Are we the children of Abraham? Are we born again? Are we trusting in that blessed Saviour? Are our hearts renewed by the Holy Spirit? To be Christians is not to be members of a sect, nor to be able to pronounce a shibboleth, nor to belong to a party; but it is to have life in the soul, the life of Christ, to be washed in the efficacy of his precious blood, clothed in his righteousness, and looking in his name for everlasting joy and felicity. Let us therefore arise and lay aside the convict dress of condemnation, and put on the bridal robes that Christ offers; let us dismiss fears, doubts, suspicions. Being distant, let us draw near to God in the name of Jesus, and say "Our Father," pleading what he is, and praying that his Spirit may be given us; and so resting, loving, living, praying, we, too, shall be gathered to our own people, the general assembly of the just made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant: and our life being thus holy and happy, our death will be joyous, and our eternity full of glory. CHAPTER XV. REBEKAH'S WEDDING. "Sail forth into the sea of life, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."- EPH. v. 25–27. IN unfolding the words of St. Paul, we will first of all turn our attention to their shadow, as it sweeps through earth, and is seen in patriarchal life, and next to the great original, of which all human relationships are but the dim shadows Christ's love to that church, which is his bride, that he will present to himself a glorious church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. First of all, let us study the primitive and patriarchal scene sketched in Genesis, or rather some points that strike us in referring to that beautiful and touching picture. We have followed, if I may so speak, Sarah to her burial, Abraham mourning after her. We now follow Rebekah to her wedding, Isaac rejoiced and comforted by her. How true is this picture to human life in every age, century, and country. We attend the burial the one day, we attest the bridal the next. We hear the muffled tread of the mourner following the sparkling footstep of the dancer, till tears and smiles, showers and sunshine, appear justly to make up the April day of human life. The experience of patriarchal days is the experience of every day still. Sarah, a mother, is one day borne to her grave; Rebekah, a bride, is next day conducted to her tent. When Rebekah was brought to Isaac, "he loved her," and " was comforted" for the loss of his mother Sarah. There was a change in the tent, because there was a change in the person the old prop of that home had fallen, a new prop was now to take its place. The vision of Sarah had passed, like a shadow from the dial; the music of her voice, once so instructive, eloquent, and beautiful, was now but a spent echo in the distance of memory; another shadow crossed the threshold, another mistress was in the tent. Thus some go and others come. Rejoice as though you rejoiced not, marry as though you married not, use the world as not abusing it, knowing that the fashion of it thus passeth away. Abraham regarded the selection of a suitable wife for his son as a matter of extreme solemnity and moment. The last precautions that he took were to secure a wife for Isaac worthy of him, and reverential to that sublime faith of which Abraham and Isaac were then the living exponents. He saw that, apart from any sacrifice of principle involved in a Christian, for such Isaac was, marrying a depraved heathen, and such the Canaanites were, the inexpediency of it would be the greatest possible- he felt that the very mission that he was called upon to sustain and develop, namely, to maintain a family in the world, but not of it, a body that were in the world like the rest, but protesting against its corruptions—would be totally destroyed if his own descendants were allowed to mingle with the descendants of the Canaanites; in other words, if the church in its purity, and the world in its corruption, instead of the one standing aloof from the other, in it, but not of it, should be allowed to meet and mingle in his descendants. We must never forget that principle is always expedient, and that expediency, or what seems so, is often in its issue the most inexpedient thing in the world. Do what is right, and the universe will back you; try what seems expedient though the sacrifice of what is right, and all God's forces will oppose and resist you. It is a law as sure as gravitation, that the right is the true and the good, that principle never can be inexpedient, and that the sacrifice and surrender of principle must always be so. But, it may be asked, why was there felt this strong opposition, to explain it still more fully, to Isaac having a wife from the children of the Canaanites? It was not caprice. Persons sometimes object to marriages because of personal feeling and dislike, or some antipathy, the nature, and the origin, and the spring of which we cannot explain; but this was not Abraham's reason there was no caprice, there was no personal feeling; there was nothing in his conduct that could prove it; on the contrary, we find in his intercourse with Abimelech, in his dealings with the children of Heth, as recorded in the previous chapter, that there was the interchange of hospitality, of kindness, and of every thing except the compromise and surrender of a vital and a precious principle. And in fact, from Abraham's conduct in this respect we see how it is perfectly possible to show all courtesy to all men, and yet not to give up to any man the great and vital things that we hold. It is quite possible, surely, to be courteous, and yet not to compromise. Do not be uncivil to a man because you differ from him; do not be rude or unkind to a Roman Catholic because you repudiate in the strongest degree the principles he holds, or the practices he pursues. Do not refuse to buy and sell, or exchange all the expressions of a proper and Christian courtesy, because you hold resolutely fast certain principles, and protest against other principles you alike disbelieve and dislike. It is possible to be faithful to principle, and yet not to persecute-courtesy is not necessarily compromise, rudeness is not necessarily faithfulness. Abraham bowed, as a perfect gentleman would do still, to the children of Heth, and transacted business with them, and bought a grave from them, and weighed out the money to them; and whether you view it as an exponent of courtesy or as a specimen of a merchant, you see in Abraham's conduct all that civility, kindness, courtesy, which cost him nothing, but did others good. Yet when it came to a matter involving everlasting and precious interests, not all the wealth of Canaan, nor all the riches of the children of Heth, would induce him to give way in the least degree, or to sacrifice in any shape the principles he held dear. Because we differ, and differ most widely, on some great principle, we ought not therefore never to speak to each other. It is singular, that if two persons in the religious world differ very, very widely, as far as the pope of Rome does from the humblest presbyter of the Church of Scotland, there would be at least courtesy, there would be no bad feeling; but if two happen to differ about a crotchet, which they, probably, do not understand themselves, their antipathy to each other becomes intense in the ratio of the insignificance of the thing about which they differ, as if they felt that if they were to be civil to each other, persons would not see that there was any difference between them. It is very sad, but very common, that men quarrel bitterly, in propor |