Sermons and Addresses Delivered on Special Occasions

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 edition. Excerpt: ... seemon xv. Jacob's Deeam. Genesis xiviii. 16, 17.--" And Jacob awaked out of hie sleep, find he saV, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." The narrative of which this language forms a part is doubtless familiar to you all. Jacob had just quitted his father's tent at Beer-sheba, to journey to distant Padan-aram, to his mother's father. Having obtained the birth-right by stealth, he had departed hastily to avoid the murderous anger of Esau his brother. Dark and pungent must have been his reflections as he pursued his solitary way--his only possession the staff in his hand--an exile from the land his anxiety to obtain which had involved him in the treachery that now compelled him to quit it. His first day's journey, of about forty miles, had come to a close. The setting sun found him in a solitude far from city or tent. As the stars came forth, he selected a spot, and--as probably in that soft climate he had often done before--collected and placed a few stones, against which he might recline and sleep. " And he dreamed, and, behold "--not a vague, shadowy, ordinary dream, but a vision clear, significant, sublime, preternatural--" a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and, behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it," and addressed him. By the ladder, I apprehend, we are not to understand the ordinary structure which that name denotes. The idea would be mean, and on many accounts incongruous. When the patriarch speaks here of " the house of God" we understand him to mean, not a building, but a place of peculiar Divine...