In the same manner he gave to Hezekiah a choice of signs, offering to make the shadows on the sun-dial to go backward or forward ten degrees, according as he should desire e. From hence it appears that the inquiries which proceed from faith, are good and acceptable to God : and that Abram's was of this nature is manifest; because his faith on this occasion was specially commended by God himself.]
2. Its importance —
[If we were to limit the inquiry to the mere circumstance of Abram's inheriting Canaan in his own person, it would be indeed of very little importance : for he never did possess (ex- cept the burying-ground which he purchased) one single foot of ground in the country f, nor, as far as appears, had he any expectation of gaining any permanent settlement in it. But, viewed in its just extent, the inquiry comprised in it nothing less than the happiness of Abram and of all mankind. We are willing to allow that the prospect of having a posterity so numerous and so renowned, must be gratifying to flesh and blood : but that was, at best, but a very small part of Abram's hope : he regarded the promised land as the scene of all those wonderful transactions, where God should be honoured and enjoyed by his posterity ; where the redemption of mankind should be effected by the Messiah ; and where the final rest of the redeemed should be typically exhibited : in the posses- sion of that, all his hopes centred; yea, all his happiness in time and in eternity was bound up. If by any means that were prevented from taking place, the day of Christ, which he had foreseen, would never arrive ; and consequently all his own prosjjects of salvation, as also of the salvation of the whole world, would be altogether annihilated. Canaan was in his estimation the pledge and earnest of heaveng: and if he failed of the one, both he and all mankind must fail of the other also. Surely when so much depended on that event, the most reiterated assurances respecting it were no more than what it became him to desire.]
We shall be yet more fully convinced that Abram's inquiry was proper, if we notice,
II. The way which God took to satisfy him respect- ing it —
God commanded Abram to take of every animal that was proper to be offered in sacrifice, whether of beasts or birds ; each beast was to have attained its full age and perfection (for nothing but an
e 2 Kings xx. 8—11. f Acts vii. 5. b Heb. xi. 10, 13, 16.