SERMONS SERMON XXII THE HISTORY OF JACOB CONSIDERED 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. GENESIS xlvii. 9. THER Τ HERE is not a man in history, whom I pity more than the man who made this reply, not because his days were but that they were long enough to have crowded into them, so much evil as we find. short, Of all the patriarchs, he was the most unhappy: for, 'bating the seven years he served Laban for Rachel, "which seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had to her," strike those out of the number, all his other days were sorrow; and that, not from his faults, but from the ambition, the violences, and evil passions of others. A large portion of what man is born to, comes, you'll say, from the same quarter: 'tis true; but still, in some men's lives, there seems a contexture of misery ; one evil so arises out of another, and the whole plan and execution of the piece has so very melancholy an air, that a good-natured man shall not be able to look upon it, but with tears on his cheeks. I pity this patriarch still the more, because, from his first setting out in life, he had been led into an expectation of such different scenes he was told, by Isaac his father, that God should bless him with the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and with plenty of corn and wine; that people were to serve him, and nations to bow down to him; that he should be lord over his brethren; that blessed was every one that blessed him, and cursed was every one who cursed him. and as The simplicity of youth takes promises of happiness in the fullest latitude, these were moreover confirmed to him by the GOD of his fathers, on his way to Padan-aram, it would leave no distrust of their accomplishment upon his mind; every fair and flattering object before him, which wore the face of joy, he would regard as a portion of his blessing; sue it, he would pur he would grasp a shadow. This, by the way, makes it necessary to suppose, that the blessings which were conveyed, had a view to blessings not altogether such as a carnal mind would expect; but that they were in a great measure spiritual, and such as the prophetic soul of Isaac had principally before him, in the comprehensive idea of their future and happy establishment, when they were no longer to be strangers and pilgrims upon earth: for in fact, in the strict and literal sense of his father's grant, Jacob enjoyed it not; and was so far from being a happy man, that in the most interesting passages of his life, he met with nothing but disappointments and grievous afflictions. Let us accompany him from the first treacherous hour of a mother's ambition; in consequence of which, he is driven forth from his country, and the protection of his house, to seek protection and establishment in the house of Laban his kinsman. In what manner this answered his expectations, we find from his own pathetic remonstrance to Laban, when he had pursued him seven days' journey, and overtook him on |