be) of actually discovering all the examples of consistency without contrivance which I shall bring forward in this volume, and though in many cases, where the detection was my own, I found on examination that there were others who had forestalled me -qui nostra ante nos-yet some of them I have not seen noticed by commentators at all, and scarcely any of them in that light in which only I regard them, as grounds of evidence. It is to this application, therefore, of expositions, often in themselves suffici ently familiar, that I have to beg the candid attention of my readers; and if I shall frequently bring out of the treasures of God's Word, or of the interpretations of God's Word," things old," the use that I make of them may not perhaps be altogether thought

So.

But before I proceed to individual in

stances, I will endeavour to develope a principle upon which the Book of Genesis goes as a whole, for this is in itself an example of consistency.

I.

THERE may be those who look upon the Book of Genesis as an epitome of the general history of the world in its early ages, and of the private history of certain families more distinguished than the rest. And so it is, and on a first view it may seem to be little else; but if we consider it more closely, I think we may convince ourselves of the truth of this proposition, that it contains fragments (as it were) of the fabric of a Patriarchal Church, fragments scattered indeed and imperfect, but capable of combination, and when combined, consistent as a whole. Now it is not easy to imagine

that any impostor would set himself to compose a book upon a plan so recondite; nor, if he did, would it be possible for him to execute it as it is executed here. For the incidents which go to prove this proposition are to be picked out from among many others, and on being brought together by ourselves, they are found to agree together as parts of a system, though they are not contemplated as such, or at least are not produced as such by the author himself.

I am aware that, whilst we are endeavouring to obtain a view of such a Patriarchal Church by the glimpses afforded us in Genesis, there is a danger of our theology becoming visionary:-it is a search upon which the imagination enters with alacrity, and readily breaks its bounds--it has done so in former times and in our own. Still the principle of such investigation is good;

for out of God's book, as out of God's world, more may be often concluded than our philosophy at first suspects. The principle is good, for it is sanctioned by our Lord himself, who reproaches the Sadducees with not knowing those Scriptures which they received, because they had not deduced the doctrine of a future state from the words of Moses, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," though the doctrine was there if they would but have sought it out. One consideration, however, we must take along with us in this inquiry, that the Books of Moses are in most cases a very incomplete history of facts-telling something and leaving a great deal untoldabounding in chasms which cannot be filled up-not, therefore, to be lightly esteemed even in their hints, for hints are often all that they offer.

The proofs of this are numberless; but as it is important to my argument that the thing itself should be distinctly borne in mind, I will name a few. Thus if we read the history of Joseph as it is given in the 37th chapter of Genesis, where his brethren first put him into the pit and then sell him to the Ishmaelites, we might conclude that he was himself quite passive in the whole transaction. Yet when the brothers happen to talk together upon this same subject many years afterwards in Egypt, they say one to another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear."* All these fervent intreaties are sunk in the direct history of the event, and only come out by accident after all. As another instance. The simple account of Jacob's reluctance to part * Genesis, xlii. 21.