into another land where he should enjoy the protection of Heaven, and experience so felicitous an increase, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. He readily obeyed the divine call, by migrating with his wife, his nephew, and his servants, into the Land of Promise, where he pitched his tents in the vicinage of Sichem, and built an altar unto the Lord.

B. C. Here God vouchsafed to appear to him 1920. again, confirming the former promise, and

assuring him, that his posterity should, at a future day, possess the country in which he was now a stranger. In a short time, however, Abraham was obliged to remove from Egypt, to elude the dreadful effects of a great famine, which occurred in Canaan. The fear he was in upon account of Sarah his wife, whose beauty was sufficiently striking to endanger the man's life who should pass for her husband, made him resolve that she should style herself his sister in every place where they might sojourn. From this descent into Egypt, the generality of chronologers compute the space of four hundred and thirty years mentioned by St. Paul, agreeably to the assertion of Moses in another place, that Israel dwelt in Egypt four hundred and thirty years.

B. C. The patriarch had not long resided in 1919. Egypt before Pharaoh became enamoured

of Sarah's charms, and took her to his court, showing extraordinary favours, for her sake, to her pretended brother. The Almighty was, however, pleased to interpose on behalf of his servants, and Pharaoh was made so sensible of the anger of Heaven, that he voluntarily restored Abraham's wife free from violation, and issued

out orders for their safe departure from his dominions.

Abraham immediately quitted Egypt, and, directing his steps to Bethel, where the famine had now ceased, offered a sacrifice of thanks for his safe return. In the mean time, the herds of Lot, his nephew, increased so considerably, that sharp contentions arose between the herdsmen, and Abraham resolved to separate in a friendly manner, as is already related in the history of Moab. Upon Lot's departure to the fertile plains of Sodom, Abraham removed to the land of Moreh in Hebron, where he contracted a friendship with three of the greatest men of the place; viz. Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, who, in process of time rendered him some important services, and assisted him in rescuing Lot from Chedorlaomer.

He afterward removed to Hebron, where God appeared to him the fifth time in a vision, and encouraged him with fresh assurances of especial favour, adding, that he would be his exceeding great reward. Abraham now ventured to expostulate, for the first time, with his Creator, observing, that he could not comprehend how those reiterated promises could be fulfilled, while he continued childless, and, to all appearance, should leave his substance to his steward, one Eliezer, of Damascus. God vouchsafed to answer, that not Eliezer, but a son of his own should inherit his property, and promised to make his posterity like the stars of Heaven for multitude. Abraham was, at this time eighty-five years old, and Sarah, turned of seventy-four, was deemed barren. Circumstances which might have stag gered an ordinary faith, but the volume of Holy

Writ, informs us, " he believed in God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness." He, however, presumed to demand a sign, and God granted his request. Abraham having killed a young heifer, a goat, and a ram, with a pigeon and turtle dove, in obedience to the Divine injunction, divided the beasts in the middle, and then joining the pieces, laid the birds upon them, whilst he himself stayed to drive away the fowls from the sacrifice. As soon as the sun began to set, a deep sleep fell upon him, succeeded by a horror of great darkness; during which, it was revealed to him, that his descendants should sojourn, and be afflicted in a strange land for the term of four hundred years; but that God would afterward punish their oppressors, and bring them safely into the promised land. After this revelation, Abraham beheld a smoking furnace and a burning lamp pass between the victims as a token of the ratification of God's covenant. B. C. Sarah, not suspecting that she was to 1911. bear the promised child at an age which

seemed to preclude the possibility of gestation, resolved to become a mother by proxy, according to the custom of that age and country. She accordingly persuaded her husband, to take her hand-maid Hagar to him: but finding herself insulted by the slave whom her kindness had raised, she could not refrain from uttering some bitter complaints. Abraham, being anxious to convince his wife, that he still loved her with unabated tenderness, gave her free permission to act in what manner she thought proper. She immediately adopted so harsh a mode of behaviour, that Hagar fled from her presence, and wandered to a fountain on the road to Sur, leading

to Egypt. Here she was accosted by an angel of God, who persuaded her to return to her mistress and assured her that she should soon be delivered of a son, whom she should call Ishmael; that his posterity would be extremely numerous; that their hand should be against every man, and every man's hand against them; and that they should dwell in the face of all their brethren.

Hagar obeyed the angel's command, and brought forth Ishmael in the eighty-sixth year of Abraham's age. The patriarch brought up this child as the promised heir of all his substance, and Hagar prudently concealed what she had learnt from the angel, so that near thirteen years elapsed after this event, before he received an explicit promise that he should have a son by Sarah his wife.

By this time Abraham had attained to the B. C. ninety-ninth year of his age, when God 1898. was pleased to ratify his former covenant with him, by changing his name from Abram to Abraham, assuring him that he should be the father of many nations; commanding him to circumcise all the males in his family on the eighth day after their birth; and informing him that Sarah his wife should bear a son, who should inherit all the promised blessings, and therefore, her name should be no longer Sarai, but Sarah. The patriarch, falling on his face, began to intercede for the preservation of Ishmael, beyond which he deemed it unreasonable to ask any thing. But God assured him, that these blessings were not designed for Ishmael, but for a son, to be born of the hitherto barren Sarah, whom he should name Isaac; that the son of Hagar should indeed, be

blessed with a numerous posterity, but that Isaac alone should be entitled to the covenant of promise, and that in his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed.

B. C.

Abraham, having cheerfully obeyed the 1897. command of his Maker with respect to the males of his family, was soon honoured with another visit more remarkable than the former. Sitting one day before the door of his tent, he saw three persons at a distance, whom he supposed to be strangers; and going forth to meet them, invited them, respectfully, to partake of a refreshment with him. In this interview, his divine guest confirmed his promise of Sarah's bearing a son within the year. Sarah, who was listening at the tent door, betrayed her incredulity by an involuntary burst of laughter; and the stranger asked the cause of her irreverent mirth, in so serious a tone, that she would fain have denied it; but it was to no purpose that she endeavoured to hide any thing from the heavenly visitor, who dismissed her with this gentle reproof, that she was highly culpable in mistrusting his assertions, since nothing was impossible with God.

The celestial guests now rose up in order to pursue their journey; and Abraham accompanied them some part of the way, till one of them, whom the original calls" the Lord *,” informed him that the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah had ascended to

*The name of Jehovah, by which Moses calls the stran ger who conversed with Abraham, being regarded by the generality of Jews and Christians as the incommunicable name of God, it is rationally supposed this was the second person of the blessed Trinity who appeared in that formt.