his temporal interests. On the contrary, we are persuaded that if you consider the vow without prejudice, you will find it expressive of great humility and gratitude. God had just entered into covenant with Jacob, engaging to bestow privileges which would make him conspicuous amongst men. God had just told him, that the land on which he lay should become the inheritance of himself and his children; and, as though this were little, that in him and in his seed should all families of the earth be blessed. Jacob was thus assured that he should be the father of a great nation, yea, and that from him should descend the Benefactor and Redeemer of mankind. These were splendid promises; we could scarcely have marvelled, had the Patriarch, on awakening from his sleep, manifested great elation of mind at the dignities to which he was appointed. Knowing how difficult it is to bear greatness meekly, we could not have wondered had he vowed as his vow, if indeed God will accomplish His word, and bestow on me the things which He has spoken, I will take Him as my God, and serve Him faithfully all the days of my life. And had this been Jacob's vow, there might have been colour for the opinion, that the Patriarch was mercenary in his religion. Had he made his serving God contingent on his obtaining what would render him mighty and illustrious, it would have been with some show of fairness that men accused his piety of being sordid and selfish. But when, in place of speaking of lordship over the land of Canaan, and of being the ancestor of Messiah, he simply asks for bread to eat, and raiment to put on, the bare necessaries of life, with none of its superfluities; those, we think, must be resolved to find fault who can see in Jacob's conduct the indications of a religion which looked at nothing but recompense. The only just

interpretation which can be put upon his vow appears to us the following. Jacob is quite overpowered by the manifestations of God's favour which had just been vouchsafed, and sinks under the sense of his own utter unworthiness. Who is he, a wanderer on account of his sin, that the Almighty should enter into covenant with him, and promise him whatever was most noble in human allotment? Oh, he seems to say, it was not needful that promises such as these should have been made in order to my feeling bound to the service of God. I am not worthy of the least of all His mercies; and I require not, as I deserved not, the being signalled out from other men to make me strong in my resolve of obedience. If He will but grant me the commonest food, and the simplest clothing, I shall be satisfied; it will be more than I have a right to ask, and will bind me to Him as my Maker and my Benefactor. He has indeed promised to restore me safely to my father's house, so that I shall not perish in the exile which my offence has procured; and if He do this, and thus make good His word, I shall account as nothing the having to struggle with hardship and want: there will be given me a clear token that I am under the protection of an ever-vigilant guardian, and whom but this guardian shall I take for my God?

We have no hesitation in stating that such seems fairly the import of Jacob's vow. Jacob is not, so to speak, bargaining with God: he is only overcome by the display of Divine goodness, and abashed by the consciousness how little it was deserved. Can the vow be called mercenary when he only asked a bare subsistence, though the promise had included territory and dominion? Jacob after all merely asked life; and he asked it merely that he might devote it to God. Does this savour of the spirit of a hire

ling? Can this be declared indicative of a resolution to treat religion as a mere matter of profit and loss, and to cultivate piety no further than God would give him riches in exchange? We are persuaded that you cannot thus characterize the vow of the Patriarch. We stated, indeed, at the commencement of our discourse, that we had right to expect that the faults of saints would be recorded: if, therefore, the vow of Jacob were what it has been maliciously represented, we should have only to lament another proof of the frailty of the best, and to point out another evidence of the honesty of the historian. But we are not to allow the faults to be exaggerated. When holy men transgressed and yielded to temptation, it is not for the interest of truth that we should defend or extenuate their conduct. But where the charge against them is disingenuous and unfounded, it is our duty to expose the unfairness of the attack, and vindicate the accused. And men may perversely find if they will the marks of a sordid and mercenary temper in the declaration that Jacob would take the Lord for his God, if he had bread to eat and raiment to put on but when the circumstances of the Patriarch are taken into account, when what he asks of God is set in contrast with what God had engaged to bestow, candid reasoners must admit that his language is that of humility rather than of a hireling, and find in it the expression of gratitude and thankfulness rather than of a covetous and time-serving disposition.

There is but another remark which we would make before winding up our subject of discourse. We learn from such narratives as this of Jacob's vision how possible it is that the soul may enjoy great happiness and gain vast accessions of knowledge in what is called the separate state. It is, you observe, whilst Jacob is asleep, and

therefore not to be communicated with through his bodily senses, that God shews him the heavens opened, and speaks to him of great things to come. And this is a strong testimony to the capacity of the soul, when detached from the body, for receiving notices of the invisible world, and holding converse with spiritual beings. When I have laid aside this corruptible flesh, my soul-if indeed I "sleep in Jesus"-will pass into a condition of peace and tranquillity, and there await the trumpet-peal which is to call forth as her residence a glorified body. But there is no necessity that the soul should be inactive or contracted in her enjoyments because stripped for a while of material organs. The intermediate state must indeed be vastly inferior in all the elements of dignity and happiness to that which will succeed the general resurrection. Yet it may not be a state of listlessness, nor one whose privilege consists in mere repose. The soul, by her own organs, may gaze on what is glorious, and gather in what is inspiriting. For if, whilst the body was wrapt in slumber, and the soul left alone in her wakefulness, Jacob could behold earth linked with heaven, and the bright array of angels, and the majesty of Deity; and hearken to a Divine voice which brought him animating tidings, we may well be persuaded that, when separated from matter by death, our spirits shall be capable of intercourse with God, and of grasping much of the magnificence of the future. If they cannot mount the whole height of the ladder, they may yet look on it in its stateliness, and admire the celestial troop by which it is traversed, and receive from the Lord God, the mysterious emblems of whose presence crown its summit, intelligence of the things which the eye hath not seen, and the ear hath not heard.

1 1. Thess. iv. 14.

But now we address you, in conclusion, as beings confined for a while to a narrow and inconsiderable scene, but whose home is far away in those regions of light where Deity is specially manifested, and where the angel and the archangel have their abode. We point you to the everlasting hills, whose glorious and gold-lit summits come out to the eye of faith from the mighty expanse; and we tell you that those hills must be climbed. We point you to "a city which hath foundations," the "Jerusalem which is above : "2 we shew you its stupendous walls stretching interminably upward; and we tell you that these walls must be scaled. And you are staggered at the greatness

of the demand. How can we ascend hills which are not based on this earth; how surmount walls, of which no eye can take the altitude? We lead you with us to Bethel, and bid you behold that on which the Patriarch gazed. There is a ladder set up on the ground, but its top reaches to the summit of the mountain, and to the gate of the city. Are you willing to go up to leave the prison and to seek the palace? Then, in the name of the living God, we bid you plant the foot on the first step of this ladder: forsake evil courses, break away from evil habits, and take part with the disciples of Christ. Christ casteth out none who come unto Him: and he who strives to turn from his iniquities at the call of his Saviour, is beginning to lay hold on that propitiation, through the grasping of which in its several parts he will be gradually raised to the blessedness of immortality. Are you afraid of trusting yourselves to this ladder? Thousands in every age have gone up by it to glory; and not a solitary individual has found it give way beneath him, however immense the burden of his sins. And why afraid? The ladder is He 1 Heb. xi. 10. 2 Gal. iv. 26.