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.
"The evil of my former state Was mine and only mine-- The good in which I now rejoice Is Thine and only Thine.
"The darkness of my former state, The bondage, all was mine-- The light of life in which I walk, The liberty is Thine."
This is standing, not attainment; this is what faith entitles us to celebrate. Faith takes up this language, and the soul surely hears it and understands it. But _faith_ is the spring, in the inworking power of the Holy Ghost. As in Heb. xi., from beginning to end, it is _faith_ that is celebrated. Enoch, and Moses, and David, and the prophets, and the martyrs of other days, may be presented there in their fruits and victories, but it is _faith_, and not the people of God, that the Spirit by the apostle is celebrating in that fine chapter.