2. A competent measure of earthly comforts —
[These also are necessary in this vale of tears. Food we must have to nourish our bodies, and raiment to cover us from the inclemencies of the weather : these therefore we may ask of God: beyond these we should have no desire: " Having food and raiment we should be therewith content1." To wish for more than these is neither wisem, nor lawful". Nor even for these should we be over-anxious. We should rather, like the fowls of the air, subsist on the providence of God, and leave it to Him to supply our wants in the way and measure that he
f Deut. viii. 15. e Exod. xxxiii. 1 — 3, 12 — 15.
h Jer. x. 23. i Ps. xlii. 1,2. * Ps. xlii. 9, 10.
1 1 Tim. vi. 8. m Prov. xxx. 8, 9. n Jer. xlv. 5.
shall see fit0. Yet it is proper that we make it a part of our daily supplications ; " Give us this day our daily bread."]
3. The final possession of the promised land —
[Canaan was desired by Jacob not merely as an earthly inheritance, but chiefly as an earnest of that better land which it shadowed forth. None of the patriarchs regarded it as their home : " they dwelt in it as sojourners, and looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God?." There is for us also " a rest" which that land typified q, and to which we should look as the end of all our labours r, and the consummation of all our hopes s. It is "the inheritance to which we are begotten*,'' and " the grace which shall surely be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ u." To be waiting for it with an assured confidence, and an eager desire x, is the attainment to which we should continually aspire; yea, we should be " looking for it and hasting to it" with a kind of holy impatience y, " groaning within ourselves for it, and travailing as it were in pain," till the period for our complete possession of it shall arrive2.]
All these things God had previously promised to Jacob a: and he could not err, whilst making God's promises the rule and measure of his desires. The engagement which he entered into, and to which he bound himself in this vow, shews us further,
II. Our bounden duties —
Though the particular engagement then made by Jacob is not binding upon us, yet the spirit of it is of universal obligation —
1. We must acknowledge God as our God —
[" Other lords have had dominion over us:" but they are all to be cast down as usurpers ; and God alone is to be seated on the throne of our hearts b. No rival is to be suffered to remain within us : idols, of whatever kind they be, are to be " cast to the moles and to the bats." We must avouch the Lord to be our only, our rightful, Sovereign, whom we are to love and serve with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul, and all our strength. Nor is it sufficient to submit to him merely as a Being whom we are unable to oppose : we must claim him with holy triumph as our God and portion,
0 Matt. vi. 25, 26. p Heb. xi. 9, 10, 13—16. i Heb. iv. 8, 9.
r Heb. xi. 26. s 2 Tim. iv. 8. * 1 Pet. i. 3, 4.
u 1 Pet. i. 13. x 1 Cor. i. 8. Phil. i. 23. >' 2 Pet. iii. 12.
z Rom. viii. 22, 23. a ver. 15. t> Isai.xxvi. 13.
46.1 Jacob's vow. 243
saying with David, " O God, thou art my God; early will I seek theec." It is remarkable that this very state of mind, which was yet more conspicuous in Jacob in his dying hour, is represented as characterizing the people of God under the Christian dispensation : " It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for him, and he will save us : this is the Lord; we have waited for him ; we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation d."]