the death of the righteous," be diligent to live his life. If your own business be not already transacted with God, (so to speak,) you will have little disposition either to speak to others in a dying hour, or to pray for them : but if your own calling and election be made sure, then will your dying exhortations be delivered with ease, and received with benefit.]
2. To those who are coming forward into life —
[You are apt to slight the instructions of your parents, under the idea that they are unnecessary or unsuitable to your state. But you see what has always occupied the minds of dying saints. You know that Jacob's example is commended by God himself. Be thankful then, if you have friends or relatives who walk in the steps of Jacob : and let that, which they above all things desire for you, be your chief desire for yourselves.]
Gen. xlix. 10. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come: and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
THERE was a series of predictions relative to the Messiah from the very beginning of the world ; and, as the time for the accomplishment of the prophecies drew near, the predictions concerning him were more particular and minute. About seventeen hundred years before his appearance, the time of his coming was fixed with great accuracy and precision. At the very first moment that the sons of Jacob were made heads of different tribes, it was foretold, that the continuance of Judah's power should extend beyond that of the other tribes, and that the Messiah should arrive before its expiration. In explaining this prophecy we shall of necessity be led to speak of,
I. The time of his advent —
This, according to the text, was to precede the departure of Judah's sceptre —
[Judah is here represented as a lion gorged with his prey, and couching in his den with a sceptre between his feet ; a sceptre, which none should ever wrest from him, until he should come, whose right it was3. " The sceptre" does not import dominion over the other tribes, but only the same kind of
a ver. 9. VOL. I. x