LECTURE IV.

THE UNFOLDING OF THE PROMISE IN THE CALL OF ABRAHAM;~WITH THE BLESSINGS SECURED TO HIM, AND TO HIS SEED, AND TO ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH, BY THE PROMISE, COVENANT, AND OATH OF GOD.

BY THE REV. R. P. BUDDICOM, M.A., F.A.S.

MINISTER OF St. George's, Everton.

GEN. xii. 1-3.

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of

the earth be blessed.

EVERY portion of Holy Scripture is a part of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. While that Gospel is especially concentrated, according

to the greatness of his majesty and the beauty of his love, in the New Testament, it is amply, though mysteriously, diffused over the pages of the Old. So that the science of salvation can no more be well understood, without a knowledge of Divine dealing with mankind recorded in the earlier Scriptures, than a student in geometry could fully enter into the steps and conclusions

of

any advanced proposition in Euclid, if he were unacquainted with those by which it had been preceded. Rent as the inner vail of the temple. now is, from the top to the bottom, by the death of Christ, so that every believer may have entrance into the Holiest by his blood, he will see comparatively little of its wonders, without passing previously through the outward sanctuary; and studying, as he goes, its mystic furniture, of history, type, prophecy, and ceremonial. The work of salvation has been carried on since the fall of man, when the whole scheme of redemption was originally enwrapped in a single promise; which has been gradually unfolding its blessed import, from that awful hour of human misery and divine compassion; and which is yet to be evolved, until its full and final import shall be exhibited in the glory of the Mediator, and the ineffable happiness of his Church. The various dispensations of Jehovah, Patriarchal, Levitical,

and Christian, originate in the same design, belong to the same procedure, and are directed towards the same issue. They are all to be reckoned, therefore, as several parts and movements of one machine, meant and calculated, in the riches of Almighty power, unerring wisdom, and love unsearchable, to accomplish one great plan and purpose of his will.

But as some portions of a vast machine press themselves more forcibly upon the eye of an examiner than others, both on account of their individual beauty, and high importance to the general design, so is it in the Holy Scriptures. Every part is momentous; but the dealings of God with Abraham, with his natural and fœderal posterity, to the present moment, as well as in their future restoration and blessedness, which the beaming lights of Scripture prophecy, enable us to see and realize with infallible certainty, are full of deep and thrilling interest, and vitally concern the faithful and expecting Church of God.

To this high subject of historic recollection, of present interest, and of coming fulfilment, your attention is called in the present course of Lectures, wherein we mean to testify of the privileges, sins, miseries, judgments, and glory of God's chosen heritage. That subject cannot be indifferent to any man who feels his interest in Reve

lation, the goodness of God in Christ Jesus to his Church; and the coming of that time, when salvation shall once more go forth in its all-conquering might from Sion-when kings shall come to her light, and nations to the brightness of her rising until Jew and Gentile hath one common Saviour, and the glorified Messiah shall be all in all to both.

The design of these Lectures, the importance of an accurate knowledge of the prophetic Scriptures, the spirit in which they should be studied; -the needful rules whereby the investigator must thankfully submit to be guided in their interpretation, as God's ancient host by the pillar of fire in the wilderness ;-man's original state of holiness and happiness in his pure Maker's image ;-the dominion then given to him over the earth;-the loss of that dominion by sin;- and the promise of full and overflowing restoration by the seed of the woman,-have been already laid before you, as needful preliminaries to what may follow, concerning the fortunes of Israel and their momentous aspect upon the Gentile Church.

66 "THE UNFOLDING OF THE PROMISE IN THE CALL OF ABRAHAM; WITH THE BLESSINGS SECURED TO HIM AND TO HIS SEED, AND TO ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH, BY THE PROMISE, COVENANT, AND OATH OF GOD," is the subject

It is a field so

with which I am entrusted. vast, of interest so various, of fruitage so luxuriant, that I can aim at nothing more than to bring you towards a very few of the high places, whence you may survey some of the glories of the scene. Would you behold them more at large; walk through the length and breadth of the land, in close and searching examination of prophetic Scripture and its evangelical exposition. If a cluster of the grapes of Eshcol shall refresh you, the door of the vineyard is open; pass through it, and pluck more largely for yourselves.

The subject before us naturally divides itself into two parts.

I. THE BLESSINGS ANNOUNCED BY JEHOVAH TO THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.

II. THE SECURITY GIVEN BY JEHOVAH FOR

THEIR BESTOWMENT.

And

may the holy Spirit of Light, and Love, and Truth, bless the consideration to us all.

I. THE BLESSINGS ANNOUNCED BY GOD TO

ABRAHAM.

There can be no reasonable ground to doubt that the great outline of salvation, however partially veiled in the mysterious language of the first promise to fallen man in Paradise, was essentially understood by our first parents, and by them trans