did in the presence of Job, "Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement; I will not offend any more. That which I see not, teach thou me! if I have done iniquity, I will do so no more."

Amendment is the end of all repentance. This involves the two-fold duty of forsaking sin and practising holiness. He who hates his sins, and mourns for them, will regard the future commission of them with dread. To forsake them will be the commanding object of his designs and efforts. A general reformation of life will be the conduct suggested and desired by the present temper of his heart. His fixed determination is to practise future obedience; more and more continually will this be the purpose and employment of his life. With increasing resolution he will "go from strength to strength." He will improve in holiness as he increases in years, and will become from time to time more and more meet to be a partaker with the saints in light of their communion and their joys.

These, brethren, and similar to these, will be the fruits of our hearts and lives if we are the subjects of that repentance which the Baptist preached, and which Christ and His apostles insisted upon as being absolute to enter the kingdom of heaven. Then let us examine our hearts at the commencement of this solemn season, to know whether we have realized that change of mind which only will produce worthy fruits.

189

The First Sunday in Lent.

EVENING SERVICE.—First Lesson: Genesis xxii.

Verse 1.-" And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham."

ABRAHAM was called the "friend of God." He was a character of peculiar eminence. Whether we consider his faith and his obedience, or whether we attend to the distinguished rank which was allotted to him, not only as he was the founder of the Jewish nation, but also, in a sense, the head of the universal Church, the "Father of the faithful;" much may be said in commendation of him. The Lord Himself honoured him in a most signal manner, and bestowed upon him marks of uncommon regard. His eventful life was hitherto accompanied with astonishing prosperity. His most ardent wishes and highest earthly hopes were accomplished in the gift of Isaac, the son through whom God had promised that he should be the "father of many nations," and in whose seed "all the nations of the earth should be blessed." But when Isaac was about five-and-twenty years old we witness a very distressing scene. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac in the land of Moriah, and the sacred writer introduces this most remarkable narrative with a most remarkable phrase, "God did tempt Abraham." God does nothing without an object; that object invariably is to teach some instructive lessons, not only to the persons immediately connected with the case, but also to generations yet unborn.

We shall therefore trace this wonderful circumstance and draw some inferences from it which may be improving to ourselves. Let us notice, First, Abraham's remarkable temptation; and, Secondly, The remarkable end served by the temptation.

I. Abraham's remarkable temptation: "God did tempt Abraham."

From the common acceptation of the word tempt we form the idea of placing an inducement to do that which is wrong. In this sense we are to understand the temptation of our Saviour in the wilderness, when the devil fruitlessly tempted Him to err by three different attempts. In this sense also persons are tempted to sin, either by Satan or by other individuals, or by the evil propensities of their own hearts. But it was not thus God tempted Abraham; neither does He thus tempt any man. St. James says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." It is not possible that a Being of infinite purity can suggest an evil thought to, or excite an evil desire in the mind of any of His creatures. The word tempt in our text must therefore have a different meaning. It is used in the sense of proving or trying, and may be rendered, God did prove or try Abraham. He tried him as metal is tried by a searching and severe test. This was to the Patriarch a most searching trial. It makes one shudder to attempt to enter into his feelings at the prospect of this unprecedented and unparalleled test. It was a trial in comparison with which all our trials sink into nothingness. Yet we have our trials which may be regarded great or small, according to our relative circumstances. We are called upon especially at this season to reflect upon our respective trials, and to improve them for the furtherance of God's glory, and our own Christian progress. It is well to distinguish between the trials which God brings upon us, and those which we bring upon ourselves. The former are prescribed, the latter are contingent; the former we cannot avoid, the latter we can in a measure control; the former are necessary to answer God's ends for our good, the latter are unnecessary and add to our difficulties. In the former are included repentance, self-denial, the mortification of the flesh, and the sacrificing of those things which retard the operation of our spiritual graces, the latter consist in the

minor sorrows of life connected with the circumstances which surround us.

In regarding the trial of Abraham, we perceive that it was one of a most complicated nature, in which many difficulties were involved. Read the second verse: "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah: and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Every word seems intended to awaken up his tenderest parental feelings, and then it was required that he should do violence to those feelings by taking away the life of his beloved Isaac. The trial is steeled with piercing phrases, every word being like a poisoned arrow striking death into the heart. It has been remarked that "strong faith is often exercised with strong trials, and is put to hard service;" such was Abraham's

case.

Let us examine it, and—

"Take now thy

1. Observe the person to be offered. son." Not the best of his flock; he would have rejoiced to offer the whole of his property to God if that had been required, and would have regarded it a privilege rather than a sacrifice and a trial. It was not a servant of his household was asked; even Eliezer of Damascus, the best of his servants, would have been cheerfully given up. But God asked his son from him; not Ishmael, the rejected one, whose "hand was against every one, and every one's hand against him: " it was his only son Isaac, whom he loved. His only son by Sarah," the free woman," the mother of the faithful, whose life was to him dearer than his own. The difficulty in the way of Abraham's offering up Isaac will appear when we consider that he was endeared to him by a variety of interesting circumstances. He was granted to him as a peculiar favour-he was the child of much prayer-he was the child of God's promise-he was born after long expectation, and out of the common course of nature-he had also now become the cherisher and support of his declining years. This was not all, nor even the chief consideration. Isaac

was the child on whom the blessings of the covenant were entailed, and from whom the Saviour of the world was to arise. Notwithstanding all, Isaac was required to be delivered up.

Do we not see in the sacrifice required from Abraham a reflection of the sacrifice which God Himself has made? He has a Son, a beloved Son, an only begotten Son. "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all."

We have here also a most instructive lesson in respect to ourselves, which is this: our greatest trials generally meet us in connexion with those objects whom we love best. There may be a favourite child in the number of the family; experience teaches us that the source of the parent's severest trials arises from that child. The more strongly we love an object, the greater will be our trials in connexion with that object.

2. The manner in which the duty was required to be performed enhanced the severity of the trial. Isaac was not to be taken away by a mild, natural death; even then the loss of such a son as Isaac would have been extremely painful; but in that case, however lingering the illness, it would have been some degree of gratification to have watched at the side of his dying couch. Day after day and night after night would both Abraham and Sarah have administered to his wantsthe hand of sympathy would have smoothed down his dying pillow-parental care would have wiped away the dewdrops of perspiration from his aching brow-the kiss of affection would have soothed his expiring moments; but no, he was to die a violent death in the beauty of health, and in the strength of early manhood. And, Oh horror! that violent death was to be inflicted by the hand of his own father. The one in whom he felt the greatest confidence, from whom he had received, and expected to receive, the greatest kindness, was to be his executioner. It would have been some relief to the mind of the Patriarch to have been allowed to hide his face from the bloody scene, and not to be a witness of the slaughter. It would have been a greater relief still to have