It was, however, otherwise with Abraham. The king of Gerar had sought Abraham in his day, and sought him for a like reason, and with a like desire. Abraham meets him in as noble a spirit of forgiveness as Isaac would have done, with an equal readiness of heart and hand to accept him, and to pledge him. But with all this, he rebukes him and makes him feel the rebukes. "Abraham _reproved_ Abimelech," as we read, but as we do not read in the case of Isaac. Abraham will not send him away satisfied with himself, as Isaac did, with an unanswered boast in his mouth of his and his people’s virtues. He will assure him, as fully as Isaac could have done, of his full forgiveness and reconciliation; but he will not hide it from him, that his conscience may have a question with him, though his neighbour may accept him and pardon him; that there are matters (as between him and the Lord) which Abraham’s feast and Abraham’s friendship could never settle. This was _real_, real before God, where _reality_, beloved, ever puts us. May we know that secret better, and be upright before Him! This was beautiful--and by this Abraham was _blessing_ Abimelech, and not _merely gratifying_ him. But this was not so with Isaac; and we may leave him on this occasion, in chap. xxvi., with something of this inquiry in our hearts, Was it mere nature, or the renewed mind in the saint, that acted thus?--a question which still occurs. Isaac was an elect one, as surely as Abraham; a stranger with God in the earth; one who _used_ his altar as well as _carried_ it. He was meditating in the field when he got his Rebecca, and he had prayed for the mercy, when Esau and Jacob were given to him. We speak of _character_ in him only, when we thus contrast him with another. We speak of the living, practical ways of a saint; and we see in him what was below a witness for God abroad, though amiable and devout at home. This is found in Isaac; and kindred things are still found, again I may say, as many of us know to our humbling. As one once said to me, "There is much that goes with others for being _spiritual_, because it is done for the eye and taste of our fellow-Christians, and not, as in God’s presence, with a single heart to Him." This indeed is true; and this searches our hearts to their profit. Such notices of our common ways may convict, but they need by no means dishearten us. Quite otherwise; they may be welcomed as for blessing. The light that penetrates to scatter our darkness, leaves itself behind to gladden us, and has title to assert the place as _all its own_--so that we ought to be able, in spirit, to sing of _present light_ and _past_ _darkness_, to know what we _were_, and what we _are_, and still to sing-- "All that I was, my sin, my guilt, My death was all my own-- All that I am I owe to Thee, My gracious God, alone.