Faith is that principle in us which gives to the Lord Jesus the place or privilege (such a place indeed as God alone can fill) of sustaining the confidence of a sinner entirely by Himself, of being the immediate, the only object of the sinner’s trust. But faith, in this dispensation, involves _relationship_. By faith we stand in the Person as well as _on_ the work of Christ--and Christ being the Son, we are children, as we are saved sinners. We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Gal. iii. 26. And Ishmael is not to share the house with Isaac. The spirit of bondage gendered by the law or by the religion of ordinances, is to be put out, and the spirit of liberty alone is to fill it. For the house is now set in a child and not in a servant, in Isaac and not in Eliezer--and _relationship_ is God’s joy as it is ours. "The _Father seeketh_ such to worship Him." Wondrous words of abounding grace, beloved! and Sarah’s joy in our Isaac pledged this in patriarchal days. JACOB. GENESIS XXVIII.-XXXVI. I have already followed the course of the Book of Genesis to the close of chapter xxvii. From that chapter to chapter xxxvi., Jacob is principal; and it is that portion which I now purpose to consider. There is a very important era in the life of Jacob afterwards--his sojourn in Egypt for seventeen years, and his death there. But this is found in that part of the book in which Joseph becomes principal, so that I shall refer to it only so far as Jacob is concerned. The life of Jacob is one of very large and varied action, quite of another character from that of his father Isaac. The wisdom of God readily accounts for this; because there is divine intention in the construction of these histories, as there is divine truthfulness in the record of them. By them we are instructed in mysteries, as surely as we are made acquainted with circumstances. It has been my desire to notice these mysteries, as well as to gather the moral of these earliest ages of the human family, and these first fathers of the elect of God. _Election_, and the call of God, in the sovereign exercise of His grace, were exhibited in Abraham. _Sonship_, to which election brings us, (for we are predestinated unto the adoption of children,) was then shown in Isaac. _Discipline_, as of a son, (for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?) is now, in its season, to be exhibited in Jacob. And thus, after this manner, these successive histories not only continue the orderly narrative of facts, but present us with a view of that course or conduct which the grace and wisdom of God is taking with His people.