to be the whole of this fpecial covenant limited from Abraham to Ifaac. and Jacob.

What distinct notion Abraham had of the bleffing promifed to all nations through him and his feed, what he thought of the manner and method by which it fhould be effected, we cannot pretend to

fay. But that he understood it to be a promise of reftoring mankind, and delivering them from the remaining curfe of the fall, there can be little doubt. He knew that death had entered by fin; he knew that God had promifed victory and redemption to the feed of the woman: upon the hopes of this restoration the religion of his ancestors was founded; and when God, from whom this bleffing on all men was expected, did exprefsly promife a bleffing on all men, and in this promise founded his everlasting covenant, what could Abraham elfe expect but the completion in his feed of that ancient promife and prophecy, concerning the victory to be obtained by the woman's feed? The curfe of the ground was expiated by the flood, and the earth reftored with a bleffing, which was the foundation of the temporal covenant with Noah; a large fhare of which God exprefsly grants to Abraham and his pofterity particularly, together with a promife, by their means, to bring a new and further bleffing upon the whole race of men. Lay these things together, and say what lefs could be expected from the new promise or prophecy given to Abraham, than a deliverance from that part of the curfe ftill remaining on man, Duft thou art, and to duft thou shalt return? In virtue of this covenant, Abraham and his pofterity had reason to expect, that the time would come, when man fhould be called from his duft again: for this expectation they had his affurance who gave the covenant, that he would be their God for ever. Well might our Saviour then tell the fons of Abraham, that even Mofes at the bufh fhewed the refurrection of the dead, when he calleth the Lord, the God of

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