given to Hagar which had previously been made to Abraham. This promise of God has been abundantly

fulfilled. The lad dwelt in that wide district between Palestine and Mount Horeb, called "the wilderness of

Paran," which to this day is the undisputed dominion of his descendants, the Bedouin Arabs.

Bitter as the trial had been to "cast out" Ishmael, his son, it was only a preparation for a far more severe test

of Abraham's faith and obedience. For this - the last, the highest, but also the steepest ascent in Abraham's

life of faith - all God's previous leadings and dealings had been gradually preparing and qualifying him. But

even so, it seems to stand out in Scripture alone and unapproached, like some grand mountain -peak, which

only one climber has ever been called to attain. No, not one; for yet another and far higher mountain peak,

so lofty that its summit reacheth into heaven itself, has been trodden by the "Seed of Abraham," Who has

done all, and far more than Abraham did, and Who has made that a blessed reality to us which in the

sacrifice of the patriarch was only a symbol. And, no doubt, it was when on Mount Moriah - the mount of

God's true "provision" - Abraham was about to offer up his son, that, in the language of our blessed Lord

(John 8:56), he saw the day of Christ, "and was glad."

The test, trial, or "temptation" through which Abraham's faith had now to pass, that it might be wholly

purified as "gold in the fire," came in the form of a command from God to bring Isaac as a burnt-offering.

Nothing was spared the patriarch of the bitterness of his sorrow. It was said with painful particularity: "Take

now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest;" and not a single promise of deliverance was added to

cheer him on his lonely way. The same indefiniteness which had added such difficulty to Abraham's first call

to leave his father's house marked this last trial of the obedience of his faith. He was only told to get him

"into the land of Moriah," where God would further tell him upon which of the mountains around he was to

bring his strange "burnt-offering." Luther has pointed out, in his own terse language, how to human reason

it must have seemed as if either God's promise would fail, or els e this command be of the devil, and not of

God. From this perplexity there was only one issue - to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience

of Christ." And Abraham "staggered not" at the word of God; doubted it not; but was "strong in faith,"

"accounting" - yet not knowing it - "that God was able to raise up Isaac even from the dead; from whence he

also received him in a figure." For we must not detract from the trial by importing into the circumstances our

knowledge of the issue. Abraham had absolutely no assurance and no knowledge beyond that of his

present duty. All he had to lay hold upon was the previous promise, and the character and faithfulness of

the covenant God, who now bade him offer this sacrifice. Sharp as the contest must have been, it was brief.

It lasted just one night; and next morning, without having taken "counsel with flesh and blood," Abraham,

with his son Isaac and two servants, were on their way to "the land of Moriah." We have absolutely no data

to determine the exact age of Isaac at the time; but the computation of Josephus, that he was twenty-five

years old, makes him more advanced than the language of the Scripture narrative seems to convey to our

minds. Two days they had traveled from Beersheba, when on the third the "mountains round about

Jerusalem" came in sight. From a gap between the hills, which forms the highest point on the ordinary road,

which has always led up from the south, just that one mountain would be visible on which afterwards the

temple stood. This was "the land of Moriah," and that the hill on which the sacrifice of Isaac was to be

offered! Leaving the two servants behind, with the assurance that after they had worshipped they would

"come again" -for faith was sure of victory, and anticipated it, - father and son pursued their solitary road,

Isaac carrying the wood, and Abraham the sacrificial knife and fire. "And they went both of them together.

And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said,

Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering? And Abraham said, My son, God

will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering: so they went both of them together." Nothing further is said

between the two till they reach the destined spot. Here Abraham builds the altar, places on it the wood,

binds Isaac, and lays him upon the altar. Already he has lifted the sacrificial knife, when the Angel of

Jehovah, the Angel of the Covenant, arrests his hand. Abraham's faith has now been fully proved, and it

has been perfected. "A ram caught in the thicket" will serve for "a burnt-offering in the stead of his son;"

but to Abraham all the previous promises are not only repeated and enlarged, but "confirmed by an oath,"

"that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie," he "might have a strong