not "Behold our brother!" but "Behold this dreamer cometh!" They form immediately the barbarous and sanguinary project to deprive of life a brother, whose amiable qualities deserved their attachment who tenderly loved them; who was at that moment showing his love; and who was the joy and support of their father's old age. They say, "Let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams." "We will see what will become of his dreams!" As if they could frustrate the purposes of God, and prevent the accomplishment of the designs of the Almighty! Far more easily could they have stopped the sun in his career. Notwithstanding their opposition, notwithstanding the malice of ungodly men and devils, the wheels of Providence shall still roll steadily along; and even their iniquitous designs shall tend to accomplish the declarations and counsels of the Lord. "We will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him." There is a connexion between different vices; the indulgence of one crime frequently leads to the commission of others. Their intended murder must be concealed by falsehood. Do you view with abhorrence the degraded character of the liar? If you would wish that you might never be stigmatized with this vice, beware of other sins; lest, in order to elude detection, you, like the brethren of Joseph, and like thousands of others, should heap falsehood upon falsehood. "He alone that walketh uprightly, walketh surely."

Reuben alone dissents from the murderous plan. He had formerly deeply pierced the heart of his father; and from his unwillingness to inflict fresh pain upon him, we cannot but hope that he had now repented. But knowing that it would be in vain directly to oppose

their designs, he proposes, that, instead of polluting their hands with a brother's blood, Joseph should be cast into a pit, where he might die by hunger; intending then to deliver him, and restore him to his father. His plan was adopted. Joseph was stripped of his coat, and, notwithstanding his pathetic entreaties and supplications, cast into the pit. To complete their barbarity, we are informed, that while his cries were yet sounding in their ears, they "sat down to eat bread." At this time, a company or caravan, composed of Ishmaelites and Midianites, providentially passed. Judah, perhaps relenting, proposed that Joseph should be sold to them, and the sentence of death be thus changed into that of servitude and perpetual banishment. His brethren, impelled probably by that natural abhorrence of murder which even the most depraved feel when their purposes can be effected by other means, immediately consented, and sold him for twenty pieces of silver. How much greater a ransom would his father have paid for him, had he known his situation!

Reuben was not present at this transaction. He had left his brethren, and gone to deliver Joseph. When he arrives at the pit, and finds it empty, he is filled with grief, and exclaims, "The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?" He loved and pitied both Joseph and his father; but his brethren are unaffected with his sorrow. The time, however, is coming, when, their consciences awakened by their own distress, they shall listen with greater feeling to the remonstrances of Reuben.

How often, Christians, does God thus blast benevolent designs formed for the benefit of his af flicted people! Not that he is insensible to the sorrows of believers; "He pitieth them, as a father 19

VOL. I.

pitieth his children." Not that he is regardless of the benevolent purposes of their friends; "These shall in no case lose their reward;" the Lord will recompense even their intentions: but because all the advantages which God designs by affliction have not yet been obtained, and that time for their deliverance, which was appointed in infinite wisdom and mercy, has not yet arrived.

To hide their guilt, they took the robe of Joseph, and, dipping it in a kid's blood, sent it to Jacob, who supposed that his son was certainly slain by some ferocious beast. They imagined now that their crime was effectually concealed; but we may cry to them, as Moses did afterwards to the descendants of Reuben, (Num. xxxiii. 23.) “ Be sure your sin will find you out." Use as many artifices as you please, your iniquity shall at last be discovered.

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You who, like them, have concealed your sins from the world, tremble at the conclusion of their history. In whatever darkness you have shrouded your guilt, Providence, in a thousand modes, can dissipate this darkness, even in this world; and display your crimes in all their deformity. And even if you here escape, your mask shall fall when you stand, with the assembled universe, at the tribunal of the Eternal.

is

Who does not sympathise with the unhappy Jacob, while," refusing to be comforted," he cries, "It my son's coat; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces; I will go down into the grave unto my son, mourning." "This sorrow," says a good man,* “ is an emblem of that which we feel for departed friends. Jacob saw the garment torn, and concluded that Jo

* Dr. Orton, in loc.

seph was destroyed. We see the body, the clothing of the soul, torn and breathless; and we act as though we supposed that the soul was lost. Let us remember that, if they were pious, they are, like Joseph, gone to reign, and to be infinitely happier than they would be with us."

"I will go down into the grave unto my son, mourn ing." Ah! little did Jacob imagine what felicity was in reserve for him. How apt are even believers to indulge in undutiful and unbelieving apprehensions; to suppose that the sun will never again shine upon us, because it is obscured by a heavy cloud; to cry out, in despondency, "My way is hid from the Lord; my judgment is passed over from my God!" Remember Jacob, and learn never to despond while the throne of the Almighty is established in the heavens, and while all power is committed to the Redeemer. Oh! how do we mar our comforts by this unfilial distrust of God! If we would be happy, we must cultivate such a faith in his merсу, his love, and his care, as to make us behold in every Egypt an Exodus, in every Red Sea a passage, in every fiery furnace an angel of light, in every den of lions the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," in every temptation a door of escape, in every grave a resur

rection.

The tears of Isaac, who yet was living, were mingled with those of Jacob, on the supposed death of his beloved grand-son. His grief must have been severe, because, in addition to the bonds of nature, the amiable and pious conduct of Joseph must have highly endeared him to the mild, placid, and devotional Isaac. Who would wish for extreme old age, when he considers how many thousand times, in consequence of it, the heart must bleed; the strong and

tender ties which unite us to others be snapped asunder; and the bosom be rifled of its dearest friends?

In the mean time, Joseph had arrived at Egypt. Little did the Egyptians think, that this obscure stranger, who now entered their land friendless and unprotected, was to be their future lord. Little did they think, in after times, when another Joseph, with the holy Virgin and the Babe of Bethlehem, entered their land, that the Lord of men and angels resided among them. Let us despise none for their mean appearance; for we know not what may be their future destiny. Joseph was here sold as a slave to Potiphar, the captain of the king's guards. Thus reduced to a state of servitude, we know not whether he still exercised an unwavering faith in the assurances given to him in his prophetic dreams. If that true faith was in exercise, which, in the most afflictive circumstances, relies upon the promises of God; which judges of providences by his word, and not of his word by providences, then his confidence was still unshaken. And such, my brethren, is the faith which we should cultivate; the faith of Abraham, which enabled him to see a posterity numerous as the stars of heaven, through natural impossibilities, through a bleeding sword, and a sacrificed son; that of Job, which could see a Redeemer, a resurrection, and a restoration, through the violence of heaven and of men, through sickness and bereavement, through the reproaches of friends, and the malice of Satan; that of Israel, who could see a land of promise, through a sea and a wilderness, through fiery serpents and sons of Anak. Such a faith was amply adequate to support Joseph in the lowest depression of his state.

Joseph was a slave; but, says the historian," the