Such things have been, and still are, found among the saints. There are "Little Faith" and "Great Heart" among the elect, as well as flesh and spirit--nature and the new mind in each of them. But this we may know: that if nature _rule_ us, nature will _expose_ us. Even the man of the earth, Pharaoh of Egypt, puts Abraham to shame; and his journey, instead of being onward in the witness of his tent and in the joy of his altar, was that of a wearied foot, because it was that of a rebuking heart. He has to "do his first works," to retrace his steps, and regain his standing--sorrowful works at all times. He has to leave "by-path meadow" for the King’s highway again, betaking himself back from Egypt to the place between Ai and Bethel, where he had raised his altar at the first. What say we to this, beloved? The flocks got in Egypt accompany him home. The glitter of the gold and the silver--the offerings of a land that lay beyond where the God of glory had called him--adorn and set off his return. All this is so indeed. But what say we to all this? again I ask. Is the bleating and the lowing of such flocks and herds in our ears like the soft music of an approving conscience? or this glittering wealth like the brightness of the divine presence which was now lost to Abraham? I am bold to answer for Abraham, though I may not for myself, that his spirit knew the difference. The wearied heart was but feebly relieved by all that he brought with him from the land of Egypt, or out of the house of Pharaoh. Sure I am of this. It could not but be so with such a man. "He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul," must have been his experience; and his action in the scene which immediately succeeds, as I judge, tells us something of this. Lot, his younger brother, or his brother’s son, who had come with him out of Ur into Canaan, now becomes the occasion of trial to Abraham, as the famine had lately been. But faith in Abraham triumphs, I may say, to admiration. The very style in which he gives this trial its answer seems to say, that he will return fourfold to the life of faith for that which nature had so lately, as it were, taken away from it. The herdmen of the two brothers, the elder and the younger, cannot feed their flocks together. They must separate. This was the occasion of trial which had now arisen. But "let Lot choose," is Abraham’s language. In a fine sense, he will act on the divine oracle, "the elder shall serve the younger." Lot may choose, and leave Abraham what portion he please. The well-watered plains may be his; Abraham can trust the Lord of the country, though he lose them. He may have to _dig_ wells instead of _finding_ them; but it is better to dig for them in the strength of God, than to find them in the way of covetousness; better, as it were, to wait for them in Canaan, than to go after them again down to Egypt. xiii.