no avail : but every transaction shall appear in its proper colours ; and every man receive according to what he has done in the body, whether it be good or evil.]
Gen. xxxvii. 4. When his brethren saw that his father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
WE are not expressly told in Scripture that the events of Joseph's life were intended to prefigure those which should afterwards be accomplished in the Messiah : but the humiliation and exaltation of each, together with the means whereby both the one and the other were effected, are so much alike, that we can scarcely view them in any other light than as a typical prophecy fulfilled in the Antitype. It is not however our intention to prosecute the history of Joseph in this view: we shall rather notice some of the most striking particulars as tending to elucidate the passions by which mankind in general are actuated, and the changes to which they are exposed. The words of our text describe the dispositions of his brethren towards him; and will lead us to consider,
I. The occasions of his brethren's hatred —
Joseph was pre-eminently marked as the object of his father's love —
[That his father should love him above all his brethren is not to be wondered at : Joseph was born to him of his beloved Rachel ; and in him, Rachel, though dead, might be said to live. He was also imbued with early piety, whilst his brethren were addicted to all manner of evil ; insomuch that he himself was forced to report their wickedness to his father, in order that they might be corrected and restrained by his parental authority. It is probable also that he stayed at home to mini- ster to his aged father, whilst they were occupied in their pas- toral cares ; and that he won the affections of his parent by his dutiful and incessant assiduities.
As a general principle, we highly disapprove of partiality in parents towards their children; though we think it justified,