Joseph's advancement.
Gen. xli. 41. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt.
IN the eventful life of Joseph we are particularly struck with the suddenness and greatness of the changes he experienced. One day he was his father's favourite; the next he was menaced with death and sold as a slave : one day at the head of Potiphar's household ; the next immured in a prison and laden with fetters of iron. From that state also he was called in a moment by the singular providence of God, and exalted to the government of the first nation upon earth. Of this we are informed in the text; from whence we take occasion to observe,
I. That we can be in no state, however desperate, from whence God cannot speedily deliver us —
[The state of Joseph, though considerably ameliorated by the indulgence of the keeper of his prison, was very hopeless. He had been many years in prison ; and had no means of redress afforded him. His cause being never fairly tried, his innocence could not be cleared : and there was every reason to apprehend that his confinement would terminate only with his life. The hopes he had entertained from the kind offices of Pharaoh's butler had completely failed : and God had suffered him to be thus disappointed, in order that, "having the sentence of death in himself, he might not trust in himself, but in God that raiseth the dead." But when God's time was come, every difficulty vanished, and his elevation was as great as it was sudden and unexpected.
It would be well if we bore in mind the ability of God to help us. People when brought into great trials by loss of dear friends, by embarrassed circumstances, or by some other cala- mitous event, are apt to think, that, because they see no way for their escape, their state is hopeless ; and, from indulging despair, they are ready to say with Job, " I am weary of life," and " my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my lifea." But we should remember that there is " a God with whom nothing is impossible :" though human help may fail us, " his arm is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor is his ear heavy,
8 Job vii. 15. VOL. I. T