more naturally to refer to Sarah's faith. The facts of the case seem to have been these :-Jehovah appeared to Abraham, and promised that he should have a son by his wife Sarah. The promise was afterwards repeated in the hearing of Sarah, who laughed at it within herself as a thing incredible, considering the advanced age of herself and her husband; and afterwards, through fear, she denied that she laughed; so that she was in the first instance guilty both of unbelief and of falsehood. But when she found that the hidden reasonings of her heart had been detected by the divine Messenger-when she heard Him put the silencing question, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" and received from Him new assurances that she certainly would become a mother,—-she perceived that the promise was the word of Him who was able to do as He had said, however inconsistent with the ordinary course of nature; and she no longer laughed at the promise, but believed it, reckoning that He who had promised was faithful. As the gracious reward of her faith, Sarah obtained strength to lay the foundation of a race or family; for so the words may be, and so we apprehend they ought to have been rendered. The meaning of the whole verse is To Sarah the believer God gave the high honour of being the mother of His peculiar people.'

The connective particle therefore seems to me equivalent to -'for this cause;' i.e., Because of faith, through means of believing, "there sprang of one, and him as good as dead,”—or in reference to these things, dead," so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable." It is not necessary to enter into a minute examination of these words. The general sentiment is, plainly, Abraham and Sarah, through believing, obtained a high honour, an important privilege,―the honour and privilege of being the founders of the holy nation,—an honour and privilege, the attainment of which 1 xaτaß signifies 'foundation,' ch. iv. 3, ix. 26; oñiμa signifies 'a family-offspring,' ch. ii. 16, ver. 18 inf. The Latins says, "fundare domum" or "familiam." Euripides, Herc. Fur. 1261, uses the verb xaraßáññoμas in this sense. This is the exegesis of Ernesti, C. F. Schmid, Cramer, Böhme, and Kuinoel. It is greatly preferable to scarcely decent interpretations of many critics. The manner in which some critics contrive to introduce discussions of an indelicate kind into works of Scripture interpretation, a fault by no means uncommon, is exceedingly revolting to every rightly constituted mind. "A lewd interpreter is never just."

at the time it was promised to them was highly improbable-was all but impossible, which nothing but faith in God could have led them to expect, which without faith in God they would never have obtained.'

It is not difficult to see how this statement was calculated to gain the Apostle's object. God had made promises to the Christian Hebrews, the fulfilment of which seemed to involve as great difficulties at least as the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham. The language of Abraham's example to them was, "Fear not, only believe." All the blessings and honours included in the salvation that is in Christ with eternal glory— all these will assuredly be yours, if ye continue to "count Him faithful who has promised." Whatever difficulties, whatever apparent impossibilities, lie in the way, like Abraham, "be strong in faith, and give glory to God;" be fully persuaded that "what He has promised He is able to perform;" be fully persuaded that "He cannot deny Himself;" "against hope, believe in hope,"-i.e., confidently expect what but for the divine promise it would have been folly, it would have been presumption, to have expected. Abraham did so, and his hope did not make him ashamed. "Go ye and do likewise," and your hope shall not make you ashamed nor confounded, world without end.

But let us never forget that it was God's testimony and promise which Abraham believed, and not a figment of his own imagination. Let us take heed that it is God's testimony and promise that we believe-let us take heed that we really believe it-let us take care to cherish no hope but what that testimony and promise warrant ; and then it is impossible for us to believe too firmly, or to hope too confidently.

The importance of persevering faith is plainly an idea which the Apostle wished to impress on the minds of those to whom he was writing; and to gain this object, he turns their attention to the instructive fact, that the ancient saints of whom he had been speaking continued believers as long as they continued in this world. They lived believing, and they died believing. Vers. 13-16. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare

plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned: but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city."

The expression, "all these," does not refer to the whole of the ancient saints mentioned in the previous context, for Enoch never died at all; and though Abel and Noah died, and died in faith, yet from the 15th verse it is plain that the expression refers only to the whole of the persons last mentioned as sojourners in the land of Canaan, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob. "They all died in faith;" i.e., they all died believers— they all died expecting the fulfilment of the divine promises. They had lived in this faith, and they died in it. They had not indeed "received the promises," i.e., the promised blessings. They had not received the inheritance of Canaan-they had not received the blessings connected with the coming of that illustrious descendant of Abraham, " in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed;" but they saw these blessings "afar off,” i.e., they knew that at a future period-with regard to some of them a distant period-the promise would certainly be fulfilled. They "were persuaded of them." These words are not to be found in the most valuable MSS., or in any of the ancient versions or commentators, and are probably a comparatively modern interpolation. They add nothing to the sense. They merely give the meaning of the previous figurative expression, they "saw them afar off," and they "embraced them." They were not only persuaded of the truth and certainty of the promises, but also of the goodness of the things promised. The blessings promised were the objects of their desire, esteem, and affection; and in consequence of this-in consequence of their placing their chief affection on objects which they knew they were never to enjoy in this world-they "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Abraham did so when he wished to purchase, not an inheritance for himself living, but a sepulchre

1 The inayyinia, the promised blessings, are represented as coasts which the seafaring man descries at a distance. Virgil has a similar expression : Quum procul obscuros colles humilemque videmus Italiam."-En. iii. 522, 523. THOLUCK.

for himself and his family when dead: "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." Jacob made the same confession to Pharaoh. He represents his own life and the life of his fathers as a pilgrimage: "And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage." This confession meant more than that they had not yet obtained the earthly inheritance. Long after Israel had entered into Canaan we find David saying, "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not Thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." "I am a stranger in the earth; hide not Thy commandments from me."3 We find him using this expression not only for himself, but for the whole congregation of Israel: "For we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding."4

That the confession, that "they were strangers and sojourners," implied more than that they had not obtained that inheritance which they yet firmly believed their posterity would obtain, is plain from what follows: Ver. 14. "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.”

They who confess that they are "pilgrims and strangers on the earth," and do so as long as they continue on the earth, by doing so, plainly intimate that they are seeking a country which is not on earth.

The word rendered "country" is very expressive. It is exactly rendered by a word lately borrowed from the German, and scarcely yet fully naturalized in our language, fatherland— a country where a man's father dwells, which he possesses as his own, and in which his children have a right to dwell with him. Thus it is exactly opposed to a strange or foreign land. That it was not their earthly fatherland that they were seeking,

1 Gen. xxiii. 4.

3 Ps. xxxix. 12, cxix. 19.

2 Gen. xlvii. 9.
41 Chron. xxix. 15.

5 μavícovo- they did not conceal it.' This is the word used by the LXX., Isa. iii. 9, to render

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is plain. Abraham at God's command had renounced that; "and indeed," ver. 15, "if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned."

The country of Terah, their father, where their natural relations had possessions, was Chaldea; and if it had been it that they were seeking, they might easily have returned to it. From the call of Abraham to the death of Jacob was a space of 200 years. During this period they might easily have returned to Chaldea. The distance was no obstacle. There does not seem to have been any external obstruction. But they gave clear evidence that they were not disposed to return. Abraham takes an oath of his servant that he will not endeavour to induce Isaac to return to that land. Jacob indeed went thither; but there he would not stay, and through innumerable dangers returned to Canaan. 'No,' says the Apostle; 'they were indeed seeking a country, but it was a better country, even a heavenly one.' They looked for true happiness in a future state. They expected the complete fulfilment of the promise, "I will be thy God," in heaven.

"Wherefore," or for this cause, "God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city." God had "prepared for them a city;" i.e., in plain terms, 'God had secured for them immutable, eternal happiness in heaven ;' and because He had done so, He "was not ashamed to be called their God." The idea here, I apprehend, is not the condescension on the part of God in taking the name of the God of the patriarch, but the inconceivable glory and blessedness of that final state which He has prepared for them. It is a glory and happiness worthy of God to bestow on those who are the objects. of His peculiar love. In preparing such a city for them, and in bringing them to it, He fully answers all the expectations which His calling Himself their God, and calling them His people, could awaken in their minds. When "brought home to glory," every one of His people will be disposed to say, 'Now I understand what is meant by the promise, "I will be thy God." He has done all that He said; He has done more than it ever could have entered into my mind to conceive. He has no reason to be ashamed when he calls Himself my God.

These remarks of the Apostle (vers. 13-16), though in some