be a shade more worldly, more subtle, more ruthless, than statecraft. The old proverb, “the corruption of the best is the worst” partly accounts for it; but something is due also to the principle whose workings we trace through Jacob’s history, that the power which, inspired of God, is capable of Godlike activity, when the world or the devil get hold of it, is capable of all manner of worldly and devilish work with fell energy and success. But Jacob’s life was purified and elevated as it passed through its tremendous discipline. The aged pilgrim, having won the title of Prince of God, stood before Pharaoh clothed with a dignity and power which made the world’s mightiest monarch bend eagerly under the blessing of his hand. “_The Angel which redeemed me from all evil_,” he spake of, when his eyes were growing dim in death. The history of his life is the history of that redemption, and this is its rich meaning for us. He sinned basely and shamefully, he suffered as few have suffered, and wrestled as few have strength to wrestle for the blessing which purified and redeemed his life. A sad, stricken, broken man, halting painfully on his thigh, he went on his way, but ennobled, purified, and saved. His life is a revelation of the way of God in the discipline of our spirits; how power gets educated and purified, and made meet at last for the work and the joy of eternity. So Judaism, as it struggled on and suffered, lost some of its baser elements, and came forth, developed, into a higher region of experience and power, in the life of the Christian Church. The study of the character of these two men is full of the richest interest and instruction; but our present purpose is with the elder, and this profoundly sad passage of his history. There is much, in the matter of both the birthright and the repentance of which our text speaks, which is frequently very grievously and even disastrously misunderstood, which is supposed to present ideas of the dealings of God with man which contradict the fundamental principles of the gospel, and casts no trifling stumbling-blocks before the steps of faith. That we may understand it truly let us consider— I. That the rejection of the elder, and the election of the younger to honour and power—to all that the election of God could bring—by no means stands by itself in the history of the Divine dispensations; and it illustrates an important principle on which we will dwell for a moment before we pass on.