father Abraham :" one of the most remarkable of which is that which is mentioned in our text.
We shall endeavour to observe that sobriety of interpretation, while we consider,
I. The Call of Abram —
The command given to him was most extraor- dinary—
[The world had speedily relapsed into idolatry. Abram was brought up, it should seem, in the common superstition. But it pleased God to separate him from the idolatrous world, in order that he might be a living witness for Jehovah, and preserve in his family the knowledge of the true God. For this end God appeared to him, and commanded him to leave his country and friends, and to go into a land which should afterwards be shewn him.]
But however strange this may appear, a similar command is given to every one of us —
[We are not indeed called to leave our country and con- nexions : but to withdraw our affections from earthly things, and to fix them upon things above, we are called*. The whole world around us lies in wickedness b: and we are expressly for- bidden to be of the world, any more than Christ himself was of the world c. We are not to love it, or any thing that is in itd. We are not to be conformed to ite, or to seek its friend- shipf: we are rather to come out from itg, and be altogether crucified to ith. We are to regard it as a wilderness through which we are passing to our Father's house ; and in our passage through it to consider ourselves only as strangers and pilgrims1. If we meet with good accommodation and kind treatment, we are to be thankful : if we meet with briers and thorns in our way, we must console ourselves with the thought, that it is our appointed way, and that every step will bring us nearer homek. Nothing good is to detain us ; nothing evil to divert us from our path. We are to be looking forward to our journey's end, and to be proceeding towards it, whatever be the weather, or whatever the road1. The direction given to the church, is the same in every age ; " Hearken, O daughter, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people and thy father's house ; so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty™." There is no ex- emption, no dispensation granted to any, no difference allowed.
a Col. iii. 1, 2. b 1 John v. 19. c John xvii. 14, 16,
d 1 Johnii. 15, 16. e Rom. xii. 2. f Jam. iv. 4.
g 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. h Gal. vi. 14. * Heb. xi. 13.
k Acts xiv. 22. I Heb. xi. 14—10. ™ Ps. xlv. 10, 11. vol. i. n