to it, he has confirmed his promise with an oath, that we might have the fuller assurance, and the stronger consolation c. It is thus that he tenderly reproved the church of old ; " Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, saying, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God ? Hast thou not known ? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding d." Were he to suffer our unbelief to make void His truth, no one of his promises would ever be fulfilled. But he has assured us that this shall not be the casee. If any thing will put to shame our unbelief, surely this must. Such tenderness cannot but prevail upon us more forcibly than ten thousand menaces.]
While we contemplate the reproof so long since administered, let us consider,
II. The instruction to be gathered from it —
In truth, it sets before us many an instructive les- son. Amongst many others, it teaches us,
1. What need we have to guard against the work- ings of unbelief —
[Sarah, fifteen years before, had betrayed her unbelief, in giving her servant Hagar into Abraham's bosom, in order that she might obtain through her the child which she despaired of obtaining in her own person. She had waited ten years, and began to think, that the promise would fail, if she did not resort to such an expedient as thisf. And though she had been deservedly punished for her unbelief by the petulance and contempt of Hagar, and by the workings of envy and wrath in her own heart, yet she still yielded to the same evil principle as soon as a fresh occasion for its exercise arose. It is astonishing what deep root this malignant principle has taken in our fallen nature. From the moment that our first parents questioned the fulfilment of that word, " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," man has been prone to doubt the veracity of God. There is not a promise or a threatening, to which we do not find some objections, and some fancied ground for doubting its accomplishment. If we do not directly contradict the declarations of God, we still entertain a secret suspicion, that they will not be verified. But let us be on our guard : for though the sin of unbelief is
c Heb. vi. 17, 18. d Isai. xl. 27, 28. Then see the
additional promises, 29 — 31. See also Isai. xlix. 13 — 16. e Rom. iii. 3, 4. with 2 Tim. ii. 13. f Similar to this was Rehekah's policy, Gen. xxvii. 6 — 10.