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could lose the truth. The Seven Churches of Asia were seven "grounds and pillars" of the truth, and yet the truth left them, and they fell, and are now desolate.

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But I believe that this passage in Timothy is allusive to Jacob's dream, and the probable reason of it would be the identity of language: "The house of God, which is the church of the living God," that is, in Hebrew, Beth-el, the pillar and ground of the "truth," 'he set up a pillar, and anointed it ;" and the words of Paul paraphrased would run thus: "If I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the true Beth-el, which is the true pillar, in opposition to the mere shadowy and ceremonial one which Jacob set up, of the truth." You will say, however, that truth cannot in every passage be thus construed as contrast to shadow. I answer, we have an illustration and instance of this use in the gospel of John: "The law came by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ." Now, truth came by Moses as well as by Christ; but the meaning is, that the shadow and ceremony of it came by Moses, while truth, the substance of it, came by Christ. So the allusion would be, "That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the true Beth-el, in opposition to the mere ceremonial or dreamy one which Jacob saw; which Beth-el, the Christian church, is the true pillar, or the reality and antitype of that which Jacob raised in the desert." This is not a common interpretation, but it seems a probable one; and if it be a true one, it would do away with the difficulty that some have raised on the passage from St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, not that there is any real difficulty, still less Romanism, in the passage, even if this view be not accepted.

At the close of the chapter, at the twentieth verse, the idea unfortunately seems conveyed that Jacob made a sort of mercenary bargain with God: "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat,

and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God." But that is not the exact rendering, as it does not convey the idea of the original. The meaning of it is, “ If it be true, as God has promised," not doubting it, but accepting it, —“if God will thus keep me, give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; if the Lord thus be my God,". that is to say, if he be such a God as this, - "then the least return that I can make for all this, is to accept him as my God." In other words, he accepts God as a promise-making God first, and then, on the ground and footing of that, he pledges himself to be his child, his follower, and a believer. "And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be [Beth-el] God's house and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely devote the tenth to the acknowledgment of thy sovereignty, and of my allegiance to thee." His vow was the expression of feelings created by the previous goodness of God.

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CHAPTER XXIX.

PATRIARCHAL SINS JACOB'S JOURNEY -ANCIENT WELLS-RACHEL A SHEPHERDESSA MOTHER- - JACOB'S INTERVIEW WITH RACHELLEAH INSTEAD OF RACHEL POLYGAMY.

It is most important you should bear in mind, as we proceed in the course of our perusal of these successive lessons from the word of God, that they do not always consist of examples for us to imitate, but of facts occurring in the actual history and development of human nature, teaching us, first, what nature is, left to itself; and, secondly, how sovereign, how unmerited, how persistent, is the forbearance and the mercy of God.

One is pained to read so many instances of sinful acts and relations occurring in the course of this book; but, if no such instances had been recorded in it, in the case of its subjects, it would not have been a true and full portrait of humanity, but a flattering and beautiful sketch, not just and exact to the original. You must not, therefore, suppose that because sins are recorded occasionally as facts, but without censure, the sinners guilty of them are therefore set before us as models for us to admire or imitate. The history is written impartially, as history should be written, and some of those that we read of in it are beacons, whose whole circumstances we are to avoid; some are signs and models, whom we are to imitate, and to whom we are to approach.

In this chapter the depravity, which I alluded to before, in Laban, comes out only more fully, whilst Jacob, who sinned

by supplanting his brother, is seen to meet with retributive judgment, in Leah being given to him by Laban instead of Rachel. The deceiver is deceived; the biter is bit; he is caught in the snare that he prepared for others.

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We shall, therefore, see, in the course of this history, whilst sin may be forgiven, and is forgiven, in the sinner, yet the bitter, not penal, but, it may be, chastening and paternal consequences of it, are reaped and encountered even in this world.

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In the first verse we read that "Jacob went on his jour ney." It is, literally translated, "lifted up his feet from the road," an expression which denotes the joy with which he set Recollect that he had just escaped from the persecution of Esau; he had just seen a beautiful apocalypse of God at Beth-el; and, refreshed by the scene that he had witnessed, and the divine pledges that he had heard, he lifts an elastic foot, having a happy heart within, the source of a light foot without, and journeys toward "the people of the east.”

We read that there was a well, and "a stone was upon the well's mouth." In Eastern lands a well is a most precious possession; and in order to guard it from the sands of the road, and from decaying vegetation being whirled into it by the wind, heavy stones are placed upon the mouth of each well, to be partly a protection, and partly to keep the water cool, and partly to show the wayfaring man where the well is situated.

In the third verse it is said, "They rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the sheep." Now, this seems inconsistent with the tenth verse, "Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth." And in the eighth verse, "They said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together, and till they roll the stone from the well's mouth." Does it not seem, then, that in the third verse the fact is recorded to have been done, and that in the eighth verse it is

stated that it had not been done? The answer to this is, that in the third verse the ordinary usage is specified, and in the eighth verse the fact of the usage being practised on this occasion is recorded. The usage is, "Thither were all the flocks gathered; and they rolled the stone from the well's mouth," that was the way to get at the water, "and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well's mouth in his place." That is a description of the usage. Then the subsequent statement is an assertion of the fact that they did so on this occasion.

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We then read that Jacob said to the shepherds, "My brethren, whence be ye? And they said, Of Haran are we. And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. And he said unto them, Is he well?" or, literally translated, "Has he peace?" And hence, the salaam of the Indian is well known; and that Arabic or Hindostanee word is a surviving echo of the Hebrew shalom, which means "peace." And hence, "Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house," - make your salaam upon it, or let it have peace.

They then told Jacob, "Behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep." Now, it seems to us strange that Rachel, who was the daughter, I may almost say, of a prince, should be a shepherdess; but not more strange than that Rebekah, who was a daughter of a king or sheik, should carry water from the well. These were usages that were thought perfectly compatible with dignity of position; and thus some things which seem outré and strange to us, were not only perfectly understood and appreciated in ancient and Eastern countries, but subject to no misconstruction.

We read, then, that "while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep; for she kept them." In the tenth verse, there is something very beautiful; it seems allusive. You will notice how often Jacob alludes in it to his

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