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STORY Of ABRAHAM and ISAAC.

PASSAGE.

AND IT CAME то PASS AFTER THESE THINGS THAT

GOD DID TEMPT ABRAHAM.

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THIS ftory of Abraham and his fon Ifaac, is one of the many narratives in facred writ, which has employed the pers of our ableft divines, being universally allowed, one of the mafter strokes of the Bible. The commentators have also been remarkably diffufe upon it; and yet it still remains an inexhaufted fubject. Indeed, there is not a sentence in the whole chapter without its peculiar beauty; and, I am tempted to trefpafs fomewhat upon the limits I have allowed myself in these remarks, to enter into its various elegancies, minutely,

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"And it came to pass, that God did tempt Abraham, and faid unto him, "Abraham! take now thy fon, thine only fon, whom thou loveft, and get thee into "the land of Moria; and offer him there "for a burnt offering, upon one of the "mountains which I will tell thee of." Whoever examines this command, critically, will find it confift of every thing terrible to the eart of a parent; and that, to obey it, required the utmost fortitude of obedience. The good man is directed to take his child and murder him for facrifice; but it was to receive every poffible aggra vation he was not the father of many children he was not to facrifice the random offspring of his handmaid, Hagar; but, he was to take Ifaac, the dear child who came, after the years of expectation; the infant of angelic promife-his only legiti mate fon, and the darling of his heart. Sarah, no doubt, alfo doated with much fondness upon the lad; he could not but be proud of this treafure of her age; and, indeed, we find her in the preceding chap

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ter, indulging her maternal tranfport, and thus, in the warmest language of self.congratulation, confeffing at the fame time, her pride and pleasure. Who would have faid unto Abraham that Sarah fhould have given fuch to children? Who could have thought she would have prefented him with a fon in his old age? Yet this child, this very fon, was now marked out by Heaven as a victim, and his father was privately, by the fame celeftial appointment, to be his executioner: hard task! But to go on:

"And Abraham rofe up early in the "morning and faddled his afs, and took two of his young men with him, and Ifaac "his fon; and clave the wood for the burnt"offering, and rose up, and went unto the "place of which God had told him.”

"And he took the wood and laid it upon Ifaac his fon, and he took the fire "in his hand, and a knife, and they went "both of them together."

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The foul of the midnight murderer might quake to read thefe paffages of preparation we feel equally for the ignorance of the youth, and the consciousness of hist father. How muft the parental bofom of Abraham throb as he faw the wood, which was to burn his child, borne upon his shoulder? how muft the knife tremble in his hand? But the next verfe carries thefe images of horror ftill higher; for the lad, in the innocent fimplicity of his heart, faid to his father, "Behold the fire and the "wood, but where is the lamb ?" What a natural question on his part, but how agonizing to the father! How little did the child imagine he was himself the lamb, and that he had assisted to erect a pile for his own deftruction? But obferve with what firmness the patriarch proceeds in defpite of all the pleadings of nature. Having built the altar he laid the wood in order, and bound his fon and laid him upon the wood. What a ceremony is here! Is there a heart infenfible to fuch description? The very apparatus of the act, gives it additio

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