Gen. xx. 9. Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? andwhat have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on mi/ kingdom a great sin ? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done.
WE admire the fidelity of Scripture history. There is not a saint, however eminent, but his faults are reported as faithfully as his virtues. And we are constrained to acknowledge, that the best of men, when they come into temptation, are weak and fal- lible as others, if they be not succoured from above. We are habituated to behold Abraham as a burning and shining light : but now we are called to view him under an eclipse. We see the father of the faithful drawing upon himself a just rebuke, and that too, not for some slight defect in his obedience, but for a great and heinous transgression. It will afford us a salu- tary lesson to consider,
I. The offence which Abraham committed —
He was guilty of dissimulation in calling Sarah his sister, when she was in reality his wife. It is true, she was also his sister, in the same sense that Lot was his brother ; she was his niece, the daughter of Haran, who was his brother by the father's side. But was there nothing wrong in this concealment ? We do not hesitate to declare, that it was a very grievous sin. Consider,
1. The principle from which it sprang —
[He had been called, out from his country to sojourn in a strange land : and, depending upon God for direction and sup- port, " he went forth, not knowing whither he went." For the space of twenty-five years he had experienced the faithfulness and loving-kindness of his God. And he had recently received the most express promises that he should have a son by Sarah, who should be the progenitor of the Messiah. Yet behold, when he comes to Gerar, a city of the Philistines, he is afraid that the people will kill him, in order to gain possession of his wife, who, though ninety years of age, still retained a consi- derable measure of her former beauty : and, in order to secure
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