children.' Yet God called for his darling, their only child, the joy of their age, the son of a miracle, and he upon whom the fulfilling of the promife made to Abraham did depend. For this fon, I fay, God called: a mighty trial: that which, one would have thought, might very well have overturned his faith, and ftum. bled his integrity; at leaft have put him upon this difpute in himself. This command is unreafonable and cruel; it is the tempter's, it cannot be God's. For, is it to be thought that God gave me a fon to make a facrifice of him? that the father fhould be butcher of his only, child? Again, that he fhould require me to offer up the fon of his own promise, by whom his covenant is to be performed: this is incredible. I fay, thus Abraham might naturally enough have argued, to withstand the voice of God, and indulge his great affections to his beloved Ifaac. But good old Abraham, that knew the voice that had promised him a fon, had not forgot to know it, when it required him back again; he difputes not, though it looked strange, and perhaps with some surprize. and horror, as a man. He had learned to beheve that God, that gave him a child by a miracle, could work another to preferve or reftore him. His affections could not balance his duty, much less overcome his faith; for he received him in a way that would let him doubt of nothing that God had promised of him.

To the voice of this Almightiness he bows, builds an altar, binds his only fon upon it,

Gen. xxii. 2.

kindles the fire, and ftretches forth his hand to take the knife: but the angel ftopped the ftroke; Hold, Abraham, thy integrity is proved. What followed? A ram ferved, and Ifaac was his again. This shows how little ferves, where all is refigned, and how mean a facrifice contents the Almighty, where the heart is approved. So that it is not the facrifice that recommends the heart, but the heart that gives the facrifice acceptance.

God often touches ourbeft comforts, and calls for that which we moft love, and are least willing to part with. Not that he always takes it utterly away, but to prove the foul's integrity, to cautiou us from exceffes, and that we may remember God, the Author of those bleffings we poffefs, and live loose to them. I fpeak my experience: the way to keep our enjoyments, is to refign them; and though that be hard, it is fweet to see them returned, as Ifaac was to his father Abraham, with more love and bleffing than before. Oftupid world! O worldly Chriftians! Not only ftrangers, but enemies to this excellent faith! And whilst fo, the rewards of it you can never know.

§. XIV. But Job preffes hard upon Abraham: his felf-denial alfo was very fignal. For when the meffengers of his afflictions came thick upon him, one doleful ftory after another, till he was left almost as naked as when he was born; the first thing he did, he fell to the ground, and worshipped that power, and kiffed that hand that ftripped him; fo far from murmuring, that he concludes his loffes of ef

But

tate and children with these words: Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked fhall I return: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; bleffed be the name of the Lord." O the deep faith, patience, and contentment of this excellent man! One would have thought, this repeated news of ruin had been enough to have overfet his confidence in God: but it did not; that ftayed him. indeed he tells us why: his Redeemer lived; I know, fays he, that my Redeemer lives." And it appeared he did; for he had redeemed him from the world: his heart was not in his worldly comforts; his hope lived above the joys of time, and troubles of mortality; not tempted by the one, nor fhaken by the other; but firmly believed, That when after his fkin worms fhould have confumed his body, yet with his eyes he fhould fee his God. Thus was the heart of Job both submitted to, and comforted in, the will of God.

§. XV. Mofes is the next great example in facred ftory for remarkable felf-denial, before the times of Chrift's appearance in the flesh. He had been faved when an infant, by an extraordinary providence, and it feems, by what followed, for an extraordinary fervice: Pharaoh's daughter, whofe compaffion was the means of his preservation, when the king decreed the flaughter of the Hebrew males, took him for her fon, and gave him the education of her father's court. His own graceful prefence, and extraordinary abilities, joined with

mJob. i. 21. ■. Ibid. xix. 25, 26. • Exod. ii. I. IO.

her love for him, and interest in her father to promote him, muft have rendered him, if not capable of fucceffion, at least of being chief minifter of affairs under that wealthy and powerful prince. For Egypt was then what Athens and Rome were after, the most famous for learning, arts, and glory.

§. XVI. But Mofes, ordained for other work, and guided by a better star, an higher principle, no fooner came to years of difcretion, than the impiety of Egypt, and the oppressions of his brethren there, grew a burden too heavy for him to bear. And though so wife and good a man could not want those generous and grateful acknowledgments, that became the kindness of the king's daughter to him; yet he had also seen that God that was invifible;" and did not dare to live in the ease and plenty of Pharaoh's houfe, whilft his poor brethren were required to make brick without straw."

Thus the fear of the Almighty taking deep hold of his heart, he nobly refufed to be called the fon of Pharaoh's daughter, and chofe rather a life of affliction, with the most despised and oppreffed Ifraelites, and to be the companion of their tribulations and jeopardies, than to enjoy the pleasures of fin for a season; efteeming the reproaches of Christ, which he fuffered for making that unworldly choice, greater riches than all the treasures of that kingdom

§. XVII.

Nor was he fo foolish as they thought him; he had reafon on his fide: for

Heb. xi. 24 to 27. Exod. v. 7, 16.

it is faid, he had an eye to the recompence of reward: he did but refuse a leffer benefit for a greater. In this his wifdom tranfcended that of the Egyptians; for they made the prefent world their choice, as uncertain as the weather, and fo loft that which has no end. Mofes looked deeper, and weighed the enjoyments of this life in the fcales of eternity, and found they made no weight there. He governed himself not by the immediate poffeffion, but the nature and duration of the reward. His faith corrected his affections, and taught him to facrifice the pleasure of felf, to the hope he had of a future more excellent recompence.

§. XVIII. Ifaiah* was no inconfiderable inftance of this bleffed felf-denial; who of a courtier became a prophet, and left the worldly interefts of the one, for the faith, patience, and fufferings of the other. For his choice did not only lose him the favour of men; but their wickednefs, enraged at his integrity to God, in his fervent and bold reproofs of them, made a martyr of him in the end for they barbarously fawed him afunder in the reign of king Manaffes. Thus died that excellent man, and commonly called the Evangelical Prophet.

XIX. I fhall add, of many, one example more, and that is from the fidelity of Daniel ; an holy and wife young man, that when his external advantages came in competition with his duty to Almighty God, he relinquished

*Dorotheus in his lives of the Prophets.